Category: Gadgets

Mobile gaming trends reveal massive demand on device batteries

| October 16, 2014

Considering the penetration of smartphones, it isn’t entirely shocking that 44 percent of gamers use that device to play.

According to the Entertainment Software Association report “2014 Sales, Demographic, and Usage Data: Essential Facts About the Computer and Video Gaming Industry,” mobile gaming is rapidly on the rise as 44 percent of all gamers are using their smartphones as their device of choice.

This has been presenting considerable challenges as mobile devices are run exclusively on batteries.

Unlike video game consoles, in which the primary component is plugged into a wall socket in order to provide power – even if the controllers are wireless – mobile gaming relies exclusively on devices that are run on smartphone batteries. When considering that Big Fish Games has predicted that the market for smartphone and tablet based gaming is expected to double by 2016, that’s a lot of drain in the built in power bank.

This trend has made the portable phone charger an essential tool for the mobile gaming industry.

mobile gaming trendsBeside smartphones, tablets are also becoming extremely important mobile gaming devices. This is picking up as penetration of those devices starts to pick up, though it remains nowhere near that of smartphones, for the moment. New data cited by Big Fish Games has suggested that these will be among the most important gaming devices in terms of popularity, as revenue from those games will have grown 400 percent by 2016. The larger screens and better hardware have made those gadgets specifically appealing to gamers.

Even gamers who are loyal to PC and consoles are playing tablet and smartphone games. Among American households that have a dedicated PC or a gaming console, 53 percent play games on smartphones, too.

While smartphone battery technology is improving, it is not doing so nearly fast enough to keep up with the power demands on those devices, particularly as mobile gaming continues to pick up. Those apps cause a notable drain and can lead the device to run out of juice before it is convenient for the user to recharge it. For this – among other reasons – high quality external battery charger power banks from companies such as Mogix have become a vital tool for gamers, regardless of their mobile device of choice.

Mobile technology trends shows that teen boys and girls text differently

| October 15, 2014

The results of a recent study have shown that the texting language that is used is different between the sexes.

Adolescence is a time in which self expression can feel as though it is quite challenging and complicated, and with the added number of channels that are now available for communication – from in-person to phone, video calling, emailing, social media posts, and texting, among others – online and mobile technology appear to be revealing trends in the way that teens talk.

Texting has become an especially important channel for social communication among teenagers.

This seemingly basic form of communication gives teens the opportunity to talk to others – including people from the opposite sex – without being watched over by peer groups or their parents, in the majority of circumstances. Now, research published in the Journal of Children and Media has looked into the way that this mobile technology is used, and the trends in language and how they differ between the sexes and in overall gender identity when using text.

This mobile technology based study was conducted across four different American cities within nine focus groups.

Mobile Technology - Teen BoysEach focus group contained participants between 12 and 18 years of age. The mobile technology investigation was designed to provide a broad understanding of the way that teens communicate over smartphones. They looked into a number of different kinds of social interaction, and what they found notable was that even over mobile devices, the historical language use differences between males and females appeared to be maintained in the texting styles used by the boys and girls who participated.

While the boys in the study viewed their mobile devices as a kind of status symbol for the performance of a certain function, girls were more interested in chatting and socializing. The boy side of a conversation was fast and direct, with a specific purpose in mind, and then it was over, for example, making arrangements to meet. One of the boys implied that long text conversations were exclusively for girls. Another called the tests that girls send “just BS”.

The girls, on the other hand, liked to socialize and converse over text, and used smiley faces and emoticons to enhance their words. They viewed texting over mobile technology as another way of building and maintaining their friendships. What was interesting was that when boys were texting girls, the guys admitted to “playing the game,” that is, using longer and emotive texts to avoid misrepresenting themselves which could lead to hurt feelings.