Now Ford puts phone apps in the driving seat
Mobile is the very useful for us.We can get various latest technology by Mobile World.Not content with revolutionizing smart phones, mobile apps now appear to be in the driving seat of the auto industry as manufacturers increasingly surrender control of their vehicles to technology.
Signs of the increasing dominance of the app came on Monday with Ford's decision to launch its newest B-Max compact at Mobile World Congress -- a phone industry gathering in Barcelona -- rather than a motor show.
Bill Ford, the U.S. auto giant's executive chairman, told CNN his company chose the event to debut its tech-filled car as a statement of its intention to work with app developers in shaping the vehicles of the future.
The B-Max is the first car in Europe to feature SYNC, a voice-recognition system developed by Ford and already available in some U.S. cars. The system links audio, phone and GPS systems and will also call emergency services in the event of a crash.
The increasing dependence of vehicles on computers has raised concerns that manufacturers are trading technology for safety, exposing drivers to hazardous distractions and malicious hackers.
But Ford, the great grandson of Henry Ford, insisted SYNC would "allow drivers to keep their eyes on the road and their hands on the steering wheel," and said his company was working with app makers to further improve security.
"Today, often, drivers are looking down and we know that they're playing with their cell phone and texting and we want to stop all that," he told CNN.
"We want them to be looking at the road with their hands on the wheel, and our tech is allowing them to do that, knowing they also want to be connected."
Ford said his firm's current crop of hi-tech cars were capable of utilizing offboard "cloud computing" to expand their abilities, performing tasks like directing drivers to the nearest coffee shops, checking their health and keeping tabs on their daily diary.
He acknowledged this raised the prospect of potential breaches that could put valuable personal data in the hands of criminals but said the technology was currently being rolled out on an "opt-in, opt-out" basis.
The carmaker said the B-Max would eventually run its AppLink system, which will add control of smartphone apps to voice-operated commands. Among currently available apps are programs that read out Twitter updates and pick and choose radio stations.
More functions will follow as it partners with app developers, the company said in a statement.
"Ford aims to deliver voice-control compatibility with apps for a wide range of services, and is now actively seeking to partner with app developers on future opportunities," it said in a statement.
Ford hopes the B-Max, which goes on sale in Europe later this year, will help expand its current 4 million U.S. SYNC users to 13 million worldwide by 2015. It says the car should appeal to drivers previously priced out of the hi-tech market.
"The all-new B-MAX is going to be a game-changer in the European compact family vehicle segment. No other vehicle in its class offers such an attractive combination of style, versatility and technology," Ford Europe's chairman and CEO Stephen Odell said in a statement.
"We think it will be among the most technologically advanced small cars you can buy at any price."
How mobile broadband can transform communication Africa
In the next five years, there are likely to be as many mobile cellular subscriptions as there are people on this planet. By 2020, pundits predict more than 50 billion connected devices.
With seven billion people's needs to serve, information and communications technologies (ICTs) represent the single most powerful channel we have ever had to reach out to others, wherever they may live, whatever their circumstances. They also represent our best hope of accelerating progress towards meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by the target date of 2015.
Can Africa reach its 2015 MDGs? If countries embrace the unique power of mobile broadband technology, I believe many have a good chance.
The eight MDGs cannot be separated. If you combat disease, you also reduce child mortality; if you give every child a primary education, you promote gender equality. It is because these goals are interlinked that broadband is so important.
If we classify the MDGs into three broad areas -- education, health, and the environment -- we see that mobile broadband has a key role to play in each.
It offers a solution for providing education in under-served areas. Around 90% of children in the developing world are enrolled in primary school, but in some regions -- notably sub-Saharan Africa -- up to 30% of children drop out before their final primary year. Broadband can better engage children, equipping them with valuable ICT skills and opening a window on the world's information resources, in a multitude of languages.
Technology can transform healthcare. From simple SMS reminders for vaccinations or anti-retroviral treatments, to grassroots information gathering on demographics and diseases, to mobile information repositories for personal health records, cellphones are becoming a key cornerstone of health programs in a growing number of African countries.
Every year, more than half a million women die as a result of complications in pregnancy and childbirth. The tragedy is that the majority of these deaths are preventable -- yet in Africa, fewer than half of all births are attended by a midwife or skilled health worker.
While there is no substitute for the physical presence of a healthcare professional, broadband is helping train community field workers, while providing expectant mothers and their extended families with simple advice that protects health -- and lives.
