Origial Story: USAToday.com
It's not you, it's me. I love you, I'm just not in love with you.
Just because you're swooning over the newest smartphone doesn't mean you have to just ditch the old one. I mean, it's been pressed to your face or cradled in the palm of your hand for a few years now, surely you don't want to just throw out your old handset like yesterday's soggy takeout coffee cup.
Here are five fantastic ways to repurpose that trusty gadget so it can go on faithfully serving you for many years to come.
1. Turn it into a video surveillance system for your house
Just download the free Presence app on your old iOS device, pair it with your new fancy iPhone, and voila! You now have a top-notch security camera and motion detector thanks to the fantastic video capabilities of your old gadget. You can use it to keep an eye on your home base in real time, and have it send you alerts when there's something fishy going on. Your old smartphone is a great addition to a Bay City control 4 home automation system.
2. Use it to keep an eye on the newborn
Take that spare phone and turn it into a high-tech baby monitor with an app like Dormi for Android phones. You can check real-time video right from the app, and it even has two-way audio as well, so you can whisper sweet nothings to your little one, even if you're miles away. A similar app called Cloud Baby Monitor works on iOS devices, and it even lets you apply a soothing "night light" using the phone's built-in LED.
3. Make it do scientific research
Want your old smartphone to do something you can really be proud of? BIONC is an app from the Space Science Laboratory at U.C. Berkeley that uses the power of your phone to do work on serious scientific problems, from studying diseases to forecasting global warming. When you plug your device into a power outlet the BIONC app will request data to work on from a central server and proceed to work through it using your phone's processor. It then sends the processed data back to the scientists who use it in their research. It's one of the coolest things your phone can do, and it can do it right from your countertop!
4. Make it a master navigator
Your phone is probably already your favorite navigation tool, so if you replaced it with a new gadget, why not let it continue its GPS duties in a whole new way? The Hudway app is unbelievably cool for one special reason: It actually lets you see your directions and route right on your windshield. The reflection of the app on the glass of your windshield acts as a crazy-cool heads-up display to help you navigate in all kinds of conditions, especially in fog or heavy rain.
5. Let it keep doing what it's already doing
Just because you have a fantastic new smartphone, that doesn't mean your old gadget has to stop doing the work it's been doing all along. A spare smartphone is great as a media player, a digital camera, a gaming device, personal organizer, and even a great toy for kids to enjoy educational games and apps. Your old smartphone is a great addition to a Midland home automation system.You paid a whole bunch of cash for your previous phone, so make sure you get the most out of it, and take some of the battery-draining work off of your shiny new gadget's hands.
The best part of repurposing your phone is that no matter what task you want it to do, you can always change things up later on. If you decide you don't need a GPS unit, it's still a great portable gaming system or video surveillance unit! Just about the only thing it can't do is brew you a cup of coffee — but that's surely on the roadmap for the smartphone of the future.
Showing posts with label smartphone. Show all posts
Showing posts with label smartphone. Show all posts
Thursday, September 18, 2014
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Blackberry Maker RIM Headed for a Cliff
Story first appeared in USA Today.
Research In Motion Ltd., the maker of the BlackBerry, is in steep decline. The company, once the crown jewel of the Canadian technology industry, is now worth 1% of Apple's market capitalization. One way for RIM to stop the downward tailspin: It could sell itself to a competitor or financial firm. But who would step up to buy RIM — and why?
Late Tuesday, the company said it expects to post an operating loss for the current quarter, a sign that BlackBerry sales are falling even faster than analysts expected. On Wednesday, the company's stock hit its lowest level since 2003, the year RIM went from making two-way e-mail pagers to smartphones.
The stock has fallen 93% since their peak in 2008. Since then, the BlackBerry's dominance as the smartphone for on-the-go business people has been eviscerated by Apple Inc.'s iPhone, and more recently, by phones running Google Inc.'s Android software. Research firm IDC says BlackBerrys now account for 6.4% of the global smartphone market, a third of what they had two years ago.
In that time, the company's financial performance has suffered. RIM reported a 25% revenue decline in the latest fiscal quarter, to $4.2 billion from $5.6 billion. For the full fiscal year that ended on March 3, it earned $1.2 billion, or $2.22 per share, on revenue of $18.4 billion. That's down from net income of $3.4 billion, or $6.34 a share, on revenue of $19.9 billion in fiscal 2011.
RIM issued the dire warning about its business Tuesday, adding that it will lay off a "significant" number of employees.
Still, the company is defiant. The Chief executive says he can turn things around with the help of fresh smartphone software. He joined RIM four years ago and was most recently its chief operating officer. He replaced co-CEOs in January after the company lost tens of billions in market value.
