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The above article (by Cyrus Favriar) details various interesting facts about the concentration of cellphone subscriptions on the planet - over 6 billion. At first the idea of 85% of the global population having access to a mobile phone seems outrageous, but 6 billion subscriptions does not necessarily mean 6 billion individual mobile phone owners. Many people living in third world countries will have multiple phones in order to take advantage of cheap calls within the carrier to and from a specific other party. Another interesting fact detailed in the article is that over 1/3 of the world's cellphone subscriptions is attributed to China and India, with over 2 billion subscriptions combined. A study from Gartner predicts that 1 billion smartphones will ship worldwide in 2014, and data from Canalys showed that more smartphones were sold in 2011 than personal computers. Between July 2011 and June 2012, Americans used 1.1 billion GB (> 10 000 TB) of mobile data, and over the last year Americans collectively spent 2.321 trillion minutes on the phone and have sent 2.273 trillion text messages. So, why should we be interested in all of these arbitrary facts? We understand that as smartphone prices become exponentially less expensive and other parts of the world gain access to data services, mobile broadband continues to grow at a rapid pace. There is a global trend from fixed-broadband to mobile-broadband subscriptions, simply because it is more cost-effective. As global bandwidth increases we can supposedly pump an infinite amount of data to billions of customers around the world. This relates to eLifestyle because it shows that although we talk about poverty and oppression around the world, one thing unites us: technology. This relates to Economics because of the decreasing cost of smartphones and the accessibility of cheap subscriptions becoming more prominent. This relates to the ICS20 class because as most of us own mobile phones and have mobile plans with various car

I learned from this article how to secure your information on your mobile device using 6 simple tips. Setting a solid password, installing antivirus or security apps, and using encryption, a hardware security system, are just a few various methods of how to help and improve the security on the everyday use of your phone. Mobile security is important especially if you have a lot of important and valuable data and information, such as passwords or your email is accessible, you want to know that this information is stored and saved safely on your mobile device for no one but yourself to be able to use. With technology evolving and more and more people are being familiar and learning about hacking and breaking into systems, it is more important and necessary than ever in our society for everyone to have their information secured. Taking your mobile device's security seriously and keeping it at high maintenance is crucial so nobody can hack or see what information is important to you but also so that you aren't giving people the opportunity to rearrange or change this data that you trust that you are the only person to see and alter your personal data at your leisure. 

This article talks about how Facebook is wanting to improve their mobile aps and their HTML5. The article says how almost half of Facebook's users are on actively on mobile devices, and I am one of them. I barely have time to go on the computer anymore so I'm always on the Facebook app on my blackberry, so I think its great that they're trying to improve their aps and make it so that Facebook will be available on any kind of phone. It is so much more convenient to be able to use Facebook on your mobile device than on an actual desktop. Bret Taylor even predicts that a few years from now, almost every person at Facebook is going to be working on mobile, and I could see why he would say that.

This is becoming more famous, along with mobile banking, the payment of goods in a store with a mobile phone. This is good for technological advancement and it shows how much we have evolved from paying with paper money to paying electronically. But, there is a downside to this, since it is electronic, it is not very safe because people can hack your mobile phone and steal your money. This fits the eLifestyle tag because it represents how our lives are different with electronics, than it was 50 years ago.

This article explains how Dell, one of the largest and most successful PC makers in the world, has given up on a possible creation of their own smartphone. Dell expressed that they tried multiple times to produce a product that would be successful in the US smartphone market, but with a number of devices facing some serious bugs as well as a problem with slow speed, the company did not see positive results and they decided to trash the idea and process once and for all to focus on other opportunities. Dell is not getting out of the mobile device business altogether thanks to sales and success with devices sold in Asia and Japan, and the company will continue making low-cost phones and tablets for sale in emerging markets. With smartphones becoming a very successful and poplar device that many customers are increasingly taking an interest to, this setback has to worry or concern Dell because they are not able to compete will other huge named brands and companies in the mobile device bushiness. Dell has had it's highs and has had success over the years with products and devices, but maybe this is a wake up call that they don't have the money, resources, and high praise that more well-known companies do and this could be a huge factor to why the amount of success, more specifically in the phone industry, hasn't been enough to be a top contender in the mobile business altogether.

