Weekly Wireless Report
Week Ending:
February 5, 2016
This Week’s Stories
Inside This Issue:
This Week’s Stories
Super Bowl 50 Shines
Spotlight On Silicon Valley's
Technology Innovation
Alphabet Comes Before
Apple As World's Most
Valuable Company
Products & Services
Google Is Giving Its HighSpeed Fiber Internet Away
For Free To Public Housing
Residents
Fitbit's Newest Band, Alta,
Is Totally Aimed At Fashion
Super Bowl 50 Shines Spotlight On Silicon Valley's Technology
Innovation
February 3, 2016
While Super Bowl 50 ticket holders saunter through the techy confines of Levi's Stadium next Sunday,
other NFL enthusiasts up the road in San Francisco will pack a fan village to play interactive football
games where digital avatars and live video pop up before them on giant video screens.
And when the cheers erupt for the Denver Broncos and the Carolina Panthers, the spotlight won't just
be on the biggest game in the football season, but on the tech companies that pitched in during the
weeklong festivities.
"Every year, fans (coming) to the Super Bowl become more connected and more tech savvy, but this
year presents an amazing opportunity in terms of technology, given Levi's Stadium's state-of-the art
technology and the connectivity in and around the Silicon Valley," Michelle McKenna-Doyle, the NFL's
chief information officer, said via email.
The Santa Clara stadium features 40 gigabits per second of Internet bandwidth, massive video boards
and more cameras than other professional football venues, offering fans at least six different replay
angles per play and plenty of Wi-Fi to use mobile apps to get food delivered to their seats, snap
selfies and text their friends.
Emerging Technology
My Amazon Echo Just Got
An Incredible New Feature
And I Love It
Designers of Levi's Stadium said when construction on the $1.3 billion venue started in 2012, the San
Francisco 49ers co-chairman John York wanted a next-generation football stadium that wasn't only
environmentally friendly, but reflective of the area's culture of innovation.
Quake Early Warning
System Gets $3.6 Million
"Sitting there in the Valley and surrounded by where the birthplace of technology is, there was a very
high expectation of what would be done in the building," said Lanson Nichols, vice president at HNTB
and senior project manager for Levi's Stadium. "It's a platform that facilitates a lot of different things,
not just the events, but the ability to host the technology and drive that as another element of the
fan experience."
Mergers & Acquisitions
Cisco Just Bought This Hot
Startup For Over $1 Billion
LinkedIn Acquires
Recruiting
Startup Connectifier
Microsoft Confirms It Has
Acquired SwiftKey, Creators
Of The Predictive Mobile
Keyboard App
Industry Reports
Apple Ends 2015 With
42.9% Of U.S. Smartphone
Share, Samsung At 28.4%;
Blackberry OS Falls Under
1%
Smartwatch Growth Near
50 Percent Expected
Through 2017
The open space celebrates California's sunny weather, lower seating creates a more collegiate feel
and local materials, including reclaimed redwood from the Hangar One facility at Moffett Field in
Mountain View, fill the stadium.
"When people see a picture now of Levi's Stadium, they know it's in the San Francisco Bay Area.
We're really proud of the fact that Levi's is about the Bay Area and its culture," said Tim Cahill, senior
vice president and chief design officer at HNTB and chief design principal for Levi's Stadium
More than a million people are expected to descend on the Bay Area to attend Super Bowl events,
including a fan village called "Super Bowl City" that runs from Jan. 30 to Feb. 7, and features a 15foot-tall video wall and interactive games in a 40-foot-tall dome thanks to help from software
company SAP. The company also developed an app so thousands of volunteers could participate in
virtual training, navigate through events and communicate with others in real time.
VenueNext CEO John Paul said a separate app will launch for Super Bowl 50 that includes extra
features on top of what fans already get with the Levi's Stadium app, which the tech firm developed.
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The new app will allow people at the game to view a Super Bowl commercial once it airs on
television, a live camera so attendees can see celebrities who are at the stadium, and express pickup
for merchandise.
About 30 percent of fans at Levi's Stadium use the stadium app during 49ers games, allowing them to
watch video replays, order food, check a bathroom line, find better parking or explore the venue,
Paul said. During other sports games, he noted, mobile use has been higher, and while there are still
fans who stay away from using a smartphone, he expects that will become rarer in the future.
The tech firm has tested the Super Bowl app for the last three games at Levi's Stadium, and with the
massive amount of bandwidth at the stadium, VenueNext is confident it won't freeze on game day.
"Our system has never had any significant failures during big events, so we're keeping our fingers
crossed that I haven't jinxed us by saying that," he said.