The MDG on ensuring environmental sustainability spans a wide range of targets, from the provision of safe drinking water and basic sanitation, to protecting biodiversity and improving the lives of slum-dwellers.
In many of these areas, broadband will be a vital link.
For example, so-called "smart" electricity grids make it easier for locally generated electricity (including from renewable sources) to be integrated, stored and shared as demand fluctuates.Broadband can also help local farmers and fishermen by delivering weather forecasts directly to their mobile phones and providing information on sustainable farming techniques.
The way we work is also being changed by broadband. Innovative projects are improving the lives of slum-dwellers -- for example in Kenya -- through providing access to employment and training. Last year at ITU Telecom World 2011, the International Telecommunication Union awarded a prize to a young entrepreneur who developed an education platform for working children, enabling them to use smartphones to improve their literacy, numeracy and general knowledge while they travel to work on public transport vehicles equipped with low-cost WiFi repeaters.
Broadband gives small businesses the opportunity to broaden their customer base and reduce their overheads through e-commerce platforms. And it will support advanced financial services for consumers, building on the outstanding success of the mPesa mobile banking model, an excellent example of innovation coming directly out of Africa to solve African problems.
The eighth and final MDG is "developing a global partnership for development." It is, perhaps, the most fundamental of all the goals, because it enables progress towards all the other goals.
Developing such a partnership is a basic element of our work at ITU. Because we understand the incredible potential of broadband, we launched the Broadband Commission for Digital Development to help move broadband to the top of the political agenda.
This multi-stakeholder commission comprises over 50 top-level global leaders, and has defined a vision for accelerating the deployment of broadband networks worldwide. It has also established four critical targets that we believe all countries should to strive to attain by 2015:
Target 1: Making broadband policy universal. By 2015, all countries should have a national broadband plan or strategy or include broadband in their universal access/service definitions.
Target 2: Making broadband affordable. By 2015, entry-level broadband services should cost less than 5% of average monthly income.
Target 3: Connecting homes to broadband. By 2015, 40% of households in developing countries should have internet access.
Target 4: Getting people online. By 2015, internet user penetration should reach 60% worldwide, 50% in developing countries and 15% in least-developed countries.
We have only three years to go. But it is highly significant that among all the MDG targets the most advanced is the one involving ICTs. Let's capitalize on that and use Africa's near-ubiquitous mobile coverage to break old infrastructure bottlenecks and short-circuit the traditional development cycle.
How mobiles harmful of future for our skin
Ask an expert what the mobile phone industry of the future looks like and you'll get what seems to be a dystopian vision straight from the dark imagination of sci-fi.
With the power to buy, sell and make decisions on our behalf, phones will come to dominate our lives, invading our privacy and, via under-skin implants, our bodies.
It isn't all bad. As they become more sophisticated, phones will completely unshackle us from our desktops, will use up less time and money -- and could even save our lives.
"The fact that the word 'phone' is in the title of these devices is misleading," says Ray Hammond, a so-called futurologist who has carved a career out of accurately forecasting technological leaps.
Hammond envisages the candy bar-sized phones and shiny tablets of today being broken into separate components. Fashionable spectacles will provide the visual display, earring studs the audio. A third device will provide touch input.
"What we're talking about is a complete physical interface to the digital and virtual worlds," he said.
Most experts agree that plotting a future for mobile devices is a challenge, given the recent rapid evolution of simple cell phones into powerful computers replete with talking personal assistants like Apple's Siri.
What is known is that, as they are plugged directly into an ever-swelling torrent of data, tomorrow's smartphones must be smarter than ever -- capable of protecting us from information overload.
"Siri is the first of what will become a slew of what are essentially software assistants controlled by voice," says Hammond. "The voice side is going to become much better very rapidly."
As well as organizing our diaries and answering pop quizzes, these assistants will become our data guardians, using artificial intelligence to learn our personal preferences as they tailor and streamline the flow of data we are bombarded with.
"When we have a large screen, we can browse through large amounts of text, but that's not possible on a mobile device," says Lars Hard, CEO of artificial intelligence software firm Expertmaker.
"So we need to bring more brains onto the device, so we can provide more relevant information when needed... based on artificial intelligence. Because that's the kind of technology that brings the device closer our own reasoning capabilities."
But in order to do this, we must give these gadgets even more license to snoop on our every move, allowing them to build up dossiers of data that marketers in the exploding mobile advertising sector will be itching to get their hands on.
