Communications and Technology Blog - Tehrani.com - Gadget Archives

Your iPhone Could Get Hacked Through the Charger

2013-06-04T19:13:59Z

As scary as it sounds – that iOS device which you thought was safe from hackers because Apple controls the App Store could get infected through a malicious charger. This is a major concern for IT departments who didn’t previously worry about Apple devices which were not jailbroken. It is now impossible to know which Apple devices have been infected meaning all of them are suspect.

An article on TMCnet by Steve Anderson explains that a group of researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology discovered the exploit which can be duplicated via a device called a Mactans charger. The device is built via a BeagleBoard which is a TI-based single board computer and costs around $45.

The biggest fear you should have is that a malicious individual will install one of these on the cardio equipment of a gym which has an embedded 30-pin or Lighting adapter. Another obvious area is an airport lounge or coffee shop.

Anderson continues:

The researchers in question went on to contact Apple about the Mactans' capabilities, though as yet have not received a response. But the Mactans itself can, reportedly, leave its malware behind in just under one minute of continuous exposure, and once it's in, it can be extremely difficult to dislodge. According to the researchers, the malware can be hidden in much the same way that Apple hides its own built-in hardware, making removal a difficult proposition.

Efforts from Apple came quickly in terms of blocking the ability to jailbreak an iOS device by using a USB port, and given the kind of damage that Mactans can do, Apple will likely be moving all the more quickly to find patches to block Mactans' capabilities. But with large numbers of people using Apple devices—especially iOS devices—it may well be that the metaphorical genie is out of the equally metaphorical bottle.

As mobile devices proliferate and the PC market decreases in importance, there an increased desire by hackers to keep up with the most popular devices. For IT departments everywhere this means they need to watch their BYOD device policy and ensure they are ready for the malicious attacks which could be produced as a result of unsuspecting users downloading a malicious program which affects the network and steals precious corporate data.

To learn more about the state of secure mobility and how your company can keep itself protected in the age of BYOD, attend the Secure Mobility Conference July 23^rd, 2013 in NYC.

Wearable Tech to Grow Even Faster than 40% a Year?

2013-05-09T11:08:15Z

If you had a chance to listen to my radio interview with IMI TechTalk you know I believe the analytics behinds wearable computing will be a huge business. As sensors and cameras become part of our wardrobe, there will be billions of new data gathering devices connected to the cloud.

Companies like Facebook and Google will want to soak up as much of this data as possible and use it to generate revenue through a variety of services.

At a certain point, many of us will have sensors on our bodies - perhaps as part of our smarphones which measure our pulse and body temperature in real time. Using analytics we can use this data to determine the epicenter of a variety of incidents. For example, one imagines heart rates will increase in unison when there is roaring thunder, tsunami or earthquake.

Moreover, this data can be used to determine the spread of the flu or a pandemic based upon the increasing temperature of a population.

In addition there could be early heart attack symptoms we can determine from this wealth of sensory information which means lives can be saved... Who knows what other treasures we will discover as this is an untapped area of research.

Enter Stephen Wolfrom, the man behind Mathematica and Wolfram Alpha... His latest adventure is personal analytics and has already developed an app for Facebook which can tell you interesting facts about your friends and relationships. He also records his phone calls and keystrokes and monitors his personal productivity in this manner.

He beleives that by using such data, people and companies will become more efficient. In fact he compares the ability to monitor this information with investing. He says, you are basically investing blind if you can't track your investments but if you do track them, you can make a lot more money.

Seems to me the key takeaway here is wearable tech + big data analytics means better personal and corporate productivity.

If purchasing decisions in this new market begin to be driven by such logic, the already optimistic estimates about the growth of wearable tech could be low.

This could be a very big deal for this emerging space as some analysts already say the market will reach $5.8 billion in 2018, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 40.8 percent from 2012 to 2018!

Disclosure: I am CEO of TMC and my company is the host of the world's first Wearable Tech Expo July 24-25, 2013 in NYC.