Outside of fans attending a game in person because they want to see a team live, some also want to
brag about being there on social media. Facebook unveiled a new feature recently that allows people
to view live stats, comments from friends, news stories and more by searching for the game. Twitter
will also have special emojis for the Super Bowl and a separate tab for the game in the site's
"Moments" feature, which allows fans to follow tweets about live events, including sports, by clicking
on the lightning bolt icon.
"Especially the Super Bowl, I bet people want to let others know that they're there because they paid
so much to get there." Paul said.
mobile-tech-today.com
Alphabet Comes Before Apple As World's Most Valuable
Company
February 2, 2016
“Alphabet, Google's new
parent company, released a
fourth-quarter earnings
report that highlighted the
robust growth of the digital
ad market. Apple Inc.'s
iPhone, meanwhile, is
suffering its first downturn
since it debuted eight years
ago.”
Alphabet now comes before Apple atop the list of the world's most valuable companies.
The shift occurred in Monday's extended trading after Alphabet, Google's new parent company,
released a fourth-quarter earnings report that highlighted the robust growth of the digital ad market.
Apple Inc.'s iPhone, meanwhile, is suffering its first downturn since it debuted eight years ago.
Alphabet Inc. earned $4.9 billion on revenue of $21.3 billion in the fourth quarter. If not for employee
stock expenses and certain other items, Alphabet said it would have earned $8.67 per share. That
figure easily topped the average estimate of $8.10 per share among analysts surveyed by FactSet.
The report provided the most detailed breakdown yet on the profits pouring in from Google's
dominant search engine and ad network. (Google reorganized itself under Alphabet last October.)
Investors pushed up Alphabet stock $35.73, or 4.6 percent, to $806.50 in extended trading.
Based on that after-hours bump, Alphabet's market value stood at $555 billion while Apple's was at
$533 billion, based on the most recent regulatory filings showing the company's outstanding shares.
The rankings could quickly change again in regular trading Tuesday.
Apple's stock has been sliding amid concerns over slowing iPhone sales. Meanwhile, Alphabet's stock
has surged by 45 percent since the end of 2014 when it was still trading under Google's name.
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The fourth-quarter report marks the first time Alphabet has spelled out the costs of running stillexperimental businesses that are trying to do everything from eliminating human drivers to curing
cancer.
Until now, Google chose to hide the expense of running those peripheral operations in its financial
statement. The company's opaque accounting made it difficult to know just how much profit Google
reaped from its primary business — selling digital ads next to everything from search results to
YouTube videos.
In the fourth quarter, Google produced an operating profit of $6.8 billion on revenue of $17.1 billion,
after subtracting ad commissions. That translates into a whopping profit margin of 40 percent. Apple
registered an operating profit margin of 32 percent in its most recent quarter.
Meanwhile, Alphabet's other companies together produced an operating loss of $1.2 billion on
revenue of just $151 million. Alphabet labels that category "other bets." For the full year, Alphabet's
other companies lost $3.6 billion on revenue of $448 million.
The optimism surrounding Alphabet stems in part from hopes that the company is developing more
financial discipline as it discloses more earnings details. Google had become known for its freespending habits and reluctance to share information with analysts.
The change in sentiment coincided with Google's hiring of a new chief financial officer, Ruth Porat,
last May. Porat, a Wall Street veteran, has consistently signaled her intent to rein in spending.
Under the previous setup at Google, "things had always been a little muddy," said Edward Jones
analyst Josh Olson. "The hope now is that management will continue to show greater cost discipline."
Porat signaled her resolve again Monday in a conference call with analysts. "Our priority remains
revenue growth but that doesn't give us a pass on a rigorous approach to expense management," she
said.
Google is also counting on advertisers to gradually pay more for marketing messages on
smartphones. They still aren't paying as much for mobile ads as on personal computers because ads
on smaller smartphone screens strike many as less valuable. That's one reason Google's average ad
rates, measured as "cost per click," have been declining for more than four years.
In the latest quarter, Google's cost per click fell by 13 percent from the same time in 2014. But Porat
cited in increase in mobile search requests as one of biggest reasons that Google's revenue rose by 18
percent from the previous year. As people increasingly search for information and shop on their
phones, the company expects advertisers to ramp up their spending on smartphones, too.
wirelessweek.com
Products & Services
Google Is Giving Its High-Speed Fiber Internet Away For Free To
Public Housing Residents
February 3, 2016
Google has revealed that it’s giving away its high-speed Fiber Internet access for free to all residents
living in all public housing properties that have Google Fiber available. In partnership with the U.S.
Department of Housing and Urban Development, as well as a number of local partners, the news
follows the initial announcement made by Google last summer.
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“Google Fiber is still only
available in a select handful
of markets, including Kansas
City, Austin, and Provo, Utah.
