Author: Charlotte Gill

Apple gives green light to HomeKit accessory-providers

Posted on by Charlotte Gill

Following the year-long wait since the announcement was first made, HomeKit accessories are now available for purchase after Apple gave third-party manufacturers the greatly-anticipated green light. Apple’s HomeKit allows people to create an ecosystem of connectivity in their homes and even give voice commands through Siri. Via iOS devices, users can control a variety of domestic products, including thermostats, lights, sensors, speakers and smart-outlets.

The HomeKit brings tech connectivity to a whole new level and signifies huge benefits for consumers

Numerous manufacturers have produced HomeKit compatible goods that can be integrated into Apple’s vision of a technological ecosystem. Among the many that have jumped at the opportunity to create a range is German consumer technology manufacturer Elgato, which has released a series of sensors under the brand name Eve. Eve products allow Apple users to monitor temperature, air quality and humidity, as well as outdoor atmospheric conditions, through their mobile devices. With the Eve range, people can also track if doors and windows are open in their homes and even control electrical switches through Siri.

Other manufacturers that have released HomeKit accessories include iDevices, Schlage, iHome, Lutron, Incipio, Ecobee and Insteon.

The HomeKit brings tech connectivity to a whole new level and signifies huge benefits for consumers – from increased home security, to greater energy efficiency and tech-guided gardening. If the system is proved a hit with the public, which the buzz in the run-up of the release seems to indicate, then many more producers will be clambering to make their devices Apple compatible also. The significance to the market for home electronics could therefore be extraordinary, with customers choosing their purchases based around the HomeKit. Given the potential for the industry, it seems likely that Android will also follow suit at some point, so as not to lose out would could be the next step in the 21st century’s technological revolution.

Researchers create new gel to help wounds heal

Posted on by Charlotte Gill

A team of researchers at University California, Los Angeles has developed a new hydro gel to accelerate the healing process of wounds. The group of scientists, led by Dino Di Carlo, Professor of Bioengineering, and Tatiana Segura, Associate Professor of Chemical and Bio Molecular Engineering, published their findings in the scientific journal Nature Materials.

To treat flesh wounds, doctors keep the injury moist through sealing over the abrasion with hydrogels

To treat flesh wounds, doctors keep the injury moist through sealing over the abrasion with hydrogels. While this allows wounds to heal quicker than if left dry, the growth is still slow and fragile as it fails to provide a scaffold to support the new tissue growth. As the abstract of the scientist’s research paper notes, it is often the case that the gel used will degenerate before tissue can be reformed, thereby limiting “the gels’ ability to provide physical support”.

According to Di Carlo, speaking to UCLA’s news website, “[a]chieving a biomaterial that promotes rapid regeneration while maintaining structural support has been a holy grail in the field of tissue engineering”. This has been achieved, he says, through the creation of an injectable hydrogel that combines “tailored material chemistry and microfluidic fabrication of uniform spherical building blocks, each about the width of a human hair”.

What this means is that the gel is composed of building blocks, with small gaps between them. The gel’s microscopic spheres are attached only at surface level, making them porous. When it is applied to the afflicted area and as the wound heals, new tissue penetrates the tiny gaps left between the spheres. As the gel gradually disintegrates, a structure of tissue growth is left formed, where it had penetrated the gaps between the hydrogel spheres. Further tissue can then grow around this formation until the wound is fully healed. The size of the spheres can be tailored depending upon the type of wound.

SoftBank invests $1bn in Korean e-commerce site

Posted on by Charlotte Gill

E-commerce giant Coupang is the latest of only a handful of Korean firms to have secured an over $1bn investment, courtesy of Japanese telecoms giant SoftBank, whose commitment to the country’s largest online retailer constitutes a minor part of much broader ambitions to expand overseas. What’s more, the commitment underlines the scale of the opportunities on offer in South Korea’s fast-growing e-commerce market.