"A mobile device is mobile in nature, so as that device moves around with the individual it is possible, with users' consent, to build up a very rich profile of how that device moves and how that user behaves," says Rob Jonas of mobile advertising network InMobi.
"All sorts of interesting patterns can be detected and of course that becomes very valuable for advertisers looking to reach those consumers."
Jonas concedes that privacy is a "hot topic," but says in future users will become more comfortable trading it in return for an enhanced online experience. "The research we've got on our network globally has shown that consumers are willing to trade that consent as long as they get value," he adds.
Advertising is key to the future of mobile, say experts, not least because it will become a major driving force in the development of software apps at a time when these begin to eclipse the importance of the gadgets themselves.
Micah Adler, CEO of app promotion firm Fiksu forecasts that annual app downloads in excess of 100 billion by 2015 will create a software-driven market in which dominant operating players Apple and Android will thrive at the expense of all others.
But, he says, this swamped but increasingly competitive marketplace will encourage the evolution of apps that will not simply replicate what we can do on our computers, but will also enhance our existence.
"That's not to say there won't be a thriving market of things that are imported from the desktop, but the piece I'm most excited about is the piece that makes a difference to people's lives," he says.
Cloud computing technology that offloads storage and processing into cyberspace should also result in more durable gadgets replacing the quickly outmoded handsets of today, according to Morten Warren of industrial design agency Native Design.
"This will enable more manufacturers to sidestep the technology arms race, allowing them to refocus on more sustainable, longer lasting products and propositions," he says.
And far from turning us into gadget-junkies with aching wrists and thumbs, the enhanced data-handling efficiencies of these devices should, in theory, liberate us and improve our wellbeing, says Lars Hard.
"Today the young generation are almost forced to be glued to a screen to catch up with everything on Facebook because all their friends are putting this pressure on them.
"But by having more personalization and personal agents that act as proxies for you, you can reduce the time you need to spend on the machine."
Hard predicts that currently available medical diagnostic hardware could become standard, offering real time biometrics that will detect health problems, alert physicians and prevent serious illness.
Hammond goes even further, suggesting mobile devices will become so in-tune with our bodies that miniature components will be implanted under our skin. This, he admits, pushes deeply into the disturbing realm of science fiction.
Mobile is the very useful for us.We can get various latest technology by Mobile World.Not content with revolutionizing smart phones, mobile apps now appear to be in the driving seat of the auto industry as manufacturers increasingly surrender control of their vehicles to technology.
Signs of the increasing dominance of the app came on Monday with Ford's decision to launch its newest B-Max compact at Mobile World Congress -- a phone industry gathering in Barcelona -- rather than a motor show.
Bill Ford, the U.S. auto giant's executive chairman, told CNN his company chose the event to debut its tech-filled car as a statement of its intention to work with app developers in shaping the vehicles of the future.
The B-Max is the first car in Europe to feature SYNC, a voice-recognition system developed by Ford and already available in some U.S. cars. The system links audio, phone and GPS systems and will also call emergency services in the event of a crash.
The increasing dependence of vehicles on computers has raised concerns that manufacturers are trading technology for safety, exposing drivers to hazardous distractions and malicious hackers.
But Ford, the great grandson of Henry Ford, insisted SYNC would "allow drivers to keep their eyes on the road and their hands on the steering wheel," and said his company was working with app makers to further improve security.
"Today, often, drivers are looking down and we know that they're playing with their cell phone and texting and we want to stop all that," he told CNN.
"We want them to be looking at the road with their hands on the wheel, and our tech is allowing them to do that, knowing they also want to be connected."
Ford said his firm's current crop of hi-tech cars were capable of utilizing offboard "cloud computing" to expand their abilities, performing tasks like directing drivers to the nearest coffee shops, checking their health and keeping tabs on their daily diary.
He acknowledged this raised the prospect of potential breaches that could put valuable personal data in the hands of criminals but said the technology was currently being rolled out on an "opt-in, opt-out" basis.
The carmaker said the B-Max would eventually run its AppLink system, which will add control of smartphone apps to voice-operated commands. Among currently available apps are programs that read out Twitter updates and pick and choose radio stations.
More functions will follow as it partners with app developers, the company said in a statement.
"Ford aims to deliver voice-control compatibility with apps for a wide range of services, and is now actively seeking to partner with app developers on future opportunities," it said in a statement.