But major expansion plans
are on the horizon, with the
likes of San Antonio,
Nashville, and Atlanta in the
mix. Major conurbations such
as Chicago and Los Angeles
are on the radar too.”
It’s worth noting that today’s news won’t open the floodgates to nationwide free Internet access —
Google Fiber is still only available in a select handful of markets, including Kansas City, Austin, and
Provo, Utah. But major expansion plans are on the horizon, with the likes of San Antonio, Nashville,
and Atlanta in the mix. Major conurbations such as Chicago and Los Angeles are on the radar too.
For now, the gratis Gigabit Internet program is kicking off at West Bluff in Kansas City, and Google
said that it has wired all 100 homes with Fiber, with residents able to sign up from today. The
company added that it’s working with local affordable housing providers across Kansas City to
connect up to nine properties, which it hopes will reach more than 1,300 families in the region.
Rolling out its high-speed Internet across the U.S. isn’t cheap; in Alphabet’s earnings earlier this week,
the company’s “Other Bets,” of which Fiber is a part, made a $3.6 billion operating loss in 2015. But
this is a long-term bet from the company — investing in and controlling the infrastructure required to
deliver its myriad of online services is a major part of its plans.
venturebeat.com
Fitbit's Newest Band, Alta, Is Totally Aimed At Fashion
February 2, 2016
2016 is less than five weeks old, and Fitbit already revealed two new products.
The Fitbit Blaze, a $200 smartwatch focused on fitness tracking and notifications, was the company's
first product announcement of the year. Now it's being joined by the Fitbit Alta, a $130 fitness band
that's aiming for looks as much as function.
For Fitbit, it's yet another attempt to broaden its product line and maintain its status as the top brand
in the wearable space, even as rumors of an updated Apple Watch continue to swirl.
The Alta is low-key, which I like. Consider it a revamped cousin of the Fitbit Flex, but with a screen. It
can also be a fashion statement as the straps are interchangeable, allowing you to personalize your
look with a variety of accessory bands. There are multiple colors to choose from, a leather option and
even a metal one. This may be the first Fitbit you actually want to wear when going out at night.
While it doesn't have a heart-rate monitor like on the Charge HR, the Alta does feature a large OLED
screen that's capable of showing select notifications from your smartphone. You can view incoming
calls, text messages and calendar alerts.
Rather than a basic "stand" or "move" reminder, the Alta encourages you to meet a mini-step goal of
250 steps each hour. If the goal hasn't been reached 10 minutes prior to the top of the hour, the
band will remind you with a gently vibration. Fitbit says this is equal to about 2 to 3 minutes of
walking, and could help keep your metabolism up and reduce the negative impacts of sitting.
The Alta is also the latest tracker from Fitbit to offer automatic exercise recognition. In addition to
both the Fitbit Charge HR and Surge, the band can recognize when you are doing an activity and will
automatically record it in the Fitbit app. Activities that can be detected by SmartTrack include
elliptical training, outdoor biking, running, walking and general aerobic workouts.
Fitbit invited journalists to a hotel in New York's swanky SoHo neighborhood to try the Alta in a realworld workout environment. During my 25 minute aerobic workout, the Alta correctly and
automatically recognized my exercise time (colleague Scott Stein sweated out a test run alongside me
and got similar results). It credited estimated calories, too.
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The band feels good to wear. It's both flexible and slim. There are also no buttons, which gives the
Alta a clean look. The display will turn on when you lift your wrist, as well as if you tap the screen or
band, allowing you to browse through the different activity screens.
Detailed information on workouts and activity progress can be found in the Fitbit app (Android, iOS,
Windows Phone). Here you can also compete with friends on daily challenges, which is the real
advantage of wearing a Fitbit. Fitness tracking is more fun (and motivating) with friends, and you
likely know another person who owns a Fitbit.
Battery life is said to last up five days on a single charge. While that would be epic for a smartwatch,
in the world of dedicated fitness trackers, it's a bit short -- it's the same as the Fitbit Charge HR, and
competitors like the Garmin Vivosmart HR last longer.
The Fitbit Alta will ultimately replace the Fitbit Charge (the one without heart rate) when it arrives in
the US in March, with global availability set for April. The band is available now for preorder for $130.
International pricing wasn't announced, but, as mentioned above, the US price converts to about £90.
Additional silicone bands will be available in black, blue, teal and plum for $30. Leather bands in
graphite and blush pink are said to be coming soon and will retail for $60, while a stainless steel silver
bangle will arrive this summer for $100. The company also plans to release a gold tracker and bangle
later this year.