SoftBank has invested in a string of high-calibre internet companies of late

“SoftBank aims to grow by investing in Internet companies around the world and supporting disruptive entrepreneurs who share a common vision to contribute to people’s lives through the Information Revolution,” that’s according to SoftBank’s Chairman and CEO Masayoshi Son in a press release. “SoftBank looks forward to supporting Coupang as they further revolutionise e-commerce.” The company’s Vice Chairman then went on to add that Coupang was among “the fastest-growing and most disruptive Internet companies in the world.”

The success of the e-commerce firm, which was founded first in 2010 by Harvard graduate and CEO Bom Kim, is powered by its cutting-edge delivery service and founded on its proprietary technology infrastructure. Underpinned by an extensive retail selection, the largest end-to-end fulfilment operations in the country and a homegrown fleet of “Coupang Men” to fulfil last mile deliveries, the retailer’s monthly direct revenues have more than tripled in the six months preceding June.

SoftBank has invested in a string of high-calibre internet companies of late, namely India’s Snapdeal and China’s taxi app Kuaidi Dache, each spearheaded by Nikesh Arora, who was in May made responsible for the company’s so-called second growth phase.

The Korean e-commerce market represents something of an opportunity for investors, though not so much for foreign names, who have found it notoriously difficult to crack. Neither Alibaba nor Amazon boasts a presence in South Korea, due largely to language and regulatory obstacles, yet eMarketer estimates put this year’s growth at 11 percent, making it the third-largest e-commerce market in the Asia-Pacific, after China and Japan.

Virtual reality’s five brightest stars

Posted on by Charlotte Gill

Oculus Rift

As featured at countless tech shows around the globe, Oculus Rift has catapulted itself to the forefront of discussion on the topic ever since its 9,522 backers pledged above and beyond the $250,000 asked of them on the product’s original Kickstarter page. The amount pledged at closing date was close to $2.5m, and did much to reassure Facebook, which bought the company last year for $2bn, that the headset could turn VR from science fiction to reality.

Project Morpheus

Scheduled for release in the early stages of next year, Sony’s VR gaming headset is set to revolutionise gaming by bringing an all-round more immersive experience to console gamers. Industry experts are united in the opinion so far that the product feels more polished than its rivals, including Oculus, with only a few minor hiccups still to address. Sony’s ambitions may fall short of Facebook’s, in terms of branching out beyond gaming, yet the product, by some accounts, feels superior.

Google Cardboard

Google’s contributions to the VR space are surprisingly modest, and start with a simple cardboard viewer that any user can create and combine with their smartphone. The company’s low-rent, child-focused product is available now, and allows users to explore a series of panoramas, simply by downloading the Cardboard app and fixing their phone inside the viewer. The schematics and assembly instructions are available to all, and users need only assemble Cardboard for themselves to get in on the action.

Razer

Not necessarily an operating system nor a standalone commercial product, Razer is a product of the Open-Source Virtual Reality (OSVR) ecosystem: a platform that allows multiple headset manufacturers to band together with the common goal to accelerate VR gaming adoption. “Built from the ground up to bring the best Virtual Reality gaming experience to the gaming world, OSVR is the one platform where all aspects of the industry – input devices, games, and output – are unified,” according to the site.

HoloLens

HoloLens represents Microsoft’s first foray into augmented reality, as “the first fully untethered, see-through holographic computer,” according to the company. “It enables high-definition holograms to come to life in your world, seamlessly integrating with your physical places, spaces, and things,” as part of what Microsoft calls “mixed reality”. The headset and partner software is built on the same core as the Windows 10 family, and aims to transform the way users communicate, create, collaborate and explore, using movement, vision and voice to interact.

Pinterest finally gets money hungry with “Buy it” button

Posted on by Charlotte Gill

On June 2, Pinterest made the long-awaited announcement that it will allow its users to buy the items they “pin” on their personalised digital scrapbooks. The new blue “Buy it” button will feature on “Buyable pins,” allowing businesses from across the globe to sell their products to Pinterest’s growing fanbase.