In the previous six months, Instagram use has septupled easily surpassing twitter.  The app use went from nine hundred thousand people per day to well over seven million.  Instagram is based around a mobile app and has no website.  Before the evidence of Instagram's epic 6 month growth, Silicon valley were obsessing over mobile-first development.  Twitter, who started mobile and then became a website is being shadowed by Instagram.  Many other mobile apps have expanded and surged like Instagram but they all died out.  Instagram has not died out yet however, because people seem to really enjoy looking at pictures and sending up their own.  Instagram users spend an average of four hours on it beating Twitter's average of three.  Many people think Instagram is a bad thing and is for "attention seekers" but I think it's a good thing.  People can express their emotions and feeling through pictures and it's not Facebook so that's a win-win situation.  However I don't use it.

This article describes the effects of mobile/portable computing on our everyday lives. The article writes that mobile computing is a great advantage for both ordinary people and business men.  In the business area, portable computing is the easiest to approved business everywhere in the world. This means that you do not need to physically be at a business meeting to approve of a transaction. This saves a great deal of money, time and is much more efficient and fast. Portable computing has also made just our regular daily lives a lot easier. From just being able to call anyone outside of your house, to booking a hotel, flight, even finding the nearest gas station, it's all in the palm of your hand. Whatever the case may be, portable computing has made all of this possible.  In my opinion, being connected 24/7 increases productivity up to a point, but it also can cause stress and can also disrupts life. 

This article (by Emily Price) details a few interesting facts surrounding the social media giant 'Facebook', particularly around gaming. We are all familiar with social games, such as Mafia Wars and Farmville, and Facebook has been recently seeing most of their income from in-game advertisements and in-app purchases. Facebook has seen a 13% growth in gaming users since September 2011 (226 million - 251 million.) Facebook now has over 900 million users, and over 500 million users are utilizing Facebook via a mobile platform. Facebook says that games grow on the network in five different ways: App Center, Notifications, News Feed, Timeline, and games users have Bookmarked. 8 out of the 10 top iOS games have Facebook integrated, and the top two categories of games users play on Facebook are 'Simulation' and 'Games and Puzzles.' This relates to Portable Computing because Facebook has recently taken large steps to improve the user's mobile experience, understanding that most of their core audience is on smart devices. This relates to eLifestyle because we see these social networks like Facebook integrating gaming into the user's social feed, allowing them to spend more time on the site. This relates to Economics because as games become cheaper and more accesible, we see that most of the gaming market is taken by mobile games; no longer do we have to go to an electronics boutique to purchase a $60 triple-A game, when we can buy the $0.99 version of said game or another digitally. Mobile games are the consumer conscious choice because you get the most "bang for your buck." This relates to ICS20 because although most of us say that our time on Facebook is deteriorating, we still are entrenched in the social gaming environment; this is demonstrated by Facebook's 65 million user growth in 2012 alone.

It's been less than 200 years since the birth of photography and in those years it has evolved a lot from the first camera to the smart phones that we so often use to take pictures today. This article maps out the evolution of photography throughout the years, and what it has come to be today. Cameras and photos have come a long way from what they first were. Even the digital camera, has become a smaller part of our lives as the phones with built in cameras had been introduced to our society. In fact, about 741 million mobile phones worldwide now have some photo capability. We no longer look to digital cameras or computers to edit and share our photos. All of those capabilities have been added to our smart phones. It has now become very easy to simply snap a photo and share it on a social networking site like instagram or facebook. In fact, Facebook has 10, 000 times more photos than the Library of Congress. Many of us have lost the need for digital cameras. Mobile photography is the latest evolution and many are experiencing the shift. Our phones are always with us and it provides us with the perfect camera when a picture perfect opportunity is right in front of us. 91% of smartphone owners take a picture at least once a month while only 73% of digital camera owners do the same. Personally, I've also experienced this shift. I used to have a digital camera and would bring it with me on field trips and special occasions. It was great to have, but now that I think about it before I had my smartphone and only used the camera I missed out on all the photo opportunities that I had in my day to day life. I only captured the big events and even when I took those photos, I always got a little lazy when it came to transferring them to my computer and sharing them with friends and family. It usually sat on my camera for a while before I finally got around to doing it. With my smart phone, I am simply able to snap a photo and share it without losing a mome