The Fitbit Alta feels good and looks good. Can it be good enough to be a go-to fitness band for
everyone? Our time with the band was brief (and the software was an early version), but we'll have a
full review soon.
cnet.com
Emerging Technology
My Amazon Echo Just Got An Incredible New Feature And I
Love It
February 4, 2016
Two of my favorite tech products, which I’ve only discovered this past year, are Amazon Echo and
Spotify Premium.
And now, they work together.
On Thursday, Amazon and Spotify announced Spotify Premium now works with the company’s
incredible Echo speaker.
Amazon Echo isn’t just a speaker; it’s a virtual assistant housed in a sleek black cylinder that sits in
your home. It’s always on and always listening, and it can hear you from anywhere in your home
thanks to its stellar audio system with seven different microphones and a 360º omni-directional grille
for speaking.
It’s like Siri, but in my experience, it’s much better at understanding my commands and much more
versatile when it comes to tasks. It can add items to shopping lists and to-do lists, read audiobooks,
tell me the news or the weather, find good restaurants nearby, and so much more.
I use Echo all the time. I keep it in my kitchen, and I like to play music when I’m cooking or doing
dishes.
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When you ask Amazon Echo — which responds to “Amazon” or “Alexa” — to play music, it will play
songs, artists and stations from its vast Amazon Prime Music library. It has a great collection of music,
from new hits to old favorites, but as long as I’ve owned this device, I’ve wanted it to work with my
favorite music service: Spotify.
If you’re going to spend $10 on a music service, you should spend it on Spotify. It’s the best music
service out there right now. Vast library aside, its key features relate to curation, or how it presents
all this music. You’ll find playlists based on the time of day — music to help you work, or enjoy during
your commute home — and you’ll find playlists based on genres, moods, and artists you already like.
Spotify does all the work for you, giving you these dynamic personalized playlists that change every
moment of every day and week. Spotify truly cares about music, and it shows.
I’ve become a huge fan of Spotify since I tried it last year, so I was excited to learn that it would finally
work with Echo starting Thursday.
This morning, I got to try the integration for the first time.
Linking my accounts was super easy to set up. You can control most aspects of the Echo via Amazon’s
Alexa smartphone app, so adding Spotify simply entailed opening the app and adding my Spotify
username and password.
It worked immediately. I asked Echo to “play Spotify” and it played the last thing I was listening to on
Spotify, picking up right where I left off.
You can also ask Echo to play artists — and even moods and genres — from Spotify’s vast library.
I asked Echo to “play Chill music on Spotify” and it played Spotify’s top chill playlist, “Your favorite
coffee house.”
I asked Echo to “play Kanye West on Spotify” and it started playing the top track on his artist page,
“FourFiveSeconds.”
The only thing Echo can’t do just yet is play Spotify stations — that’s when you follow an artist, song,
playlist, or album on Spotify, it gives you similar music you might like. Alexa even says “Spotify
stations not yet supported” when you ask.
Spotify Stations aside, the rest of the Amazon Echo integration works exceedingly well. I was
surprised that Echo would play not only artists and albums from Spotify, but also its dynamic playlists
based around genres, moods, and the time of day. These playlists, to me, are the best part of Spotify,
and I’m so glad they’ll now play through the most-used speaker in my house.
Spotify and Amazon Echo are two great individual products, so I’m pleased to report that this
integration lives up to the high standards of both services. I look forward to using this all the time.
businessinsider.com
Quake Early Warning System Gets $3.6 Million
February 4, 2016
With officials still struggling to find money to create an earthquake early warning system for the West
Coast, a private foundation, Intel Relevant Products/Services Corp. and an arm of Amazon.com Inc.
said they will pitch in money or other support, officials said at a White House summit Tuesday.
But there's still not enough funding to build out the $38-million system that could provide seconds or
minutes of warning before the worst shaking from an earthquake arrives. Despite an infusion of $8
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million from Congress and President Obama in the current budget, there is still a long way to go
before full funding can be provided to get the system operational in as little as two years.
"While this federal investment is hugely important, we also need to look at state and private sources
of funding to build out the system of sensors," said Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank). "The cost of the
system pales in comparison to the fact that we can save lives with the system."
In an interview, Schiff pointedly needled the state of California for declining to back the system with
money. Across the West Coast, the system has about 650 stations contributing to the early warning
system, but there needs to be hundreds more.
"We really need the state of California to embrace this financially," Schiff said. "This is not something
that the federal government is in a position to build out or operate on its own," he said.
H.D. Palmer, deputy director for Gov. Jerry Brown's Department of Finance, said Tuesday that the
state's policy is to not use money from the general fund for the early warning system. The Governor's
Office of Emergency Services is continuing to search for other sources of funding.