Pinterest has not successfully capitalised on its service and so has earned very little revenue since being established
in 2009

Unique among social media platforms, Pinterest allows visitors to create their own online scrapbooks with ideas and images across an unlimited range of topics. The company describes pins as “visual bookmarks for good stuff you find anywhere around the web or right on Pinterest”. The Pinterest share button is seen on an increasing number of webpages, ranging from recipes to news articles and design blogs, allowing users to save images and website links they want to revisit or share to via different topic boards.

In March, Pinterest was valued at $11bn and received another round of multi-million dollar investments, despite the company’s slim profits over the years. Even though it can boast more than 70 million users per month, Pinterest has not successfully capitalised on its service and so has earned very little revenue since being established in 2009; the company refrains from disclosing figures.

Undoubtedly in a bid to appease investors, at the tail-end of 2014, Pinterest introduced “promoted pins” – its initial foray into advertising. The move has enabled its first significant stream of revenue, with analysts predicting the website will earn $500m through marketing by 2016.

Pinterest users have shown a consistent and growing demand to make purchases through the website, particularly as millions use the free service for planning events, decorating their homes and creating fashion wish-lists. Making this move into e-commerce is a logical step for the company, and one that holds considerable promise for success.

Pinterest has teamed up with several brands and retailers in order to promote its new commerce service, including Macy’s and Kate Spade. Rather than receiving a commission on items sold, Pinterest will charge retailers for promoted-pin advertisements and buyable pins. Payments will be made through Stripe, Braintree and Shopify, which will make it safer and more convenient for users to pay for goods on their smartphones and other mobile devices. Payments can be made via Apple pay or credit cards, although credit card information will not be stored by Pinterest. 

According to Shopify, two million people pin ideas on Pinterest every day. Its research shows 93 percent of visitors use the website to plan purchases, while the average order value is $50, beating Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.  The “Buy it” button, which will become available in late June, has experts predicting Pinterest will rapidly grow into an e-commerce powerhouse that could become even bigger than Facebook.

Whitman confirms November 1 HP split

Posted on by Charlotte Gill

Confirming what many suspected about the forthcoming HP split, Co-Chief Executive Meg Whitman announced at the company’s HP Discover 2015 event that the separation of HP and Hewlett-Packard Enterprise would take effect as of November 1. Capping the last of a five-year turnaround plan, the split follows a string of aggressive cuts made by Whitman to reignite the company’s innovation pipeline, strengthen its go-to-market capabilities and rebuild its balance sheet.

The company has laid off tens of thousands of employees

Little over a year after the split was announced, the personal-computer maker is to separate into two new industry-leading public companies: the first, HP Enterprise, will focus on technology infrastructure, software and services; the second, HP, will work on personal systems and printing. “The decision to separate into two market-leading companies underscores our commitment to the turnaround plan”, said Whitman in a company statement. “It will provide each new company with the independence, focus, financial resources, and flexibility they need to adapt quickly to market and customer dynamics, while generating long-term value for shareholders.”

The company has laid off tens of thousands of employees recently, responding to a changed marketplace in which demand for computers and printers has slumped, and consumers are increasingly using mobile platforms to meet their computing needs. However, now most of the cuts have taken effect, HP’s focus has fallen on mergers and acquisitions as it looks to break new ground that way rather than organically.

HP’s purchase of Voltage Security in January and Aruba networks in March (the latter the largest deal on Whitman’s watch at $2.7bn) underlines the company’s commitment to expand upon its competencies in cloud computing and enterprise networking, and the two are unlikely to be the last. More deals are sure to come in the lead-up to November 1, before the company is split into two entities with entirely different characteristics.

Reaching out to blind shoppers

Posted on by Charlotte Gill

For the visually impaired, trying to locate produce on store shelves can prove a tricky task. But a new technology being developed by scientists at Pennsylvania State University promises to make this burdensome chore easier.

Researchers are creating a glove that, through the use of high-tech cameras, can recognise shopping items specified by the wearer. The user is alerted to the item, or their proximity to it, by a series of vibration motors as they scan the shopping shelf. Similar technology already exists, but it can only identify items from their barcodes once they have already been located. The new technology will help blind shoppers identify more closely what it is they want.