nt. I find it very convenient. Our lifestyle with technology has made our day to day life easier for us and now it is making it possible to capture our day to day life, wherever we are. To me, this move to mobile photography hasn't killed photography, but transformed it.

This lifehacker article explains how to save money in terms of finding and purchasing the best deals on mobile apps. If you are someone who is either tired or annoyed by paying full price on an app that never really lived up to your expectations or your someone who just wants to find a good deal, then your in luck, because the best sales or price drops to find for apps is not that hard, it just requires a little patience. If you are a iPhone or Android user, the best way to track price drops easily and efficiently is to create a list so you can easily check on the price of an app to see if it's gone on sale or not. A particular nifty tool on the iPhone is when you add a interested app to your account of a created wish list, the App Shopper app will either send you an email or a push notification when an app you're keeping your eyes on drops in price. Another method in saving money while wanting to purchase apps for your mobile device is to hold out for common sale times. Both the iTunes App Store and Google Play love having sales around the holidays. Also, apps tend to go on sale after they hit the top of the charts to celebrate their success or after an anniversary of some kind. A third strategy is to look at the sale history or possibly a one-year anniversary to see if a possible sale is sure to come around soon enough. Overall, holding out for a good sale and knowing when those sales happen is a good way to keep your app purchasing budget in check. It's important to not waste your money on pointless apps or on ones that end up dropping in price the next day. Wait the extra day or two and save an extra couple dollars because in the long run, this will pay off both economically as well as feeling satisfied with how you shopped to make your mobile device experience that much better.

Here are some steps into getting some of the best deals on Mobile apps. Most apps are $1.29 to 99 cents and sometimes you think they're too overpriced and you just want a good deal! They're are two things about buying apps, you're always looking for the best deal on apps and hate paying full price, or you buy the app, and then find out the next day that the app goes on sale. Here are some easy ways to find out about cheap apps. 1. Set up price drop alerts and create a list of apps YOU want. This is great so you can track the prices of apps you want. 2. Set up notifs of price drops, for iPhone, there is an app called App Shopper where you can search for any app, and add it to your wish list, and when the price of that app drops in sale, you'd get a e-mail telling you the price dropped. You can do the same thing with Android, and those apps are called AppBrain and AppsFire. 3. Hold out for common sale times. Apps tend to go on sale during holidays like Christmas or Easter. Also, they go on sale after they hit the top of the charts to celebrate their success or after an anniversary of some kind. Many think apps aren't that big of a deal about prices, but when you buy a lot, the bill adds up. These steps great tips on how to get a great deal on apps! SO THIS BOOKMARK BETTER BEAT JASON'S BOOKMARK....but it looks like it didn't :'(

In relation to my post on the 'Spectrum Crunch' two weeks ago, this article is about studies showing the economic benefits of mobile phone networks. Countries with higher levels of data usage per 3G connection, such as Russia, South Korea, and the UK have an seen increase in their GDP/capita growth.  Countries that have only recently adopted 3G, such as India, have shown no economic growth. Dr. Robert Pepper, vice president of global technology policy at Cisco, said, "The fact that increasing high-speed mobile broadband data usage leads to greater average per capita income underscores the need for increased investment in wireless networks as well as for government policies to foster that investment, including the allocation of additional spectrum." The high-speed sharing of information over various networks, not limited to cellphone networks, has high potential to increase economies of countries around the world. However, these benefits may not be obtained if we run out of much needed frequencies in which to share the information. Our generation has become increasingly entwined with technology and its development. Through the Internet and cellphones, we exchange extremely large amounts of information daily. This can be an important factor in the growth of countries and development of other technology in the near future.