Ford hopes the B-Max, which goes on sale in Europe later this year, will help expand its current 4 million U.S. SYNC users to 13 million worldwide by 2015. It says the car should appeal to drivers previously priced out of the hi-tech market.
"The all-new B-MAX is going to be a game-changer in the European compact family vehicle segment. No other vehicle in its class offers such an attractive combination of style, versatility and technology," Ford Europe's chairman and CEO Stephen Odell said in a statement.
"We think it will be among the most technologically advanced small cars you can buy at any price."
How mobile broadband can transform communication Africa
In the next five years, there are likely to be as many mobile cellular subscriptions as there are people on this planet. By 2020, pundits predict more than 50 billion connected devices.
With seven billion people's needs to serve, information and communications technologies (ICTs) represent the single most powerful channel we have ever had to reach out to others, wherever they may live, whatever their circumstances. They also represent our best hope of accelerating progress towards meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by the target date of 2015.
Can Africa reach its 2015 MDGs? If countries embrace the unique power of mobile broadband technology, I believe many have a good chance.
The eight MDGs cannot be separated. If you combat disease, you also reduce child mortality; if you give every child a primary education, you promote gender equality. It is because these goals are interlinked that broadband is so important.
If we classify the MDGs into three broad areas -- education, health, and the environment -- we see that mobile broadband has a key role to play in each.
It offers a solution for providing education in under-served areas. Around 90% of children in the developing world are enrolled in primary school, but in some regions -- notably sub-Saharan Africa -- up to 30% of children drop out before their final primary year. Broadband can better engage children, equipping them with valuable ICT skills and opening a window on the world's information resources, in a multitude of languages.
Technology can transform healthcare. From simple SMS reminders for vaccinations or anti-retroviral treatments, to grassroots information gathering on demographics and diseases, to mobile information repositories for personal health records, cellphones are becoming a key cornerstone of health programs in a growing number of African countries.
Every year, more than half a million women die as a result of complications in pregnancy and childbirth. The tragedy is that the majority of these deaths are preventable -- yet in Africa, fewer than half of all births are attended by a midwife or skilled health worker.
While there is no substitute for the physical presence of a healthcare professional, broadband is helping train community field workers, while providing expectant mothers and their extended families with simple advice that protects health -- and lives.
The MDG on ensuring environmental sustainability spans a wide range of targets, from the provision of safe drinking water and basic sanitation, to protecting biodiversity and improving the lives of slum-dwellers.
In many of these areas, broadband will be a vital link.
For example, so-called "smart" electricity grids make it easier for locally generated electricity (including from renewable sources) to be integrated, stored and shared as demand fluctuates.Broadband can also help local farmers and fishermen by delivering weather forecasts directly to their mobile phones and providing information on sustainable farming techniques.
The way we work is also being changed by broadband. Innovative projects are improving the lives of slum-dwellers -- for example in Kenya -- through providing access to employment and training. Last year at ITU Telecom World 2011, the International Telecommunication Union awarded a prize to a young entrepreneur who developed an education platform for working children, enabling them to use smartphones to improve their literacy, numeracy and general knowledge while they travel to work on public transport vehicles equipped with low-cost WiFi repeaters.
Broadband gives small businesses the opportunity to broaden their customer base and reduce their overheads through e-commerce platforms. And it will support advanced financial services for consumers, building on the outstanding success of the mPesa mobile banking model, an excellent example of innovation coming directly out of Africa to solve African problems.
The eighth and final MDG is "developing a global partnership for development." It is, perhaps, the most fundamental of all the goals, because it enables progress towards all the other goals.
Developing such a partnership is a basic element of our work at ITU. Because we understand the incredible potential of broadband, we launched the Broadband Commission for Digital Development to help move broadband to the top of the political agenda.
This multi-stakeholder commission comprises over 50 top-level global leaders, and has defined a vision for accelerating the deployment of broadband networks worldwide. It has also established four critical targets that we believe all countries should to strive to attain by 2015:
Target 1: Making broadband policy universal. By 2015, all countries should have a national broadband plan or strategy or include broadband in their universal access/service definitions.
Target 2: Making broadband affordable. By 2015, entry-level broadband services should cost less than 5% of average monthly income.
Target 3: Connecting homes to broadband. By 2015, 40% of households in developing countries should have internet access.
Target 4: Getting people online. By 2015, internet user penetration should reach 60% worldwide, 50% in developing countries and 15% in least-developed countries.