As Michelle McManus, President of the Happy Valley Chapter of the National Federation of the Blind told Penn State’s news website, people with sight problems “always have to find someone at the store to help” and attempt to  “explain exactly what [they] want” in the hope that whoever is helping will get the precise product desired. With this new technology, blind people will be able to locate the item themselves without having to rely on a third party.

Known informally as the ‘Third Eye’, the glove is part of the Visual Cortex on Silicon, a research project of 50 people, including both graduate students and senior scientists, with a mission to apply technology to improving human vision. It spans eight universities and is led by Penn State computer scientist Vijay Narayanan.

Fitbit IPO is shaping up to break records

Posted on by Charlotte Gill

Wearable tech company Fitbit has issued a filing with US regulators stating it will sell just shy of 22.4 million shares of its Class A common stock as part of its forthcoming IPO on the NYSE. Classified as an “emerging growth company” under federal securities laws, the valuation put forwards by some analysts means the firm’s is even higher than competitor GoPro, whose listing last year became the most successful Silicon Valley consumer electronics debut of all time.

Fitbit anticipates the initial public price of the shares will number somewhere in the region of $14 to $16, and, should the upper band prove accurate, the company could fetch approximately $358m.

Fitbit anticipates the initial public price of the shares will number somewhere in the $14 to $16 region

The company is known primarily for its range of connected health and fitness devices, and is a leader in the fast-growing wearable tech market. “Fitbit is transforming the way millions of people around the world achieve their health and fitness goals”, according to the company’s regulatory filing. “Our platform helps people become more active, exercise more, sleep better, eat smarter, and manage their weight.”

Founded in 2007, the company has since gone on to spearhead a number of industry advances, and, as of March 31, has sold over 20.8 million devices. By utilising Fitbit’s open platform and growing community of users, the company says it has “established a growing ecosystem that includes thousands of third-party health and fitness apps that connect with [its] products and enhance the Fitbit experience”.

The company last year tripled its revenues (from $271.1m to $745.5m) and sales this year look likely to cross the $1bn mark.

Although wearable technology is struggling to gain acceptance among much of the population, the obstacles standing in its way have done little to curtail growth, and BI Intelligence estimates that the market will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 35 percent in each of the next five years. Another study by IDC estimates that 45.7 million units will be shipped this year, and forecasts that fitness brands will begin to lose their commanding share of the global market.

“The explosion of wearable devices was clearly led by fitness bands, which until recently commanded prices that provided comfortable margins, but those days are changing”, said Ryan Reith, Programme Director of IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Device Trackers, in the report. “The price of these fitness bands [has] come down so significantly in some markets that smartphone [manufacturers] are now bundling them with smartphones at little cost. Meanwhile, the market is quickly shifting toward higher-priced devices that offer greater functionality.”

Meeker, tell us something we don’t know: boring truths of 2015’s internet report

Posted on by Charlotte Gill

Every year Mary Meeker, a veteran internet analyst, releases her annual internet trend report. In May 2015, Meeker, in partnership with venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, released her twentieth such document, detailing the latest fashions in all things internet. Technology journals are generally full of praise for the report, detailing how insightful the collection of data is. One tech journalism website goes so far as to tell readers that if they “want to understand tech, Mary Meeker’s Internet Trends reports are the closest [they will] get to gospel.” Yet while the article presents some interesting information in a clear and concise manner, much of the trends identified are common knowledge. Here are the report’s top five obvious trends.

More people are using the internet

In case you missed it, a global system connecting computers across the world has seen dramatic growth in the previous two decades. Known as the ‘the internet,’ this technology allows information to be shared from far-flung corners of the world at breakneck speeds. The report reveals that whereas in 1995, only 0.6 percent of the world’s population – roughly 35 million people – had access to the internet, a full 2.8 billion people are connected to it today. Much of this growth has come from emerging centres of the world economy: China and India.