The U.S. Geological Survey, which has been working on an initial prototype for years, this week
unveiled a more robust, operational version that is far faster and more reliable.
The more stable system will allow the USGS and other entities to test other ways the data Relevant
Products/Services can be used. One idea already in place is the automatic slowing of San Francisco
Bay Area Rapid Transit trains before seismic shaking arrives.
Even just one packed 10-car train, with about 150 people per car, derailing at high speed from
shaking would be a disaster -- during rush hour, as many as 40 BART trains out of 64 on the system
are traveling as fast as 70 mph, a BART official said.
The USGS can now explore approving ideas such as automatically opening fire station garage doors
before they get jammed from the shaking, and triggering a backup generator and notifying
emergency personnel at the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
More advanced solutions are already in place in Japan, which for years has had a robust warning
system that sends alerts through TVs, computers and cellphones. When the magnitude-9 earthquake
hit east of Japan in 2011, many people in Tokyo, 200 miles away from the epicenter, had 30 seconds
of warning that the shaking was coming.
In Japan, one factory has figured out a way to secure noxious chemicals between the time of a quake
warning and the actual shaking.
Although there are enough sensors to provide good warning for Los Angeles and San Francisco, there
are gaps in the network in sparsely populated areas of California, as well as in Oregon and
Washington. "The station density is not sufficient to support timely alerts," said Doug Given, USGS
earthquake early warning coordinator.
For instance, a limited number of stations in Cape Mendocino could provide less warning if an
earthquake on the massive San Andreas Fault began barreling south toward the Bay Area, Given said.
On Tuesday, backers of the system welcomed announcements of private foundation grant money and
statements of support from tech companies at the summit hosted by the White House's Office of
Science and Technology Policy.
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The Palo Alto-based Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation said it would contribute $3.6 million in new
money to UC Berkeley, Caltech and the University of Washington. The foundation has now donated
about $10 million to the effort since 2011.
The researchers will explore using sensors common in smartphones to detect earthquakes for the
warning system, develop a computerized decision-making process to issue fast, reliable alerts, and
study how to install sensors on the Pacific Ocean floor to provide faster warnings for earthquakes
from the Cascadia subduction zone.
The subduction zone, west of California's North Coast, Oregon and Washington state, is capable of
producing a magnitude-9 earthquake and tsunami that could wash away coastal towns, destroy U.S.
Highway 101, and obliterate 100 bridges and kill as many as 10,000 people.
Amazon Catalyst, an arm of Seattle-based Amazon.com Inc., said it is funding the University of
Washington to create MegaShake, a new system that will combine GPS and seismic data to accurately
identify incoming earthquakes above magnitude 7. The amount of the grant was not disclosed. A
utility in Washington, Puget Sound Energy, announced a $100,000 grant to buy eight seismic sensors.
Intel, based in Santa Clara, Calif. and the largest private-sector employer in Oregon, said it will lead an
effort to encourage businesses to play a role in building and maintaining the early warning system,
known as ShakeAlert. Early notice could allow workers to drop, cover and hold, halt elevators, and
stop sensitive manufacturing processes before shaking arrives, potentially saving millions of dollars in
downtime.
U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell said it is important that the warning system eventually
expands beyond California, Oregon and Washington to other states across the country. States such as
Alaska and Nevada are logical next steps, she said, but other states would also benefit.
The earthquake hazard is real in other areas of the country. Magnitude 7 earthquakes shook up
Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri and Arkansas in 1811 and 1812. About 60 people died in South
Carolina in 1886 when a magnitude-7.3 earthquake hit Charleston. And an earthquake in the Boston
area in 1755 brought down chimneys and roofs, and was felt as far away as Maryland and Nova
Scotia.
And in 2011, a 5.8 earthquake that struck Virginia and damaged the Washington Monument caught
people by surprise because they didn't expect an earthquake in the region.
"It could happen anywhere," Jewell said. "People were shocked. And it certainly was scary for the
people in the Washington Monument," where the elevator failed and mortar tumbled on to the
ground below; the repair took three years to complete.
Unlike the federal government, state governments in California, Oregon and Washington have not
allocated money for the system as part of their regular budgets.
"Japan is ahead of us, China is ahead of us, Turkey is ahead of us, and Mexico is ahead of us. There is
no reason we can't do this," Jewell said.
Schiff welcomed the White House's interest in the early warning system, saying: "It shows a whole
new level of engagement by the White House in this initiative."
John Vidale, director of the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network, said it's good that the warning system
has half of its $16 million annual operating cost from the federal budget, but more funding is needed
to make the system reliable for public use.
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"We have it operating now, basically, but we can see that it's slow and it's inaccurate, and it
sometimes gives out false alarms. It's really a matter of getting the right equipment in place and
testing it all before we can let it loose on the public," Vidale said.