We have only three years to go. But it is highly significant that among all the MDG targets the most advanced is the one involving ICTs. Let's capitalize on that and use Africa's near-ubiquitous mobile coverage to break old infrastructure bottlenecks and short-circuit the traditional development cycle.
How mobiles harmful of future for our skin
Ask an expert what the mobile phone industry of the future looks like and you'll get what seems to be a dystopian vision straight from the dark imagination of sci-fi.
With the power to buy, sell and make decisions on our behalf, phones will come to dominate our lives, invading our privacy and, via under-skin implants, our bodies.
It isn't all bad. As they become more sophisticated, phones will completely unshackle us from our desktops, will use up less time and money -- and could even save our lives.
"The fact that the word 'phone' is in the title of these devices is misleading," says Ray Hammond, a so-called futurologist who has carved a career out of accurately forecasting technological leaps.
Hammond envisages the candy bar-sized phones and shiny tablets of today being broken into separate components. Fashionable spectacles will provide the visual display, earring studs the audio. A third device will provide touch input.
"What we're talking about is a complete physical interface to the digital and virtual worlds," he said.
Most experts agree that plotting a future for mobile devices is a challenge, given the recent rapid evolution of simple cell phones into powerful computers replete with talking personal assistants like Apple's Siri.
What is known is that, as they are plugged directly into an ever-swelling torrent of data, tomorrow's smartphones must be smarter than ever -- capable of protecting us from information overload.
"Siri is the first of what will become a slew of what are essentially software assistants controlled by voice," says Hammond. "The voice side is going to become much better very rapidly."
As well as organizing our diaries and answering pop quizzes, these assistants will become our data guardians, using artificial intelligence to learn our personal preferences as they tailor and streamline the flow of data we are bombarded with.
"When we have a large screen, we can browse through large amounts of text, but that's not possible on a mobile device," says Lars Hard, CEO of artificial intelligence software firm Expertmaker.
"So we need to bring more brains onto the device, so we can provide more relevant information when needed... based on artificial intelligence. Because that's the kind of technology that brings the device closer our own reasoning capabilities."
But in order to do this, we must give these gadgets even more license to snoop on our every move, allowing them to build up dossiers of data that marketers in the exploding mobile advertising sector will be itching to get their hands on.
"A mobile device is mobile in nature, so as that device moves around with the individual it is possible, with users' consent, to build up a very rich profile of how that device moves and how that user behaves," says Rob Jonas of mobile advertising network InMobi.
"All sorts of interesting patterns can be detected and of course that becomes very valuable for advertisers looking to reach those consumers."
Jonas concedes that privacy is a "hot topic," but says in future users will become more comfortable trading it in return for an enhanced online experience. "The research we've got on our network globally has shown that consumers are willing to trade that consent as long as they get value," he adds.
Advertising is key to the future of mobile, say experts, not least because it will become a major driving force in the development of software apps at a time when these begin to eclipse the importance of the gadgets themselves.
Micah Adler, CEO of app promotion firm Fiksu forecasts that annual app downloads in excess of 100 billion by 2015 will create a software-driven market in which dominant operating players Apple and Android will thrive at the expense of all others.
But, he says, this swamped but increasingly competitive marketplace will encourage the evolution of apps that will not simply replicate what we can do on our computers, but will also enhance our existence.
"That's not to say there won't be a thriving market of things that are imported from the desktop, but the piece I'm most excited about is the piece that makes a difference to people's lives," he says.
Cloud computing technology that offloads storage and processing into cyberspace should also result in more durable gadgets replacing the quickly outmoded handsets of today, according to Morten Warren of industrial design agency Native Design.
"This will enable more manufacturers to sidestep the technology arms race, allowing them to refocus on more sustainable, longer lasting products and propositions," he says.
And far from turning us into gadget-junkies with aching wrists and thumbs, the enhanced data-handling efficiencies of these devices should, in theory, liberate us and improve our wellbeing, says Lars Hard.
"Today the young generation are almost forced to be glued to a screen to catch up with everything on Facebook because all their friends are putting this pressure on them.
"But by having more personalization and personal agents that act as proxies for you, you can reduce the time you need to spend on the machine."
Hard predicts that currently available medical diagnostic hardware could become standard, offering real time biometrics that will detect health problems, alert physicians and prevent serious illness.
Hammond goes even further, suggesting mobile devices will become so in-tune with our bodies that miniature components will be implanted under our skin. This, he admits, pushes deeply into the disturbing realm of science fiction.
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