Analysts give RIM only a slight chance of coming out of the crisis. To hedge its bets, the company has hired bankers to look at its options. It's not actively looking to sell itself, but it wants to be prepared.
As RIM's prospects worsened, last year marked a turning point in the way analysts assess RIMs value. Instead of treating it like a company with a future, they started looking at it as a collection of parts that could be split up and sold separately to the highest bidder.
Most of the company's value lies in the monthly fees it gets from phone companies in exchange for running the systems that deliver email and Web pages to BlackBerrys.
RIM has 78 million users connected to this system, but estimates show only 20 million are corporate and government users who are likely to stick around because of the communications security RIM provides. The rest are consumers who will jump to competing phones. That business is worth about $2.75 billion to a competitor.
The other major component of RIM's value is its patent portfolio. The company had an early scare in U.S. patent courts in 2006, when it was forced to pay $612.5 million to a small company founded by an inventor who had patents on wireless e-mail delivery. Since then, it's filed for thousands of patents to use as a defense against future suits.
Patents on wireless technologies exploded in value last year, as Apple and Microsoft Corp. started suing makers of phones that run Google's Android software. Countersuits followed. A consortium that included Apple and RIM bought the patents of a defunct Canadian maker of telecommunications gear, Nortel, for $4.5 billion last year. That compares with the $1.13 billion Nortel's once-prominent wireless networks business fetched in 2009.
As a counter-move, Google bolstered its own patent portfolio by buying Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc., a U.S. phone maker with only slightly better prospects than RIM, for $12.5 billion.
Where does that leave RIM? The CEO of MDB Capital, said RIM's patents are worth more than $1 billion, and could be worth as much as $4 billion if a bidding war develops between Apple, Google, Microsoft Corp. and perhaps Samsung Electronics Co.
The value of RIM's portfolio is placde at $2.5 billion, excluding the patents RIM bought from Nortel and shares with Apple, Microsoft and other buyers.
RIM has $2.1 billion in cash, but Walkley discounts this completely, since the phone business will likely start using up cash soon, and downsizing will require severance payments. That means the email network and the patents comprise RIM's entire value at $5.25 billion, by his estimate.
That's very close to RIM's current market capitalization, at $5.4 billion, though a buyer could be expected to pay a premium.
The cash cushion also means that RIM is in no imminent danger of going bankrupt. But as the shares decline, RIM is likely to face increasing pressure from shareholders to unlock the company's value through a sale, and to abandon the comeback plan.
A possible middle ground would be to sell the patent portfolio while keeping the rest of the company. Two months ago, AOL, once a pioneering Internet service provider, sold and licensed its patents —which are more modest than RIM's for $1 billion— to Microsoft.
Microsoft is one company that's been suggested as a potential RIM buyer. The software juggernaut is trying to get back into smartphone software, but its Windows Phones haven't been popular so far. Buying RIM could give it a chance to establish itself as a provider of trusted wireless email services, though moving subscribers from BlackBerry to Windows could be challenging.
Research In Motion Ltd., the maker of the BlackBerry, is in steep decline. The company, once the crown jewel of the Canadian technology industry, is now worth 1% of Apple's market capitalization. One way for RIM to stop the downward tailspin: It could sell itself to a competitor or financial firm. But who would step up to buy RIM — and why?
Late Tuesday, the company said it expects to post an operating loss for the current quarter, a sign that BlackBerry sales are falling even faster than analysts expected. On Wednesday, the company's stock hit its lowest level since 2003, the year RIM went from making two-way e-mail pagers to smartphones.
The stock has fallen 93% since their peak in 2008. Since then, the BlackBerry's dominance as the smartphone for on-the-go business people has been eviscerated by Apple Inc.'s iPhone, and more recently, by phones running Google Inc.'s Android software. Research firm IDC says BlackBerrys now account for 6.4% of the global smartphone market, a third of what they had two years ago.
In that time, the company's financial performance has suffered. RIM reported a 25% revenue decline in the latest fiscal quarter, to $4.2 billion from $5.6 billion. For the full fiscal year that ended on March 3, it earned $1.2 billion, or $2.22 per share, on revenue of $18.4 billion. That's down from net income of $3.4 billion, or $6.34 a share, on revenue of $19.9 billion in fiscal 2011.
RIM issued the dire warning about its business Tuesday, adding that it will lay off a "significant" number of employees.
Still, the company is defiant. The Chief executive says he can turn things around with the help of fresh smartphone software. He joined RIM four years ago and was most recently its chief operating officer. He replaced co-CEOs in January after the company lost tens of billions in market value.
Analysts give RIM only a slight chance of coming out of the crisis. To hedge its bets, the company has hired bankers to look at its options. It's not actively looking to sell itself, but it wants to be prepared.