Also Tuesday, President Obama issued an executive order calling for new federal buildings to be
constructed to the most current earthquake-resistant design. Officials were also instructed to ensure
that new leases of federal buildings were built to the latest seismic codes.
"Stronger seismic standards for federal buildings will help protect public safety," Sen. Dianne
Feinstein (D-Calif.), who has called for improving seismic safety of federal buildings, said in a
statement. "It's encouraging that the administration will ensure that federal facilities are taking
simple, common sense steps to improve preparedness."
mobile-tech-today.com
Mergers and Acquisitions
Cisco Just Bought This Hot Startup For Over $1 Billion
February 4, 2015
The money is in the Internet of things.
Cisco’s made its first acquisition in 2016, and it was a big one.
The networking titan said on Wednesday that it had bought a Silicon Valley startup called Jasper
Technologies for $1.4 billion. Jasper specializes in software that helps manage wireless connections
for Internet-connected equipment.
It counts a number of big companies as customers, including Nissan, Coca-Cola, and Starbucks. CocaCola, for example, uses Jasper’s software to connect its vending machines online so that the company
knows when the machines need to be refilled.
The company is seen as a big player in the Internet of things, the burgeoning sector of connected
gear. Jasper was also a Fortune unicorn, tech jargon for a startup worth $1 billion or more.
In 2014, the Wall Street Journal reported that the company was planning a possible initial public
offering. But it chose to sell instead, at around the price of its latest private valuation.
Cisco has made it clear that it views the Internet of things as an area it wants to dominate as the
technology progresses. In a conference call about the announcement, Rowan Trollope, who leads the
Cisco group that includes the Internet of things, explained that more of the company’s customers are
looking to connect to devices that, until recently, were impossible to connect, like pacemakers and
automobiles.
The problem is that connecting these devices can be challenging without the appropriate technology,
which is what Jasper focuses on, he said.
“Companies are sprinting toward this future but they are hobbling by the challenges,” Trollope said.
Cisco’s plan is to use Jasper’s technology as the glue that hooks together a company’s multiple
connected devices, and from there provide network management and data analytics services on top
of it, Trollope explained. Jasper also has a number of mobile service provider customers, including
AT&T and Telefónica.
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Cisco has been trying to accommodate the technological needs of telecommunication companies like
AT&T that are seeing an explosion of data on their wireless networks due partly to people watching
video on their phones. That’s why it signed a blockbuster partnership with telecommunication gear
maker Ericsson in November to provide the gear and services that Cisco lacked for managing mobile
networks.
By buying Jasper, Trollope said that Cisco now has more services to accommodate those mobile
service providers. When asked by an analyst whether some of Ericsson’s technology competes with
Jasper’s technology, Trollope dismissed the notion by saying, “This is a really big market, and no one
company will solve across every single use case and service provider.”
He said that the deal with Jasper was “well received by the executive leadership” of Ericsson.
As part of the acquisition, Cisco will add 385 employees.
fortune.com
LinkedIn Acquires Recruiting Startup Connectifier
February 4, 2016
LinkedIn today announced in its earnings statement that it has acquired Connectifier, a startup with
technology for helping recruiters find talent.
Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.
“The acquisition of Connectifier, announced this afternoon, will further strengthen our core products
and accelerate our product roadmap, leveraging powerful machine learning-based searching and
matching technology to help recruiters and hiring managers find the perfect talent fit,” LinkedIn said
in the earnings statement.
Connectifier built search technology that draws on artificial intelligence, and the search index
contains profiles for more than 400 million job candidates. Founders Ben McCann and John Jersin
previously worked at Google.
Last year Connectifier raised $6 million in funding. Investors include Goldcrest Investments, K5
Ventures, Okapi Venture Capital, True Ventures, and Andrew Chen. Founded in 2012 and based in
Costa Mesa, California, the startup has profiles for 47 people on its website.
The entire team is not joining LinkedIn, according to a blog post today from Jersin.
“While some of the team will be freely pursuing their next adventure, our R&D team will be
relocating to the San Francisco Bay Area to play a large role in the future of the LinkedIn Talent
Solutions product line,” Jersin wrote.
Connectifier’s customers include Dropbox, eBay, Facebook, Netflix, PayPal, Salesforce, Twitter, and
VMware.
The Connectifier product, which has free and premium tiers, will remain available in the near future.
“Over the coming weeks, we will continue to support Connectifier’s existing products while we focus
on making this integration successful — this involves determining how we can best integrate
Connectifier to create the most value for our members, customers, and business,” Jersin wrote.
