Improve Internet Download Speed of Smartphones/Tablets Through Data Tracking

Relevance of data usage tracking Smartphone apps to increase internet download speed:Special applications made for Smartphones and Tablets, often called 'Apps', consume data during download and after installation. Even if your data plan is unlimited and you have high speed internet, you may find your phone slows down once you've exceeded a data threshold set by your phone provider or if you're downloading more than one app at a time. One way to avoid downloading slowdowns on your phone is bytracking how much data you’re actually using on your phone, allowing you to pinpoint the problem.Mobile Data Tracking:Various data tracking applications are available for installation on Smartphones. You'll need an app that is made to work on your phone's mobile platform. Once you've downloaded and installed the application, you can view data usage consumption by app and associated activities.
For example, a tracking app can show you how much data the game you installed used to download. The app will also show how much data the game used while you played it and while you saved your game or connected with other players. If the game updates, you'll be able to see how much data it used to download and install the updates and how often it updates. You can track data usage for all your apps over a period of time, such as one month, to get a clearer idea of what apps use the most data and why.
Improving Download Speeds:Once you know what applications consume the most data, you can remove the apps or tailor your downloading schedule. For example, if you know you have an app that uses a lot of data while running, shut that app down before you download anything. Look forpared down, more streamlined apps that do the same thing as your data-hogging apps. You may be able to find another app for your phone that does the same thing as the app you wants to remove without using as much data.
Try downloading apps wirelessly, using a high speed internet connection instead of using your mobile internet connection to download the app. You'll still need mobileinternet service to install and run the app in most cases.
Warning Signs:Check the most commonly reported data figures for your currently installed apps to make sure your installations are not using a lot more data than other users are reporting. If you have an app that uses significantly higher data than what other usersreport, your app may be infected or corrupted. Uninstall the app and run an anti-virus app if you suspect your phone has an infected application. If the app is corrupted, you'll have to uninstall and reinstall the Applications.
If you see data usage reported from an app you don't recognize, it's likely to be a virus. Viruses may cause your phone to use more data and have poor app performance and will slow your speeds in general. Run an anti-virus app immediately if you suspect a virus.
A data tracking app is very useful if you're having trouble with downloading, but you must check the results thoroughly, so you can identify the issue you're having. You may have to get rid of a problem app even if you can't find a replacement in some cases, particularly if the app in question is a major data consumer.

prohit chauhan

PGDM 2nd SEM

How Faceook keeps its R&D cost low

1

Facebook spends a smaller percentage of revenue on engineering than other Internet companies

SAN FRANCISCO: Facebook Inc (FB) spends a smaller percentage of revenue on engineering than other Internet companies, mimicking Apple Inc's strategy of keeping costs low by relying on outside developers for research and development.

Facebook devoted 10 per cent of its sales to R&D spending last year, a fraction of the level of some other companies holding recent initial public offerings, including Zynga Inc and LinkedIn Corp. Facebook, the biggest social-networking service, is planning its own IPO this year.

The company, known for its hacker culture and marathon coding sessions, has increasingly encouraged other companies to add features to its site. Lower expenses have given Facebook fatter profit margins than the typical prospective IPO, said Colin Gillis, an analyst with BGC Partners LP in New York. The challenge is maintaining that growth amid mounting competition from Google Inc and younger startups.

"They are robust margins to be coming out of the gate with," Gillis said. "Typically what happens is a company goes public and investors like to see margin expansion." Facebook's profit margin in 2011 was 27 per cent, up from 19 per cent in 2010 and 16 per cent the previous year. That tops the 14 per cent average for companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 Index.

Room to grow?

Excluding interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, Facebook's profit margin was 56 per cent last year. That doesn't give the company much room for improvement, Gillis said.

Jonathan Thaw, a spokesman for Menlo Park, California-based Facebook, declined to comment. For now, Facebook is operating in the mold of Apple, the world's most valuable company. While Apple develops plenty of its own technology, it lets outside developers create the hundreds of thousands of apps that run on its iPhones and iPads.

The approach keeps customers loyal to its hardware without R&D eating up as much revenue. Apple devoted 1.6 percent of sales to research and development last quarter.

"We don't see any of the R&D spend by the app developers in Apple's numbers, but we see it in the result of the innovativeness," said Ron Adner, an author and professor at Dartmouth College. "Same thing with Facebook."

In Facebook's case, developers such as Zynga carry much of the weight. Zynga, based in San Francisco, offers the most popular games on Facebook's site, including "FarmVille," "Mafia Wars" and "Words With Friends."

Sales gains

For both Facebook and Apple, the relatively small R&D budgets stem in part from having booming sales. Facebook's revenue almost doubled to $3.71 billion last year after expanding more than 150 per cent the previous year. It's a challenge to hire enough engineers to keep pace with that growth, said Avi Goldfarb, a professor at the University of Toronto.

"It's a very complicated process," he said. "R&D is not something you can just throw money at and hope everything works out." Still, increasing competition for Internet users and advertisers may push Facebook into stepping up its research spending.

The Google+ social-networking site, started last year, has attracted more than 100 million users. Google also is making gains in display advertising -- Facebook's main source of revenue. It's expected to take the lead from Facebook in the market for US display ads next year, according to research firm EMarketer Inc.

Upstart rivals

To keep up, Facebook may have to spend 15 percent of revenue on engineering, said Martin Pyykkonen, an analyst at Wedge Partners Corp in Greenwood Village, Colorado. Newer rivals could quickly emerge to challenge its supremacy in social networking, just as Facebook itself displaced MySpace, he said.