As RIM's prospects worsened, last year marked a turning point in the way analysts assess RIMs value. Instead of treating it like a company with a future, they started looking at it as a collection of parts that could be split up and sold separately to the highest bidder.
Most of the company's value lies in the monthly fees it gets from phone companies in exchange for running the systems that deliver email and Web pages to BlackBerrys.
RIM has 78 million users connected to this system, but estimates show only 20 million are corporate and government users who are likely to stick around because of the communications security RIM provides. The rest are consumers who will jump to competing phones. That business is worth about $2.75 billion to a competitor.
The other major component of RIM's value is its patent portfolio. The company had an early scare in U.S. patent courts in 2006, when it was forced to pay $612.5 million to a small company founded by an inventor who had patents on wireless e-mail delivery. Since then, it's filed for thousands of patents to use as a defense against future suits.
Patents on wireless technologies exploded in value last year, as Apple and Microsoft Corp. started suing makers of phones that run Google's Android software. Countersuits followed. A consortium that included Apple and RIM bought the patents of a defunct Canadian maker of telecommunications gear, Nortel, for $4.5 billion last year. That compares with the $1.13 billion Nortel's once-prominent wireless networks business fetched in 2009.
As a counter-move, Google bolstered its own patent portfolio by buying Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc., a U.S. phone maker with only slightly better prospects than RIM, for $12.5 billion.
Where does that leave RIM? The CEO of MDB Capital, said RIM's patents are worth more than $1 billion, and could be worth as much as $4 billion if a bidding war develops between Apple, Google, Microsoft Corp. and perhaps Samsung Electronics Co.
The value of RIM's portfolio is placde at $2.5 billion, excluding the patents RIM bought from Nortel and shares with Apple, Microsoft and other buyers.
RIM has $2.1 billion in cash, but Walkley discounts this completely, since the phone business will likely start using up cash soon, and downsizing will require severance payments. That means the email network and the patents comprise RIM's entire value at $5.25 billion, by his estimate.
That's very close to RIM's current market capitalization, at $5.4 billion, though a buyer could be expected to pay a premium.
The cash cushion also means that RIM is in no imminent danger of going bankrupt. But as the shares decline, RIM is likely to face increasing pressure from shareholders to unlock the company's value through a sale, and to abandon the comeback plan.
A possible middle ground would be to sell the patent portfolio while keeping the rest of the company. Two months ago, AOL, once a pioneering Internet service provider, sold and licensed its patents —which are more modest than RIM's for $1 billion— to Microsoft.
Microsoft is one company that's been suggested as a potential RIM buyer. The software juggernaut is trying to get back into smartphone software, but its Windows Phones haven't been popular so far. Buying RIM could give it a chance to establish itself as a provider of trusted wireless email services, though moving subscribers from BlackBerry to Windows could be challenging.
For more national and worldwide Business News, visit the Peak News
Room blog.
For more local and state of Michigan Business News, visit
the Michigan Business News blog.
For more Health News, visit the
Healthcare and Medical News blog.
For more Electronics
News, visit the Electronics America blog.
For more Real Estate News,
visit the Commercial and Residential Real Estate blog.
For more Law News,
visit the Nation of Law blog.
For more Advertising
News, visit the Advertising, Marketing and Media blog.
For more Environmental News,
visit the Environmental Responsibility News blog.
For information on website optimization or for the latest SEO News, visit the SEO Done Right
blog.
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Unplug from Your Smartphone Once in a While
Story first appeared in USA Today.
Do you take your smartphone to bed because you claim to use it as a nightlight, say it's the only alarm clock you have, or need to make sure you don't miss a critical text?
Here's the problem with that thinking: Now that the phone is only an arm's reach away, it's easy to check a few e-mails, perhaps sending off a few responses so you have one fewer thing to do tomorrow.
You've just stepped onto a very slippery slope that will make it difficult not to be connected 24/7. You've become one of those millions of workers who fire off e-mails at midnight or reach for the smartphone before your first cup of coffee every morning.
You may claim that you have to work this way because your job — or your employer — demands it.
But this drive to stay connected all the time is really your own fault, not something that can be blamed on just an employer or a job.
Using professional services firm the Boston Consulting Group as a sort of guinea pig, an expert asked a team of high-powered, always-connected consultants to see if they could disconnect more and actually improve their performance and job happiness. She found that the team not only discovered ways to turn off one night a week, they also became closer as a team, more satisfied with their jobs and produced better results.
The company saw a clear improvement in recruitment, retention and engagement, and the process spread throughout the organization.
But by committing as a team to predictable time off for each person, they communicated more, supported everyone's efforts to disconnect — and held one another accountable for slip-ups, such sending e-mails during designated time-off periods.