Other recent LinkedIn acquisitions include Fliptop and Lynda.com.
venturebeat.com
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Microsoft Confirms It Has Acquired SwiftKey, Creators Of The
Predictive Mobile Keyboard App
February 4, 2015
“To speed up typing, it learns
your writing style over time
and even predicts the next
word before you’ve started
typing it — this is partly
based on historical patterns,
but it also scans texts from
other sources to “learn”
popular sequences in which
words are normally placed.
SwiftKey finally launched for
iOS in late 2014 after Apple
opened up to third-party,
system-wide keyboards.”
After a day of rumors, Microsoft has now confirmed that it has acquired SwiftKey, the London-based
company behind the popular predictive keyboard app of the same name.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but according to a Financial Times report yesterday, Microsoft
was looking to pay in the region of $250 million for the startup.
Founded in 2008, SwiftKey developed a solid reputation on Android as a replacement keyboard app
for phones and tablets. To speed up typing, it learns your writing style over time and even predicts
the next word before you’ve started typing it — this is partly based on historical patterns, but it also
scans texts from other sources to “learn” popular sequences in which words are normally placed.
SwiftKey finally launched for iOS in late 2014 after Apple opened up to third-party, system-wide
keyboards.
Though SwiftKey is better known for its consumer keyboard app on Google Play and the App Store,
the company also offers a software development kit (SDK) for third parties to integrate its languagelearning technology into their own services. Indeed, SwiftKey carries out a lot of research internally,
involving artificial intelligence, machine learning, and natural-language processing (NLP), and it’s this
technology that Microsoft is acquiring — not a consumer app that makes relatively small amounts of
money through in-app purchases.
SwiftKey’s backend has been employed in a number of interesting use-cases. Back in 2014, the
company revealed it had been working with esteemed physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking,
who suffers from a debilitating motor neuron disease (MND) that has left him almost entirely
paralyzed, to help him communicate twice as quickly as with previously available methods. SwiftKey
had been working behind the scenes for two years with Hawking to develop technology specifically
for him.
And back in October, SwiftKey revealed it was working on a new experimental app that uses artificial
neural networks (ANNs) to predict and correct language. ANNs are part of the broader field of
machine learning and artificial intelligence. These are more closely aligned with the workings of the
human brain, and, from SwiftKey’s perspective, should enable better predictions.
It’s also worth noting here that SwiftKey syncs what it learns from each user in the cloud, so the more
platforms you use SwiftKey on, the smarter it gets. This cloud component was central to Microsoft’s
interest in buying the company. Indeed, Microsoft has been pushing its cloud credentials, with CEO
Satya Nadella announcing last June that creating “the intelligent cloud platform” is one of the
company’s three key investment areas — and acquisitions have proven pivotal in realizing this shift in
direction.
“In this cloud-first, mobile-first world, SwiftKey’s technology aligns with our vision for more personal
computing experiences that anticipate our needs versus responding to our commands, and directly
supports our ambition to reinvent productivity by leveraging the intelligent cloud,” explained Harry
Shum, executive vice president of technology and research at Microsoft. “SwiftKey estimates that its
users have saved nearly 10 trillion keystrokes, across 100 languages, saving more than 100,000 years
in combined typing time. Those are impressive results for an app that launched initially on Android in
2010 and arrived on iOS less than two years ago.”
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SwiftKey, as it stands, will be going nowhere. The app will continue to be developed for Android and
iOS, but the underlying technology will begin to rear its head across Microsoft’s range of products.
This will include Microsoft’s Word Flow keyboard, which recently appeared on iOS to much acclaim.
So while the SwiftKey acquisition is, to some degree, about “keyboard apps,” Microsoft wouldn’t
have paid the reported $250 million if there wasn’t more to it. And with years of AI and machinelearning research in SwiftKey’s arsenal, it was only a matter of time before one of the big tech titans
came calling. Prior to today’s news, my bet would have been Google, but Microsoft is certainly
nothing to sneeze at.
venturebeat.com
Industry Reports
Apple Ends 2015 With 42.9% Of U.S. Smartphone Share,
Samsung At 28.4%; Blackberry OS Falls Under 1%
February 4, 2016
Apple’s dominance as the top smartphone maker in the U.S. continued throughout last year (it’s still
second worldwide), growing slightly from 41.6 percent in December 2014 to 42.9 percent of the pie
at the end of 2015. Samsung meanwhile slipped a bit, from 29.7 percent in December 2014 to 28.4
percent in December 2015. Rounding out the top five were LG (up), Motorola (flat), and HTC (down).
In the mobile OS wars, Google’s Android kept the U.S. crown with 53.3 percent, moving up 0.2
percentage points year over year, while Apple held second with iOS, also moving up the same 1.3
percentage points as a smartphone maker. Microsoft’s Windows Phone dropped 0.5 points to 2.9
percent while BlackBerry OS halved its share from 1.8 percent to 0.9 percent.