The Pen is Mightier Than the Spell Check

2013-05-03T10:19:59Z

As technology continues to get smaller and faster, buying a simple plastic pen may soon be seen like the equivalent of buying a flip-phone... Sure, you could do it but you just don't. This is where Lernstift, the German pen that vibrates when you make a mistake comes in.

In a way, this pen reminds me of HAPIfork - the fork that vibrates when you eat too fast... These are a new class of devices designed to monitor your activities and assist you in improving your behavior.

You can preorder the pen now... It should be available this August.

On Screen Size, Apple is From Mars, Samsung from Venus

2013-04-24T15:57:29Z

For many years now I have waxed poetic about the need for Apple to create a large screen phone. With the latest iteration of the iPhone, the “5” they decided to elongate the device but not make it wider. To me, this mistake is the worst that Apple has made since ignoring the market for seven-inch tablets and then playing catch-up with the iPad mini.

At first, when asked about larger screen phones, Apple said that they didn’t fit in the hand. Of course this was a shock to many people who not only were able to fit larger phones in their hands but to those of us who saw the ad for the iPad mini where the company showed it FITTING IN A HAND.

Now the story from Apple has changed – Apple’s Tim Cook said yesterday that large screen phones require trade-offs. Specifically he said:

My view continues to be that iPhone 5 has the absolute best display in the industry. And we always strive to create the very best display for our customers. And some customers value large screen size, others value also other factors such as resolution, color quality, white balance, brightness, reflectivity, screen longevity, power consumption, portability, compatibility with apps and many things.

Our competitors had made some significant trade-offs in many of these areas in order to ship a larger display, we would not ship a larger display iPhone while these trade-offs exist.

Some of these points actually do make sense and I speculated as such last September but perhaps the most important aspect of a portable device like a smartphone is its battery life and no one gets a whole day of use from an iPhone 5 if they actually use it for much of the day.

In other words, Apple already made a major trade-off sacrificing a full day of battery life to keep the iPhone 5 thin and light.

And every day Apple Store employees get hammered with the question, “When will Apple come out with a larger screen phone.” How do I know? Because I ask them, and this is what they tell me.

The biggest weakness Apple has right now is a device which fits between the size of the iPhone 5 and the iPad Mini. What smartphones does Samsung sell which are bigger than the four-inch iPhone 5? The list is extensive. The Galaxy S3 is 4.8 inches in size, the S5 is five inches in size. The Galaxy Note 2 is 5.5 inches. Want a tablet from Samsung, you can choose from the following sizes: 7”, 7.7”, 8.0”, 10.1” and 11.6”. Apple has merely two tablet sizes. Let’s stipulate for the moment that the iPad and Mini give enough options to consumers looking for a large and small tablet… Even so, we have to agree that Apple needs at least one wider smartphone.

I have consistently warned Apple of the multiple device threat starting on July 8^th, 2010. I saw Apple’s Achilles’ heel as being its limited product line competing with myriad screen sizes from a plethora of competitors. I saw how the PC market overtook Apple in the eighties due to improvements in price/performance from a multiple vendors and I realized screen size was the equivalent differentiator in the mobile space.

Yet Apple has changed its story on the topic – first telling us that larger phones don’t fit in the hand (how do they look at themselves with a straight face?) and now that they have trade-offs. The trouble is, these product trade-offs are causing customers to walk across the Verizon store from the Apple section into Samsung’s arms.

I have tremendous respect for Apple but when millions of customers vote with their wallets and tell you they prefer a larger phone – even with trade-offs, you have to listen to them. Or am I wrong? Let me know.

For more – see the post which shows how hand sizes vary widely and making a statement that “our phone fists in the hand” doesn’t take into account how much hand sizes vary.

With Tablets and Smartphones Eating the PC, What Can Microsoft Do?

