Posted: 12/14/10 by Mobile Future Team
We’ve already discussed the role mobile commerce played in early holiday shopping. Today, eBay released groundbreaking numbers that made yesterday the biggest mobile shopping day ever. eBay’s mobile gross merchandise value, the total sales dollar value for merchandise sold through eBay, rose to $5 million in the US and $13 million globally (that’s a 127% and 165% increase respectively) according to the article.
Posted: 12/07/10 by Mobile Future Team
Mobile apps handle just about everything these days: entertainment, scheduling, home monitoring, cloud computing. But until today, few would suggest that mobile apps are a matter of life and death.
Not anymore. Last week, Eric Cooper, a basketball coach at La Verne Lutheran High School in California, downloaded a $1.99 mobile app that offers CPR instruction.
His timing could not have been better. This week, according to the Los Angeles Times, his star center-- who has a heart condition that causes irregular pumping of the blood-- collapsed on the court. Using CPR tips from the app, Coach Cooper was able to revive the player and keep his heart beating until paramedics arrived.
We’ve written previously about how mobile apps are revolutionizing our lives, especially in healthcare. Mobile technology is making healthcare more accessible and affordable. And whether the technology is a smartphone app or a more complex monitoring system for a home-bound senior, mobile’s potential to save lives is amazing.
Posted: 11/29/10 by Mobile Future Team
It happens every year: We emerge from our turkey-induced stupor and stumble immediately into our holiday social calendars, the sights and sounds of the season making it too difficult to say no to one more piece of peppermint bark or that final glass of eggnog. When it comes to our palettes, it really is the most wonderful time of the year.
But if your impeding festivities have you fearing the holiday bulge, check out Tech Talk from the NY Times, which has conveniently profiled a slew of innovative tech gadgets that will have you looking forward to exercising between fetes and really allow you to enjoy your season's eatings.
Posted: 11/10/10 by Mobile Future Team
This Veteran’s Day, Mobile Future joins the rest of the country in saluting the men and women throughout history who have fought to protect America’s freedoms. At home and abroad, these dedicated service members continue to demonstrate the highest levels of commitment to their fellow citizens and the global community, and as Americans we could not be more thankful for their sacrifices.
With that, we’re proud to report that mobile innovation has in turn contributed to a greater quality of life among active and retired service members, from technologies that keep vet’s healthy to applications that connect service members to loved ones to wireless initiatives aimed at harnessing the power of mobile to keep our troops safe around the world.
mHealth
Advances in mHealth technologies provide immediate benefits to veterans no matter their physical location. To date, the Department of Veterans Affairs operates the largest telehealth program in the world, with a report out in this month’s Medical Care citing the organization’s widespread usage of information technology as one reason it continues to out-perform the private sector in patient care processes. But with an estimated 3 million veterans living in rural areas, in-house services are not always an option for necessary care. Telehealth and mHealth technologies allow health care professionals to download important data—like vital signs and physiological functions---onto PDAs and smartphones, allowing for remote monitoring of illness and chronic disease.
In addition, specific apps-- like the T2 Mood Tracker, developed by the National Center for Telehealth and Technology, the Hope for One PTSD app, and DOD’s iBreathe set to debut in January 2011-- let service members and veterans use their smartphones to track their emotional health after deployments, monitor trends and behavioral shifts elicited from therapy, medication, and environmental changes, and provide valuable resources for families of those suffering from PTSD.
Connectivity
Mobile technology is especially critical to help deployed service members stay in touch with home no matter where the call of duty takes them. Great applications like Jackson Fish Market’s A Story Before Bed let service members record videos of themselves reading stories that can be accessed anytime through an iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch application.
Quality of Life
Mobile applications continue to improve quality of life for veterans and active duty service members around the globe. In July, army.mil profiled the best iPhone apps for a military lifestyle, including US Army News and Information, Skype, BrainWave, USAA banking, and much more. And in August, AmVets released the first app of its kind, aimed at bringing its mission to assist veterans and promote veterans issues into the wireless space.
In addition, AnMarc Travel Technology’s MilitaryToGo application allows service members to use their smartphones to chat live with representatives to make discounted travel reservations and in-flight bookings. And successful competitions like Apps 4 the Army demonstrate developers’ dedication to harnessing the power of mobile to connect our troops around the world.
Philanthropic Efforts
Players across the wireless ecosystem remain committed to raising awareness surrounding veteran’s issues and finding ways to better serve those who have served our country. Initiatives like Cell Phones for Soldiers allow phone users to donate devices they no longer use and turn them into minutes for troops stationed overseas.
We are extremely proud and grateful for our veterans and active duty troops. Please join us in thanking them for their service not just today, but all year long.