The problem when someone is connected 24/7 is that it sets a norm for other members of the team. They start to feel that to be responsive, they have to respond late at night to e-mails. It's not even urgent, but it just matriculates all this bad behavior.
In other words, the biggest enemy to work-life balance is us.
Even doctors, who do life-saving work, have times when they are off and times when they are on call. So, why don't the rest of us?
The process of predictable time off will work only if all the team members agree to it, she says. If a team wants to try it, she gives a list of suggestions in her book:
• Be honest. Tell other team members your hopes and fears.
• Stop the stubbornness. Maybe the collective goal of the group — having an afternoon off every two weeks — doesn't meet your top priority. Still, don't let that stop the process.
Look for goals everyone can meet but also are a stretch. Members of the Boston Consulting team never knew when they would get a night off. That uncertainty was solved by giving each person a regular evening when they weren't expected to be plugged in.
Just having that predictability was valuable for everyone, she says.
• Meet regularly. A team must share regularly what's happening in their lives. This helps build trust and a willingness to support one another.
If things get off track with a team member, don't rush to judgment but try to understand what's going on by asking questions.
• Hold one another accountable. Team members may enter into the agreement with the best of intentions, but it can be easy to slip back into old patterns when work becomes stressful.
However, that's when it's most important to remind one another to take a step back and realize that the work will be done better if the balance is maintained.
Research has found that people with unpredictable work often try to gain predictability by becoming more connected, but that leads only to more unpredictability.
Do you take your smartphone to bed because you claim to use it as a nightlight, say it's the only alarm clock you have, or need to make sure you don't miss a critical text?
Here's the problem with that thinking: Now that the phone is only an arm's reach away, it's easy to check a few e-mails, perhaps sending off a few responses so you have one fewer thing to do tomorrow.
You've just stepped onto a very slippery slope that will make it difficult not to be connected 24/7. You've become one of those millions of workers who fire off e-mails at midnight or reach for the smartphone before your first cup of coffee every morning.
You may claim that you have to work this way because your job — or your employer — demands it.
But this drive to stay connected all the time is really your own fault, not something that can be blamed on just an employer or a job.
Using professional services firm the Boston Consulting Group as a sort of guinea pig, an expert asked a team of high-powered, always-connected consultants to see if they could disconnect more and actually improve their performance and job happiness. She found that the team not only discovered ways to turn off one night a week, they also became closer as a team, more satisfied with their jobs and produced better results.
The company saw a clear improvement in recruitment, retention and engagement, and the process spread throughout the organization.
But by committing as a team to predictable time off for each person, they communicated more, supported everyone's efforts to disconnect — and held one another accountable for slip-ups, such sending e-mails during designated time-off periods.
The problem when someone is connected 24/7 is that it sets a norm for other members of the team. They start to feel that to be responsive, they have to respond late at night to e-mails. It's not even urgent, but it just matriculates all this bad behavior.
In other words, the biggest enemy to work-life balance is us.
Even doctors, who do life-saving work, have times when they are off and times when they are on call. So, why don't the rest of us?
The process of predictable time off will work only if all the team members agree to it, she says. If a team wants to try it, she gives a list of suggestions in her book:
• Be honest. Tell other team members your hopes and fears.
• Stop the stubbornness. Maybe the collective goal of the group — having an afternoon off every two weeks — doesn't meet your top priority. Still, don't let that stop the process.
Look for goals everyone can meet but also are a stretch. Members of the Boston Consulting team never knew when they would get a night off. That uncertainty was solved by giving each person a regular evening when they weren't expected to be plugged in.
Just having that predictability was valuable for everyone, she says.
• Meet regularly. A team must share regularly what's happening in their lives. This helps build trust and a willingness to support one another.
If things get off track with a team member, don't rush to judgment but try to understand what's going on by asking questions.
• Hold one another accountable. Team members may enter into the agreement with the best of intentions, but it can be easy to slip back into old patterns when work becomes stressful.
However, that's when it's most important to remind one another to take a step back and realize that the work will be done better if the balance is maintained.
Research has found that people with unpredictable work often try to gain predictability by becoming more connected, but that leads only to more unpredictability.
For more national and worldwide Business News, visit the Peak News
Room blog.
For more local and state of Michigan Business News, visit
the Michigan Business News blog.
For more Health News, visit the
Healthcare and Medical News blog.
For more Electronics
News, visit the Electronics America blog.
For more Real Estate News,
visit the Commercial and Residential Real Estate blog.
For more Law News,
visit the Nation of Law blog.
For more Advertising
News, visit the Advertising, Marketing and Media blog.
For more Environmental News,
visit the Environmental Responsibility News blog.
For information on website optimization or for the latest SEO News, visit the SEO Done Right
blog.
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