2013-04-11T21:48:24Z

These are very dark days for people who work for many divisions of Microsoft as tablets and smartphones have absolutely decimated the PC market as evidenced by a decline of 14% in sales of PCs last quarter. This news comes on the heels of the Windows 8 launch, the new OS which fuses the best of the tablet and Windows experience in one platform. The only problem is the new OS with all its marketing and slick new form factors isn’t cutting it, as consumers gravitate towards smaller screen devices.

Expect many calls for Steve Ballmer to be fired and when you consider how many markets Redmond has squandered since 2000 you could make a solid case for pushing him out. Tablets, music, cloud and smartphones are just a few. 11 months ago, one reporter had the foresight to say he should have been fired already.

It’s worth noting that Samsung has been one of the few companies besides Apple to capitalize on tablets and smartphones and other companies in this space which enjoyed leadership positions such as Blackberry, Nokia and HTC are also struggling.

Redmond will definitely see sales from corporate customers who upgrade PCs from XP and other operating systems to Windows 8 and of course its developer, server and Exchange lines of business are in no jeopardy at the moment.

Still, you have to wonder why the company isn’t leading the market in app sales on Android and iOS. It is common knowledge that users want Office on their iPads for example… What is the delay? The latest rumors say the market needs to wait a full 18 months from now to see its debut! The company makes games as well so why not try to dominate mobile devices with your game development?

The additional challenge here is Microsoft already tried to fight Apple with the unveiling of Windows 8 and it seems this isn’t a successful strategy. In fact, this polarizing OS seems to be pushing people to tablets and smartphones.

This strategic shift in the market requires Microsoft to refocus like it did when it missed the internet in the nineties – but this time, Google and Apple have precious few vulnerabilities to go after.

When Borland owned the desktop database market and could charge $650 for its software some decades ago, Microsoft stunned the world by rolling out its Access competitor for only $99. When Netscape owned the desktop browser market and charged for its software, Microsoft rolled out Internet Explorer for free.

This time, pricing isn’t going to help the world’s still-dominant OS provider attract massive amounts of new customers. Innovation is about the only thing left to try and they are losing the innovation battle to Android and iOS. The scary thing is Adobe Flash for the moment is still a major reason to us PC products but once HTML5 gets established, PC sales could slow even more.

Microsoft needs to do something to change this momentum and it needs to do it fast as not only are customers signaling discontent but financial analysts and investors are joining in.

Learn more about HTML5 at the ultimate HTML5 developer conference DevCon5, July 24-25, 2013 in NYC.

IDC: PC Sales Decline Substantially

2013-04-10T21:29:10Z

According to IDC, PC sales are in a tailspin with 76.3 million units sold in the first quarter of 2013. This number represents a decline of 13.9% compared to the forecast decline of 7.7%. These are the worst numbers since IDC started tracking in 1994 and it is the fourth quarter of year-on-year shipment declines.

iCharts

Microsoft recently saw the prices of many of its Windows 8 machines slashed only months after they became available… This report sheds some light on the situation. In my post on the matter I said:

It seems Microsoft is getting known for making an OS you HAVE to buy while Apple makes an OS you WANT to buy.

Windows 8 needs better marketing, an update or perhaps something else to get people to accept it. These numbers should keep a slew of execs in the traditional PC market awake for many nights.

HP, Dell, Acer, Toshiba and Apple all saw their PC sales decline while Lenovo grew 10% in the US but remained flat worldwide. ASUS saw some growth in the US and substantial declines elsewhere.

What this tells us is we are indeed in a post-PC era and as smartphones become more usable and tablets approximate the functions of a PC, consumers are not upgrading their old computers as quickly or buying new ones at all.

Unless Microsoft can generate some PC market excitement, the ramifications for suppliers, IT departments and developers are obvious... The PC market as we once knew it is declining more quickly than anticipated as consumers gravitate towards Android and iOS. These groups need to ensure their strategies are in-line with the current trends.