Phones are more popular

Just as with the internet, more people today have mobile phones than in the past, with population penetration rising from one percent to 73 percent, between 1994 and 2015. While none of 1994’s one percent had smartphones (perhaps because they had not yet been invented), they account for 40 percent of mobile phones in use today. Unsurprisingly, the large emerging economies account for the bulk of smartphone user growth, with Brazil, China and India racing ahead. It is also revealed that people are using their smartphones to watch more videos and read news than before.

The internet has had a big impact on business and consumers

The report includes a section, using pie charts, to estimate the impact of the internet on use and outcomes of certain sectors of the American economy. These odd pie charts, with slices of blue showing the extent of internet impact per sector, show that the consumer and business sectors have been impacted a lot (specific numbers or measurements are absent), alluding to the rise of ecommerce and use of email in the workplace perhaps. Government and policy thinking, despite the best efforts of some at Silicon Valley, have been more resistant to internet “disruption.”

Internet-based companies have reduced barriers to entry

According to Meeker, “[s]etting up export businesses historically required significant investment.” Presumably this investment refers to the high cost of a supply chain, with shipping or freight containers. Now websites such as eBay mean people can sell people their old stuff (an export business, apparently) anywhere in the world. Likewise, the costly business of becoming a registered landlord can be sidestepped by signing up to Airbnb, while SoundCloud allows you to distribute audio “within minutes,” although there is no guarantee anyone will listen to it. Just to make sure it is clear why people are renting out their spare rooms or selling unwanted gifts at online auctions, Mary Meeker helpfully points out that “people typically use online platforms to find extra income.”

New app-based businesses pose complications for regulations

Some business regulators are struggling to classify how drivers for taxi apps like Uber and Lyft are categorised, as they do not fit neatly into the category of worker or independent contractor. The report quotes a California judge, arguing that “the 20th Century [regulations] for classifying workers [are not] very helpful in addressing this 21st Century problem.” Airbnb is also facing issues with local renting laws that govern short term lets and hotels. Again, the brave new world of 21st century innovation is contrasted with the supposedly moribund regulation of the 20th, with Airbnb cofounder and CEO quoted as saying “these laws feel a little bit outdated. They’re really 20th-century laws, and we’re in a 21st-century economy.”

Facebook opens Parisian lab to explore artificial intelligence

Posted on by Charlotte Gill

Facebook has underlined its commitment to artificial intelligence with the announcement that it will open its first AI lab outside of its native US, this time in Paris; adding to its existing teams in Menlo Park and New York. The Paris team builds on Facebook’s AI Research programme – or FAIR – so that the company might more easily “sort through all this information so you can better understand the world around you and more effectively communicate with the people who are important to you,” according to a statement.

Home to some of the highest experts in the field, France has been chosen as an ideal destination for the project

Facebook’s bet on AI is important, with the company increasingly struggling to keep tabs on the millions of posts and photos that are uploaded each day to the social media site by its more than one billion users. “[The] Paris team will work on ambitious long-term research projects in image recognition, natural language processing, speech recognition, and the kinds of physical and logical infrastructure required to run these AI systems. It’s our hope that this research will ultimately help us make services like News Feed, photos and search even better and enable an entirely new set of ways to connect and share.”

Currently, the focus falls on computing photo uploads, and on making sure newsfeeds are more closely in keeping with individual preferences. However, Facebook sources have stated that the logical next step is language processing, which, if successful, would give machines the capacity to process complex sentences.

Home to some of the highest experts in the field, France has been chosen as an ideal destination for the project, as the company strives to make meaningful progress in the field. Though the project has been underway for little over a year, Facebook has talked-up its achievements so far on this front, and suggested that it could soon emerge as a leading name in AI technology.

The super jean is here! Levi’s and Google collaborate

Posted on by Charlotte Gill

Without even a mobile app to boast of, Levi’s has been trailing behind the tech revolution and losing out on precious market share along the way. Yet, what role does a denim fashion house have to be play in the world of technological innovation? As its collaboration with Google indicates, a lot. Levi’s has teamed up with Google for its Project Jacquard, a new technology that permits interactivity with devices through a textile platform. With this futuristic invention, Google envisages users operating their smartphones and tablets through what they are wearing. As the Project Jacquard website says: “Everyday objects such as clothes and furniture can be transformed into interactive surfaces.”