Posted: 10/26/10 by Mobile Future Team
Consumers’ appetites for the latest, most cutting-edge smartphone are insatiable. A new report from Strategy Analytics finds 77.1 million smartphones were shipped in the third quarter of this year, a 78% increase from last years quarter, making it abundantly clear that consumer demand continues to drive the innovative minds in Silicon Valley and around the world to produce the most cutting-edge technologies we’ve ever seen – and consumers can’t get enough! The result of this demand? Service providers are left to duel for consumers based on who can provide the most affordable plans and packages.
For more, click here.
Posted: 10/21/10 by Mobile Future Team
When it comes to the mobile world’s contributions to energy efficiency, we’ve talked before about important initiatives like device recycling and the benefits of telecommuting. But these are just two of the ways phone companies and service providers are working to reduce energy usage. Yesterday, the New York Times profiled “10 Ways Phone Companies are Going Green,” highlighting several laudable efforts popping up across the wireless ecosystem. Take a look!
Posted: 09/29/10 by Mobile Future Team
Whoever first proclaimed that competition breeds excellence probably didn’t have a smartphone in their hand. Yet, in the ultra-competitive, and ever-expanding, smartphone market, we are definitely benefiting from consumer-driven demand for excellence.
Demand is at an all-time high in the mobile device industry, with 65.2 million smartphones sold in the second quarter of this year. Analysts agree that fierce competition between smartphone providers is putting downward pressure on vendors’ pricing. With so many smartphones now available at affordable price points, consumers are faced with the exciting task of choosing which smartphone and provider will deliver the most bang for their buck!
Staying true to their name, Best Buy has a new promotion that is sure to attract the attention of economically-savvy consumers on the prowl for the latest phone. The ‘Free Phone Fridays’ promotion offers four different phones for free every Friday in October- and at least one smartphone will be included in each week’s promotion. Best Buy will offer one phone from each of the four major carriers, and new two-year plans are required in order to get the phones free of charge.
With a deal this good, Friday’s just got a whole lot better!
Posted: 09/27/10 by Mobile Future Team
The Wall Street Journal released its Technology Innovation Awards today, and the ground-breaking advancements featured here will surely improve the quality of life for many people around the globe.
Wireless innovations received several important mentions, from software called Connect that enables health care providers to exchange health information electronically, to Vidyo Inc’s high-resolution videoconferencing system that works on both laptops and smartphones and travels over the Internet or 3G and 4G cellular networks. (A complete list of winners in the wireless category can be found here).
As Scott D. Anthony, managing director of Innosight Ventures and one of the judges of the awards said, “A number of the applicants have the potential to literally change the world.”
Posted: 09/21/10 by Mobile Future Team
Long gone are hours spent retracing steps and digging through cushions, trying to answer the one question we find ourselves asking far too frequently, “Where is my phone?!”
Thanks to Verizon Wireless’ new mobile application Mobile Recovery-- which works much like Apple’s MobileMe: Find My iPhone service-- the search for your mobile device is over!
Mobile Recovery employs several useful tools to locate, retrieve, and protect a lost phone. For example, the “Sound Alarm” feature triggers an alarm to sound, even if the phone is on silent or vibrate mode. And if we were so forgetful as to leave our phone at a restaurant or in a cab, the “Locate Phone” feature uses GPS to find the address of the phone’s location and provides turn-by-turn directions to retrieve it. You can also remotely lock and erase contacts to secure your privacy.
In addition, MobileMe for iPhone recently has been updated to be accessible via mobile Safari on iPhone and iPod touch. So the next time you have another “uh-oh” moment and can’t find your phone, simply grab your iPod touch or a friend’s BlackBerry and rest assured that your phone is just a click away!
Posted: 09/20/10 by Mobile Future Team
You can already use wireless to start your car, roll down the windows, turn on the air conditioner and find directions. According to a new report, now the real fun is about to start.
The consulting firm iSuppli just came out with a report showing the likely way that wireless apps will revolutionize car entertainment. Start with the basics: Bluetooth is already available more than 90 percent of U.S. model year 2010 vehicles. Now imagine that a car’s operating system (or at least its entertainment system) use the same software as a mobile phone.
The result: There’s a lot less need for expensive in-car electronics. Also, it becomes easy for passengers in the back seat to enjoy movies or gaming on the headrest screen, as data wirelessly connects from their phone. (The downside: You’ll have one less excuse for not doing office work on a long car ride.)
For more information about how wireless is likely to revolutionize your riding experience, click here.
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Tags: Consumer Awareness, Consumer Benefits, Economy, Mobile Applications, m-commerce, Mobile Phone