The IDC has announced that smartphones are now shipping in larger numbers than feature phones.
An important first has been making technology news headlines as the International Data Corporation has announced that in 2013, the number of smartphones that have been shipped will be greater than the number of feature phones.
The IDC is calling this a groundbreaking milestone since its initial prediction was made this week.
The IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker report has released the technology news in addition to the statistics to back it up. The organization has predicted that approximately 918.6 million smartphones will have been shipped this year around the world. This represents 50.1 percent of the total shipments of mobile phones. Though it is only a sliver above the halfway mark, it represents the first time that the smart devices have taken the lead.
One of the reasons for this technology news is that the price of smartphones is coming down around the globe.
Aside from prices, there are other factors that were included in the technology news announcement. For instance, there are far more options available among smartphones than ever before. Furthermore, there has been a widespread roll-out of data focused fourth generation (4G) wireless networks in many regions worldwide. This has made the devices increasingly attractive to users who can now afford them and can use them in a realistic and practical way.
The technology news report also showed that the IDC anticipates that within the next four years, there will have been 1.5billion more smartphones shipped globally. This will make up more than two out of every three mobile phone shipments.
Central to the size of these technology news numbers are the massive emerging markets around the world, such as those in India and China. According to an IDC Asia/Pacific senior research manager, Melissa Chau, “While we don’t expect China’s smartphone growth to maintain the pace of a runaway train as it has over the last two years, there continue to be big drivers to keep the market growing as it leads the way to ever-lower smartphone prices and the country’s transition to 4G networks is only just beginning.”
The dual eye technology makes it possible to recognize certain details that aren’t possible with one.
Google’s Project Glass has been drawing tremendous attention to the augmented reality goggles movement and the concept of the wearable computer, but there are now technologies that are producing results that are well beyond what even the latest glasses have to offer.
AR headsets, when combined with the right operating systems, are enhancing the experience tremendously.
The Brilliantservice R&D department has produced surprising results from what had started as an experiment at the app development house based in Japan. The operating system in question was Viking and its approach to wearable computing was a different one than the “tradition” in this area. In this instance, it used augmented reality through a reliance on gesture controls and the projection of a 720p images into each of the wearer’s eyes at the same time.
These augmented reality goggles were assembled using off the shelf parts simply for the purpose of testing.
The augmented reality goggles, in combination with the Viking OS, allowed apps to be opened, paintings to be drawn, and faces could be matched with names simply by looking in the individual’s direction. Viking, which was written in Objective C, relies on controls based on gestures as its main input format. The cameras set on top of the bridge of the nose recorded the movements of the wearer and provided the user with a graphical avatar of his or her own hand on the heads-up display unit.
This entire augmented reality device was connected to a laptop computer, which was responsible of powering it and providing it with its processing capabilities. That said, later models of the goggles will be designed with their own power source, as opposed to relying on the laptop.
The lenses of the augmented reality headset were reported to function clearly and well whether worn over the naked eye, or seen through prescription eyeglasses. The one statement that was made about the visibility of the image was the requirement to focus on the lenses as the projected images are exceptionally translucent. At the same time, this nature meant that the graphics never overwhelmed the field of vision of the user.
The IDC has announced that smartphones are now shipping in larger numbers than feature phones.