The latest data comes from comScore, which estimates that 197.4 million Americans owned
smartphones (79.3 percent mobile market penetration) during Q4 2015. Here is how the top five
smartphone makers fared last quarter:
Top Smartphone OEMs –
3 Month Avg. Ending Dec. 2015 vs. 3 Month Avg. Ending Sep. 2015
Total U.S. Smartphone Subscribers Age 13+
Share (%) of Smartphone Subscribers
Sep-15
Dec-15
Point Change
Total Smartphone Subscribers
100.0%
100.0%
N/A
Apple
43.6%
24.9%
-0.7
Samsung
27.6%
28.4%
0.8
LG
9.4%
9.9%
0.5
Motorola
4.8%
5.3%
0.5
HTC
3.3%
3.3%
0.1
Over the last three months of the year, Apple lost share while Samsung capitalized. As we already
mentioned, though, Apple actually fared better when looking across the whole year. Everyone else in
the U.S. market is still very far behind, though LG almost managed to hit double digits. The bigger
changes will likely come when January’s figures arrive, as that’s when the impact of holiday sales will
become apparent.
On the software side, Google ended 2015 very strongly. In December, Android was the undisputed
winner once again, while Apple’s iOS held onto second without issue:
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Top Smartphone Platforms –
3 Month Avg. Ending Dec. 2015 vs. 3 Month Avg. Ending Sep. 2015
Total U.S. Smartphone Subscribers Age 13+
Share (%) of Smartphone Subscribers
Sep-15
Dec-15
Point Change
Total Smartphone Subscribers
100.0%
100.0%
N/A
Android
52.3%
53.3%
1.0
Apple
43.6%
42.9%
-0.7
Microsoft
2.9%
2.9%
0.1
Blackberry
1.2%
0.9%
-0.3
Microsoft’s Windows Phone failed to gain traction and BlackBerry managed to hit a new low.
BlackBerry OS fell below 1 percent, a number it hasn’t seen in U.S. for than a decade. Given its
Android ambitions, however, this is hardly surprising.
At the end of 2014, the Android-iOS duopoly in the U.S. had hit 94.7 percent market share. At the end
of 2015, that figure rose to 96.2 percent. We expected that something would give in 2015, but
Windows 10 Mobile was the only real hope for a challenge, and it has been plagued with delay after
delay, among other issues. Right now at least, it doesn’t look like anything in 2016 will be able to
break Apple’s and Google’s mobile stranglehold.
venturebeat.com
Smartwatch Growth Near 50 Percent Expected Through 2017
February 4, 2016
“Smartwatches have the
greatest revenue potential
among all wearables through
2019, reaching $17.5
billion…Though the sales of
smartwatches are the one of
the strongest types of
wearables, their adoption
will remain much below sales
of smartphones.”
Sales of smartwatches like the Apple Watch are expected to grow nearly 50 percent from 2015 to
2017, according to a new forecast from Gartner.
The total number of smartwatch units sold is expected to increase from 30.3 million in 2015 to 50.4
million in 2016 before jumping further to 66.7 million in 2017, according to the forecast.
Nearly $11.5 billion of the total $28.7 billion in sales from wearables in 2016 is expected to come
from smartwatches, Gartner predicted.
Despite this growth, however, Gartner said it expects smartwatch sales to remain significantly below
those of smartphones.
“Smartwatches have the greatest revenue potential among all wearables through 2019, reaching
$17.5 billion," said Gartner research director Angela McIntyre. "Though the sales of smartwatches are
the one of the strongest types of wearables, their adoption will remain much below sales of
smartphones. For example, in 2016 more than 374 million smartphones will sell in mature market
countries and in large urban areas of emerging market countries, for example, in Hong Kong and
Singapore."
Sales of wearable devices overall are also expected to grow over the next year by 18.4 percent to
274.6 million, the forecast said.
Another market that is forecast to see massive growth over the next two years is head-mounted
displays, sales of which Gartner said it expects will jump from around 140,000 in 2015 to 6.3 million in
2017.
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"New virtual reality HMDs for consumers, such as the HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, Sony PlayStation VR, and
Microsoft HoloLens are expected to be available along with video games and entertainment content
as well as business applications critical for their success," Gartner research director Brian Blau said.
Blau said film producers and sports leagues will likely take advantage of the growth of head-mounted
displays with augmented interactive attractions, movies and events that “make the content more
personal and meaningful."
Nearly 26 percent of head-mounted displays are expected to be designed for business use in 2018,
Gartner said.
wirelessweek.com
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