Even so, Facebook's lower R&D spending doesn't mean the company is underinvesting in future products, said Nate Elliott, an analyst with Forrester Research Inc in New York. Facebook has continued to roll out new products, including a revamped timeline feature for its profile pages and mobile services that let members show their locations.

"I would be more concerned if they weren't leading the social-media space in innovation," Elliott said. "This is the social site that has done more than any other to introduce new features and new ways for consumers to interact with their property."

And unlike Google, Facebook is dabbling in fewer projects that are far afield of its main business, Adner said. "They're not out there coming up with driverless cars," he said. "They're not out there coming up with solutions for solar energy. They're completely focused on their business. That probably increases the effectiveness of whatever spend we're seeing."

Facebook's future research budget may hinge on the company getting a better idea of what areas it needs to focus on, said Sameet Sinha, an analyst with B. Riley & Co. For example, if it decides to pursue e-commerce more aggressively, that would put it in more competition with Amazon.com Inc.

"Once they decide what's going on, what's going to be important for them, I think they will intensify their R&D efforts," he said. 

 

Deepak Kumar-PG-II

Samsung launches Smart TV with voice control in India

0

Samsung Electronics launched smart television for the Indian market

BANGKOK: Samsung Electronics launched smart television for the Indian market that would allow users to control TV through voice or motion commands.

Users can turn the TV on or off, activate select applications or search for select content in the web browser - without touching the remote.

The smart interaction is available on the company's 2012 flagship smart TVs, including the LED ES8000 series, LED ES7500 series and the plasma E8000 series.

The price of these smart TVs would range from Rs 45,000 to Rs 2.65 lakh.

"South West Asian consumers have been quick to adopt mobile technologies, like smartphones and tablets that allow them to make their content accessible wherever they go," said B.D. Park, president and CEO, South West Asia and managing director Samsung India Electronics at Samsung's South West Asia Regional Forum 2012.

"They expect not only greater accessibility but greater, more compelling content - all of which are needs met through Samsung's vision for the future of smart TV," he added.

The products are built on three parameters - smart interaction, smart content and smart evolution. The firm also unveiled Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 310, expanding its Galaxy range. Available in 3G and WiFi versions, the product would be available in South West Asia from April.

Equipped with Android 4.0, the tablet features WiFi Direct and built-in social networking features such as ChatON, Samsung's cross-platform communication service.

Currently the company has over 40 per cent market share of tablets in India. Samsung India reported a sale of Rs 20,000 crore in 2011.
Prohit Chauhan-PG-2

Tablets helping media industry: Study

AP | Mar 19, 2012, 10.36AM IST

Article

Comments

inShare

Read more:YouTube|Yahoo|Twitter|The Washington Post|Tablet|Online revenues|Newspapers|News|Microsoft|media industry|Media|Journalism|iPad|Google|Flipboard|Facebook|APP|AOL

0

Mobile technology appears to be increasing the public appetite for news but it's far from clear whether the news industry will profit from that.

NEW YORK: Mobile technology appears to be increasing the public appetite for news but it's far from clear whether the news industry will profit from that, a study issued Monday concluded.

The Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism, in its annual state of the news media report, found encouraging signs within the 27 per cent of Americans who say they get news on their smartphones or tablets.

These consumers are likely to seek out traditional news sites or applications, strengthening their bond with old newspaper or television news organizations. People with tablets tend to read longer articles and spend more time with news sites than they do on phones or desktop computers, said Tom Rosenstiel, Project for Excellence in Journalism director.

Many people already make it a habit to check their tablets before going to bed to see what is going to be in a newspaper the next day, he said.

Unique visits to online news sites jumped 17 per cent from 2010 to 2011, similar to the increase from the year before, the report said.

"The demand for conventional journalism endures and in some ways is even growing," Rosenstiel said. "There were many people that didn't predict that. The content is still coming from traditional news companies."

Yet technology companies, rather than news companies, are better set up to take advantage of online revenue opportunities. The report found that five companies - Microsoft, Google, Facebook, AOL and Yahoo! - generated 68 per cent of digital ad revenue in 2011.

News companies are generally not as able to provide the specific consumer information that digital advertisers seek, and they certainly have not been as aggressive in this area as the technology companies, said media critic Jeff Jarvis, who writes the Buzzmachine.com blog.

Jarvis also criticizes news organisations for not being more creative with their websites and applications, and not encouraging users to link information.

"I fear the iPad is a siren call to news organizations, seducing them into thinking they can maintain their old models and old controls, not just maintain but regain them," he said.

For news organizations, "there's a lot of work that needs to be done," said Roger Fidler, program director at the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri. "But it needs to be done very quickly."

Rosenstiel noted the trend of technology companies working with news organizations on new ventures announced within the past year: Yahoo! reaching a deal to stream ABC News reports; YouTube launching original programming channels, including one operated by the news service Thomson Reuters; The Washington Post developing a news aggregator, Trove.com, available through Facebook.

The Associated Press has begun providing some of its election coverage to the popular tablet app Flipboard, entered into a partnership with WhoSay.com over use of celebrity photos and also worked with Twitter on release of Nevada Republican caucus results.

The PEJ report noted how social media is increasingly driving news, through people who pass along recommendations to read articles to their friends through Facebook and Twitter. Still, only 9 per cent of adults say they follow such recommendations regularly, compared to 36 per cent who say they go directly to a news organization's app.

Most media sectors saw audience growth in 2011, with the exception of newspapers, the report said. The television network news audience grew for the first time in a decade and local stations also saw news growth in the late evening and early morning, the PEJ said. 

 

Rakesh Poddar-PG-II