Google, YouTube, Apple and Beats: Music Options Galore

2013-03-06T11:07:36Z

There is good and bad news for Pandora today. The streaming radio leader has for the first time found itself in a position to compete for radio advertisers on an equal footing thanks to its inclusion in an influential ratings network run by Strata Marketing. The potential in the streaming radio market has brought new competition.

It's worth noting the news recently broke that Apple has held talks with Beats Electronics LLC about collaboration and/or investment in a music service called Daisy – apparently these talks go back a decade but Steve Jobs wasn’t ready to act when they began. Although Apple hasn’t been announced as an investor in the deal, Daisy has just secured $50M from a group including Warner Music owner Len Blavatnik, Fort Worth billionaire Lee M. Bass, and Australian financier James Packer.

Although the service may not be called Daisy when it launches officially it does seem to be based on technology developed by a company Dr. Dre purchased called MOG.

To make matters more interesting, it seems YouTube also will have a streaming service which of course will compete with Google Play (which is celebrating its first birthday with its new name). Does Google need two music services? Some speculate the reason has to do with coercing music owners to keep the free versions of their music on the world’s most popular video sharing service.

What does all this mean? Simply that the internet is going to continue to put massive pressure on terrestrial radio and the amount of choice in the market will in-turn benefit consumers tremendously. In order for these companies to compete they will have to innovate as margins are already razor-thin. Advertisers will have more choice than ever and the market is likely to become somewhat more fragmented.

Apple’s role in streaming music will be interesting to watch as just about everyone else has now launched at least on music service. Remember they picked up streaming service LaLa in 2009 for $80M meaning they are theoretically planning an entry into the space. Can they differentiate theirs somehow by embedding it into iOS more seamlessly than the other market choices? Think about what they've done with their mapping service which is the default when you ask Siri for directions. This sort of integration may make sense but it seems really late for Cupertino to act without being considered a major copycat at this point.

Apple's Magic Dependent on iWatch Success?

2013-03-05T14:40:51Z

At this point we are all aware Apple has a new watch in the works and it is even thought to be released later this year. Pundits have even determined this product could be vastly more profitable for Cupertino than even the much-anticipated Apple TV. They call it a $6B opportunity!

One wonders however how different this product will be from the iPhone. If you think about it, the iPhone transformed the company’s mobile product line and potential. The iPod used to look like a music player but today is an iPhone without the phone. The larger iPad originally was 4 iPhones working as one. The iPad Mini is just a smaller iPad. The point here is much of the Apple innovation centers around one innovative device – everything else seems to just be an extension.

We all know about the Apple “magic” or the ability to design products we didn’t know we wanted but when we see them, we can’t figure out how we ever lived without them. Rob Enderle writes a compelling piece about the situation on TMC’s Wearable Tech World site where he explains the iPhone and iPad should have been duds based on other similar products which preceded them.

I too have commented about how the Nokia N800 tablet which was a better device than the original iPhone never gained traction in the market.

Enderle points to the iWatch as the next big test for the company. We know there are a ton of techie watches in the market - does the company still have what it takes to make a new product launch such as the iWatch go mainstream? He doesn’t think so but he says he hopes he is wrong.

Here is something worth pondering before the launch of such a device. The smartphone made watches less relevant – especially for the younger generation. Will the company who helped kill a generational desire to own time-keeping devices on their wrists get these same people to reverse course and try slapping a piece of electronic jewelry on an area which has never seen a tan line? Time will tell if Apple still has the magic we once associated with Steve Jobs.

Mobidia Tackles Bill Shock at MWC2013

2013-02-27T15:45:23Z

Chris Hill (pictured) the VP of Marketing at Mobidia was euphoric in telling me about the growth of the company's new app My Data Manager which has had 3.5 million downloads in the past 12 months. As bill shock becomes a larger problem which is amplified by the speed of 4G networks, users - especially when roaming, are literally a movie away from being hundreds of dollars above their typical monthly costs if they aren't careful.