This new tab syncing feature that google provides, allows the user coordinate the tabs between their mobile device and home laptop/desktop. This relates to Portable Computing because you are able to access tabs on your home computer through a mobile device while outside. This could also connect to the Privacy and Security tag because if someone has access your devices they are able to change your info or documents. This is extremely helpful during your day to day lifestyle since a large portion of the population uses mobile devices. The positive aspect would be that you're able to  continue work. The negative aspect could be that an outside source could access your info. With an Android phone with the new Chrome beta installed, you have the power of  being able to access any open tab any on your desktop from any location.

"Mobile World Congress on Monday, Zuckerberg delineated some of his plans for moving forward with Internet.org, the initiative led by Facebook to bring Internet connectivity to poor countries around the world.  While Zuckerberg touted the altruistic vision of his company's goal to connect the next one billion people, it's important to note that the project isn't just for the sake of bringing basic services to those that don't have it, but rather bringing millions of additional eyeballs to Facebook and its advertisers.  See Also: Hey Facebook! Connecting The World To The Web Isn't Enough "[We are] making it so that we can increase the amount of up-sells to subscriptions when they're using these basic services," Zuckerberg said in his keynote. "They will come to a link that isn't included in the basic services package; a popup that says, ok if you want to consume this, you have to buy this data plan." Facebook is making a long-term promise to both data carriers and advertisers-Zuckerberg said the next one billion people to attain Internet access will not be as affluent as those already on Facebook, thus making it harder to monetize the company's services. Zuckerberg said the social network will subsidize Facebook, Messenger, and other services like weather or basic news and information, and then provide up-sells in applications to deliver the whole package-like a gateway drug. Those up-sells are where carriers and Facebook make money. "The reason why they're not on [the Internet] is they don't know why they would want to get access to it," Zuckerberg said. "[We will show] people why it's rational and good for them to spend the limited money that they have on the Internet." How WhatsApp Fits Into Internet.org Facebook recently spent $19 billion to acquire the mobile messaging application WhatsApp, an application Zuckerberg claims will be one of the few services to amass a billion users in the future. He claimed that, by it

Earlier today, Twitter announced  a brand new update for it's searching features for the web and smartphones including Android and IOS. This new update adds a search button to the Iphone making it up to speed with Androids and any form of a tablet. Also, this update improves search results for photos, tweets and twitter accounts. Secondly, the connect tab automatically defaults to interactions which will display new followers, mentions as well as re tweets. Lastly, which is probably the most favourite new addition, is a change in Twitters mobile implementations handle links. Meaning, you can now click a URL directly from your twitter timeline without having to open a related tweet. This is the new twitter search update that was released earlier today. Make sure to install this update and the mobile site is already sporting the latest updates, but you will need to update your IOS or Android smartphone at their respective store.

This article mentions the fact that Twitter now plans to update its mobile applications to introduce filters for photos allowing people to share altered images without having to use another source such as Instagram. Since most phones come with high-resolution cameras and many of the Twitter users use their phones this will be an easy way for people to edit and upload their photos. Especially with people or famous celebrities that use Instagram then share them on Twitter where more people follow them it will be easier and faster to just use Twitter for it all. This new idea has been hastened when Facebook bought Instagram. Twitter was thinking of buying a different photo service or application but when weighing out the cost they decided to just build their own filters. Twitter is also exploring the ability to upload and edit videos without using a third-party application like YouTube. This article has a lot to do with economics and the battle between two companies trying to get people to use their site and apps and not the other. In this case Twitter is really trying to become the most popular and important social networking site where people will be able to do anything on and it will be instant. They are changing what they once were to try to morph into Facebook because of the increasing popularity of Instagram and the fact that Facebook bought it.  I think personally that Twitter is making a good decision about the filter but i don't think twitter should add their own video player because it would change twitter and its purpose of being instant statements and pictures. YouTube is good at what they do and twitter should stay out of it. However with the whole idea of adding filters to Twitter you get the benefits of Instagram with the benefits of Twitter which might just keep them on top of Instagram.