Touches and gestures are used to make commands

Jacquard yarn enables this wondrous feat through its conductive fibre, which weaves thin, metallic threads together with natural and synthetic counterparts. The yarn is therefore strong enough to be woven on standard industrial looms while having the same appearance as traditional yarns.

Interactive surfaces can be woven into a specific location of the material (such as the pocket) or sensor grids can be applied over a larger surface area. As discretion is key, Jacquard yarn can be attached to tiny conductors and circuits that are as small as a button. Touches and gestures are used to make commands; this data is then collated and programmed into the computer’s memory, thereby allowing it to be used again, as well as for other devices.

“When it came to choosing a first partner for Project Jacquard, the Levi’s brand was a natural fit”, said Ivan Poupyrev, a Technical Product Lead for Google’s Advanced Technology and Projects group in a press release. “Levi’s is an iconic brand with deep Bay area roots — authentic and also highly innovative and fashionable. Levi’s brings to Jacquard their deep knowledge and understanding of apparel, their consumers and what they value.”

‘Connected’ clothes open up a new range of possibilities in terms of a consumer’s interaction with devices and services, and enables a seamless ecosystem of connectivity. For the first time, fashion designers will be able to add a new level of functionality to their clothing without having to change their production methods. The classic and well-loved Levi’s brand may be one of the first to incorporate Google’s technology into its products (which will be available to the general public from 2016), but it seems likely others will also follow suit, heralding a new era for both fashion and technology.

Google unleashes improved diversity stats

Posted on by Charlotte Gill

A new documentary, entitled Code: Debugging the Gender Gap, has forced the issue of diversity in the tech sector into the limelight, and Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In, alongside Ellen Pao’s high profile sexual discrimination case, has done much to expose the issue further. Google has answered some of the questions asked of it by publishing its diversity statistics.

Google’s decision marks an important first step in countering some of the common aspersions cast against the tech sector. The release of the company’s workforce composition statistics in 2014 did much to confirm what many feared about diversity – or the lack thereof – in the sector, but this year’s figures show progress has been made. “Today, we updated ‪google.com/diversity with the composition of our workforce and provide a window into our efforts. Though we still have a long way to go, we’re seeing some early progress”, said a company blog post.

Google revealed 21 percent of all tech hires last year were women

As part of the new and updated figures, Google revealed that 21 percent of all tech hires last year were women, and the number of women in technical roles this year was up one percent on the last. “This increase reflects some long-standing investments”, according to the post. In 2010, a mere 14 percent of female software engineers were hired through Google’s college and university outreach programmes. The blog post added: “Since then, we’ve invested $3m in Anita Borg Scholarships for women pursuing computer science degrees, and worked to build a community of women in technology. This past year, 22 percent of software engineers hired through campus outreach were women.”

The statistics fall in line with the company’s diversity strategy, unveiled in May and focused on four key areas in need of improvement. By honing its focus on hiring diverse Googlers, fostering a fair and inclusive culture, expanding the pool of technologists, and bridging the digital divide, Google has positioned itself as a leader in pushing for progressive change.

“With an organisation of our size, meaningful change will take time”, said Nancy Lee, Google’s Chief of Inclusion and Diversity. “From one year to the next, bit by bit, our progress will inch forward. More importantly, our industry will become more inclusive, and the opportunities for currently underrepresented groups will grow.”

Only 15 percent of Silicon Valley software engineers are women, and 41 percent are expected to leave the field within a decade. Add to that the fact that only 18 percent of computer science degrees are held by women, and the figures, contained in Code, point to an industry in dire need of a shake up.

However, a recent study undertaken by the American Association of University Women, entitled Graduating to a Pay Gap: The Earnings of Women and Men One Year after College Graduation, shows there is gender parity when it comes to tech salaries. This, alongside the recent pains taken by Google to boost diversity, is proof major industry names are taking seriously the issue of inequality, and are seeking to remedy the situation.