The app runs in the background on iOS and Android and monitors app usage and cellular usage anonymously sending data back to the company if the user agrees to it. To date, over one million people have signed up to allow their data to be tracked meaning Mobidia has some incredible information about mobile use trends. For example, eBay and Amazon were way ahead of the next ecommerce site on Black Friday.

Another tidbit of information is messaging and voip apps seem to have dominant players which are different in each country. Skype of course is a constant and Facebook Messenger is growing rapidly but other players seem to have regional strength.

The company monetizes the app via this data - selling it to investors, and even a VoIP company buys the data to compare themselves to others in the market. Carriers too have become customers and can use the data to target specific plans. For example, heavy Pandora users can be given special offers to use a Spotify plan.

Hill tells me a new frontier is mobile advertising and they are looking for ways to use their data in this space as well.

We often see fremium apps do well as some users become paid over time and ad-supported apps do well as advertisers pay the bills. Mobidia may be one of the few new companies using big data and the subsequent analytics they imply to generate a nice living from giving away an app to the masses.

Altair Semiconductor's 4G Chip Bet Pays Off

2013-02-26T16:54:16Z

As wireless markets globally move to 4G, Altair Semiconductor has targeted this newer network standard with a single-mode line of chips which cost less and use less power than mult-mode solutions which have to grapple with 3G and older standards. As consumer electronics devices become more price-competitive, choosing a streamlined solution means OEMs/ODMs can reduce their costs and pass part of the savings on to customers allowing more inexpensive solutions to be marketed.

The big news for the company at Mobile World Congress 2013 in Barcelona was the release of a new chipset for LTE-A, the 3800/6300 FourGee line which can download at 150Mbps and upload at 50 Mbps. The chips support carrier aggregation and a wide frequency band span of 400-3800MHz with 6 concurrent LTE bands for both primary and diversity antennas, enabling global band combinations. There is further support for VoLTE and HD-voice as well as interference cancellation an peripheral interface support for a wide variety of applications from consumer electronics to M2M.

The company hopes it becomes the go to source for connectivity in an "internet of things" world and spokesman Matthew Krieger (pictured) brimmed with excitement about how their solutions are replacing competitors in the market. Moreover they see larger competitors selling 3G-disabled solutions as a sign they are on the right track.

Other recent achievements have to do with certification on the networks of Telefonica and Verizon, meaning ODM/OEM customers no longer need to get their products certified themselves.

Krieger continued to tout current success in the market and spoke of future opportunity which they believe will be quite bright as 4G markets in India and China begin to emerge.

Thank You Amazon, Retailers May Now Merge at Will

2013-02-18T23:05:04Z

When reports surfaced regarding Office Depot merging with OfficeMax, the first thing which may have occurred to many, is regulators wouldn’t let this approximately $2 billion happen because the resulting store would be too large and create antitrust concerns. Much of these worries in retail however have decreased as of late because of the strength of Wal-Mart, Costco and of course Amazon. Let’s also remember that Staples is a major player in the space. It’s worth pointing out that Amazon in particular can be used by just about all retailers to justify industry consolidation.

If Internet radio was deemed enough of a threat to allow the only two satellite radio players Sirius and XM to merge, exactly what is the limit in retail when the threat is ecommerce? As pressure increases, can we can expect wave after wave of small retailers being forced to seek others to combine with.

Of course it is a bit soon to declare retail dead. Let’s take a look at the state of brick and mortar and e-tail.

Although Wal-Mart seems to be in the midst of a disastrous quarter, this may be due primarily to the elimination of the payroll tax holiday. Still, these tax breaks don’t seem to be coming back and Amazon’s strong sales seem to show they are more resistant to woes at the low-end of the consumer market. At least they were in Q4, we’ll see what happens in the next quarter. It seems the high-end of the mall market is doing fairly well according to Simon Property’s earnings – the low to mid-tier retailers however are expected to continue struggling.