Following Facebook's purchase of Instagram for almost $1 Billion in April 2012, it seems appropriate that Twitter would integrate something similar into their users' experience. 'Inside sources' say that Twitter is working on a photo-filter system that will be integrated directly in the site and mobile apps that hopes to bypass third-party services (such as Instagram.) While Instagram is a social network that focuses on social images with limited text, Twitter is renowned for its 140 character text-based updates with occasional images. An advantage of Twitter's supposed photo filtering system would be that there would most likely be a website equivalent to the mobile app, a problem that has plagued Instagram users who want a PC experience. As of now, there have been no official confirmations by Twitter, but the idea of a Twitter-exclusive photo sharing system seems interesting; although the market is currently saturated by Instagram, which can export images to other social networks, including Twitter. Legally, Facebook and Instagram may be able to take action against Twitter, depending on how similar their filtering system will be. This relates to eLifestyle and ICS20 because as social network users, we are always searching for ways to monetize our networks to one cohesive experience; another photo-sharing application seems arbitrary when there is already a capable system (Instagram.)

This article is about the 10 mistake not to do when designing a mobile app. 1. Don't Begin Wireframes or Designs Without a Flow map 2. Don't Disregard the Development Budget. 3. Don't Start With Low Resolutions & Avoid Bitmaps. 4. Don't Undersize The Hit Area. 5. Don't Gratuitously Use Intro Animations. 6. Don't Leave Users Hanging. 7. Don't Blindly Copy Style From Other Operating Systems. 8. Don't Overstuff Pixel-Dense Screens. 9. Don't Assume Everyone Will Use Your App The Same Way You Do. 10. Don't Forget About Gestures, But Don't Abuse Them Either.

This article is about how Best Buy will close 50 box stores and open 100 mobile shops. I found this really interesting how our society has changed so much. Now our most used devices are being replaced with newer, better, faster and smaller devices. It is interesting to see how times change. Best Buy will now change its merchandise to better suit the market. I cant imagine Best Buy without TV's.  

This article is about how Google is launching an Android Wear Project. Their goal is to bring Android to wearable devices. The world is staring to elaborate more with mobile technology and increasing the number of different uses for mobile tech. Right now, Android wear is focused on watches, which are designed to offer several functions. The app is planned to provide notifications, messages, and updates from social networking apps and it will include Google Now, which will allow the people to ask questions, send texts, set alarms and much more. Android Wear is also being designed to help with fitness and health by providing reminders. The company is partnering with chip makers Broadcom, Imagination, Intel, Mediatek, and Qualcomm, plus fashion brands to help introduce the new Android Wear powered watches in 2014.

Motorola Mobility this morning announced that it has set a record date and a meeting date for its stockholders to vote upon a proposal to adopt the previously announced merger agreement with Google, which proposed to acquire the smartphone, set-top boxes and video solutions company for $12.5 billion (or $40 per share) in cash last August.

The video by, Youtube channel ExtraCreditz, is about the issue of frequency space. All information that we use is transmitted through the air by different forms of radiation (radio waves, microwaves, etc.) The problem is we are running out of frequencies to use; there are only a limited band of wave lengths to transmit information with. These wavelengths can't be infinitely divided because they would end up cancelling each other out. This issue derives from the explosion in smartphone and mobile device popularity. These devices use 24x and 122x the spectrum of older cellphones respectively.  Along with other devices, we are running out of the amount of frequencies available to transmit information with. By 2014, there will no longer be any more spectrum to use. This is detrimental to any progress in developments of information sharing, such as cloud gaming. The demand for spectrum space in such ideas and innovations is simply to high with the current usage of the resource. Unless we can find a way to solve this 'Spectrum Crunch,' many future developments will not be possible. This is tagged under Portable Computing, as well as eLifestyle because this issue is born from the expansion of technology into everyday use. Before mobile technology became popular, the 'Spectrum Crunch' was never an issue. However, many companies are now racing to free up spectrum. Some solutions include freeing up spectrum used by television stations. But there is no definite answer. As the future in the world as leaders in an era of information and electronics, our generation must address problems like these to progress in the advancement of technology.