Apple now deals with 323 carriers world-wide

Apple now deals with 323 carriers world-wide: According to a report from Wells Fargo, the number of carriers that Apple deals with has risen to 323. The banking firm's analyst, Maynard Um, surely ran out of fingers and toes when he counted the number of carriers partnering with Apple. This figure is up since the middle of April, when the tally was 316. It is also a 15.4% gain since October, when Apple had 280 carrier partners.



Um says that the increase in the number of carriers dealing with Apple, comes after two fairly stable years during 2011 and 2012. As Apple increases the number of carriers it deals with, the quantity of iPhone ...

IDC lowers tablet shipment forecast, expects a 5.5-inch iPhone could cannibalize iPad sales

IDC lowers tablet shipment forecast, expects a 5.5-inch iPhone could cannibalize iPad sales:

Yet another lowered forecast for tablet shipments this year comes today from IDC following a similar move from Morgan Stanley earlier this month. IDC announced today that it’s lowering its tablet shipment 245.4 million units down from a total 260.9 million units, which is around 12.1% year-over-year growth for the category vs the 51.8% growth last year. We’ve seen how much growth potential there is for tablets vs PCs and smartphones, but IDC’s report notes that tablets might see increased competition from the phablet category this year. The report classifies tablets as smartphones with 5.5-inch to 7-inches and IDC thinks Apple’s new larger iPhone could eat into some of its iPad sales:

“Two major issues are causing the tablet market to slow down. First, consumers are keeping their tablets, especially higher-cost models from major vendors, far longer than originally anticipated. And when they do buy a new one they are often passing their existing tablet off to another member of the family,” said Tom Mainelli, Program Vice President, Devices & Displays at IDC. “Second, the rise of phablets – smartphones with 5.5-inch and larger screens – are causing many people to second-guess tablet purchases as the larger screens on these phones are often adequate for tasks once reserved for tablets.”

IDC notes that the share of smartphone shipments captured by so called phablets doubled from 4.3% in Q1 of 2013 to 10.5% in Q1 of this year. representing 30.1 million units shipped. “As large phones clearly impact near-term tablet growth, IDC expects the market to rebound by shifting its focus back toward larger-screened devices.”



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Two-thirds of Americans are doing nothing to protect their privacy

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This Case Transforms the Space Around Your iPhone Into a Trackpad

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Smartphone royalties now equal manufacturing costs

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Samsung Chromebook 2 review: A $400 laptop never looked so good

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Moto Maker will continue, even after the US plant closes

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Google: Digital Creative Agency Fred & Farid replaces Macs w/ Chromebooks

Google: Digital Creative Agency Fred & Farid replaces Macs w/ Chromebooks:

Google loves to highlight its work getting Chromebooks into the hands of business customers and a lot of the time that also means a switch from Windows and Microsoft Office products to Chrome OS and Google Apps. It’s not as often, however, that we hear about companies that decide to replace their Macs with Chromebooks. Today Google published a guest blog post from CIO of digital creative group Fred & Farid Group about the company’s decision to do exactly that, replace Macs with Chromebooks for around 60 percent of its employees:

Macs are a popular choice among the creative team. But I soon realized not everyone needs a Mac, especially the 60 percent of our employees who work in office roles like marketing, sales, IT, and administration. We recently rolled out 10 Samsung Chromebooks in a small pilot and plan to have 200 employees on Chromebooks by the end of the year. Our decision to adopt Chromebooks wasn’t based solely on price — though we expect to save a significant amount compared to deploying Macs — but also a desire to have faster collaboration. When you have a Chromebook, you think less about downloading stuff to your hard drive and more about sharing information in the cloud. With Google Drive, we’re able to store, sync and share all our important files easily, whether it’s when we’re on our Chromebooks or on our phones and tablets on the go.

Like with those switching from Windows, relying on mostly Google Apps is one of the reasons the company decided Macs weren’t necessary for many of its employees: We use Google Hangouts for all our voice communications — we don’t even have phone lines in our offices anymore. In the Paris office alone, we conduct more than 50 Hangouts each day. Of course, we also use Drive for document sharing and Calendar for scheduling.

More on the Google Enterprise Blog here.



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Samsung is getting ready to release its most gigantic phone ever

Samsung is getting ready to release its most gigantic phone ever:

So, did you think Samsung's Galaxy Note and Galaxy Mega lines of smartphones were big? You haven't seen anything yet. SamMobile has spotted a new filing with the Federal Communications Commission showing that Samsung is planning to release a 7-inch — yes, a 7-inch — smartphone this year.

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Intel's working on a system to secure self-driving cars

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Google's cutesy cars are a 'serious threat' to the auto industry, says GM

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How Much Time the World Spends Looking at Screens, Visualized

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Ever wondered how much time the average person spends looking at their TV, computer, phone or laptop? Well, this chart shows exactly that, broken down by country.

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Scientists Solved the Mystery of Why Rechargeable Batteries Go Bad

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Every time you recharge your lithium-ion batteries, their storage capacity decreases just a little bit. That is why your mobile gadgets won't stay on nearly as long as they did even a year ago. But thanks to research by the US Department of Energy, we finally know why exactly that occurs and, more importantly, how to stop it from happening.

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A Comprehensive Look into the Future of Smartphone Screen Sizes

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I analysed data of more than 7000 models of smartphones, PDAs and similar gadgets. I restricted my research then to only 4096 of those, the ones released after the initial announcement of the original iPhone, circa January 2007, to observe the trends in the modern smartphone industry.

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