It’s worth pointing out flash-sale sites like Ideeli may be in trouble as retailers have deployed a good deal of technology to combat the excess inventory which is the lifeblood of this market.

Best Buy for its part has decided to keep its price-match policies allowing it to compete with Amazon more effectively on the topline if not the bottom. I think there is more the company can do to increase profits but this is still a big step in the right direction.

No one expects Amazon’s e-commerce sales to get weaker and if anything they will continue to be a serious threat to just about every retailer in the world. And this will give the entire retail market cover to seek mergers with companies regulators wouldn’t even let them consider a decade ago.

The Offspring of Siri and Raspberry Pi Controls Your Home

2013-02-15T19:50:21Z

For those of you dreaming of the day when your voice can control your home, your wait is over – almost. There are a few demos floating around online showing how Siri’s responses to your commands can trigger the Raspberry Pi-based SiriProxy. The first demo below runs a garage door opener, a NEST thermostat and a cable box while the second video just opens and closes a garage door opener for now.

As Apple and investors took for the next big thing, it seems like home automation is a natural extension for the company. Ironically I tweeted an article today about NEST trying to get into the home automation space too which means the company may eventually be on a collision course with Apple. This as it turns out happens to be the place where company founders Tony Fadell and Matt Rogers used to work.

The future will be very interesting indeed.

Is Apple Too Sexy for MWC?

2013-02-15T11:53:46Z

In deciding not to exhibit at the Macworld events, CES and MWC, Apple has shown the world that it doesn’t need others to be successful. It can control the conversation far better when it holds its own press conferences which are invitation-only by design.

While this philosophy was very successful for a number of years, what Apple didn’t count on was the innovation gap between its products and the rest of the market closing to the point where a large-screen Android smartphone is actually preferable by the masses to the company’s iOS based phone offerings.

In other words – the “Apple attitude” we’re too sexy for your trade show was a great marketing concept for a number of years but now it seems like a bad choice. In just over a week as tens of thousands of movers and shakers descend on Barcelona for Mobile World Congress, we will see every competitor Apple has – we will witness launch after launch but nothing from Apple.

In fact Samsung is expected to make a major splash and launch a Galaxy S4. Last year they dominated the city as you may remember from my posts on the matter relating to the special art exhibit they had in the center of town and launch of the Galaxy Note 10.1. The S4 in case you are wondering is expected to contain a 4.8-inch Super AMOLED+ screen and possibly an 8-core processor.

You could make the argument that Apple has everyone it needs at its own press conferences but this just isn’t the case. In the age of citizen journalism you need to reach every influential citizen. These people, to the dismay of Apple, go to non-Apple events in far larger numbers than they do the company’s press conferences.

Now it’s up to Tim Cook to make Apple change with the times. Will Apple still think it’s “too sexy” to be at MWC and other events after Samsung and others steal the show? We’ll see.

John Sculley Mesmerizes Audience at ITEXPO (Video)

2013-02-11T22:43:29Z

John Sculley gave an amazing keynote at StartupCamp7 located at ITEXPO Miami where he discussed his career, his relationship with Pepsi, Apple, Steve Jobs and the future of technology. You may recall my live blog about the keynote. Here is the actual talk for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy! Thanks to Gary Pudles for doing a great job as interviewer.

Thank you all for attending the show! Here is a picture at the Jeep Giveaway at the show's conclusion.

Apple Has 2 Weeks to Fix its 6.1 iOS Update

2013-02-10T12:45:57Z

Apple’s 6.1 iOS update seems to be one of the most challenged updates the company has released as users are complaining of battery drain, 3G and syncing issues. The situation has caused one carrier Vodafone to tell people not to upgrade to the releases – especially if they have an iPhone 4s.

In two weeks the world’s tech journalists converge on Barcelona for Mobile World Congress and there will be hell to pay if Cupertino doesn't get the problem fixed by then and journalists, bloggers and others start to experience some of these problems. Apple, the clock is ticking… Will you get this problem solved in time?