Author: Julie Campbell

Mobile payments made Lunar New Year cash gifts fast and easy

| February 27, 2015

The 2015 holiday gifts were exchanged digitally, and quite frequently over smartphones.

The 2015 Lunar New Year used mobile payments more than any previous year, as instant messaging platforms, such as WeChat from Tencent, drew a great deal of attention and made it easier for people to exchange cash gifts.

WeChat and the China Central Television Spring Festival gala were broadcast on Lunar New Year’s Eve.

During the show, mobile payments were featured, as audience members shook their smartphones throughout the broadcast in order to increase their chances of receiving red envelopes that contained cash gifts from WeChat. According to WeChat’s own figures, the show recorded 11 billion smartphone shakes. The high point was at 10:34pm, at which time the company had been recording an average of 810 million shakes every minute. During that time, there were 120 million red envelopes being distributed.

These mobile payments were issued to the people who took part in the WeChat red envelope promotion.

Mobile Payments - Chinese LanternThe service also made it possible for smartphone users to send the smartphone payments to friends and family members who were registered on their contact list through WeChat. According to the company, there were over 1 billion red envelopes that were sent out to recipients on Lunar New Year’s eve. This was about 200 times the number that had been recorded for the same day in 2014.

While many were very happy with the number of exchanges that they received and were shocked at how many different red envelopes were sent in their direction, there were some that voiced concerns over this use of digital payments over mobile. Some observers expressed that they were afraid that younger users of the mobile app might become so taken with the sending and receiving of the red envelopes over the messenger program that they will spend more time paying attention to their devices than they will with their actual families, in person.

This concern was not without foundation, as some people did admit that over the two day Lunar New Year holiday, they barely stopped checking their devices, as it was a lot of fun to be able to send and receive the red envelopes. Most of them were sent in tiny amounts, but people enjoyed the opportunity to receive them, and to send other mobile payments to their friends, family, and coworkers.

Wearable technology can help with dog health tracking

| February 25, 2015

These wearables aren’t just for humans, as pet dogs can also have their fitness monitored by their owners.

Among the hottest growing trends in humans is wearable technology that helps to monitor fitness, and now there is a growing market growing for a similar purpose, but with dogs in mind, instead.

Pet wellness has become a considerable market, and tech such as wearables is making its way in.

Last year, it was estimated that Americans, alone, spent $58 billion on care for their furry family members. As the trend for wearable technology fitness gadgets rise in humans, people are starting to realize that there is a considerable opportunity available to track the activity levels of their pets, as well, and that this could help them to make better choices in exercising and feeding their animal companions. A growing number of companies are paying attention to that trend, and are offering their own versions of pedometers and fitness trackers with Rover in mind.

Wearable technology trackers can help owners to gain a better understanding of the health of their pets.

Wearable technology - Dog HealthMany pet owners (also known as “pet parents”) are finding that wellness websites for dogs, combined with fitness trackers, are giving them the information that they need to better decide how much food their animals should be fed, and what additional activities need to be added to a dog’s day to ensure that he or she will remain healthy and happy.

Many owners discover that their pets haven’t been nearly as active as they had thought, throughout the day. This gives them the chance to take their dogs on more walks, or to add extra playtime to ensure that their dogs will not end up become overweight or, even worse, obese. Pet obesity is a dangerous condition that shortens the life of the animal and takes away from their overall wellbeing.

While some wearable technology devices are providing information about factors such as activity levels, others add more features such as sleeping patterns, and even behaviors such as scratching. By knowing more about these behaviors, and by knowing what is “normal” for an individual animal, pet owners will be better capable of identifying potential problems, earlier on.