Category: Gadgets

Mobile technology frustrations grow in India with regularly dropped calls

| October 5, 2015

The explosive growth of telecom and weak infrastructure are posing a threat to Modi’s plan to connect rural and urban India.

Mobile technology has been taking off in India with a vengeance, but the dream that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been aiming to realize – to bring steady connections to urban and rural regions of the country – could be threatened due to a number of common struggles.

Almost one billion people in India have connected to the country’s cell phone services over the last ten years.

This has been a part of the mobile technology revolution that has been occurring in the country. It has brought India to the point that they are the second largest market in the world for wireless phones. However, a recent combination of rapid growth and the poor wireless infrastructure has also meant that the hopes the country has had to expand its mobile network reach has become exceptionally difficult and frustrating to device users.

The current mobile technology situation in the country has earned it the nickname of the “call-drop nation”.

Mobile Technology FrustrationThe regularly dropped calls is currently affecting people in all social statuses and income levels. The help line run by the government in order to allow for consumers across the country to register complaints has now reported that dropped calls are among the leading grievances that have been registered over the summer. It has become national headline news and has even led to the creation of a popular social media hashtag campaign called #NoCallDrops.

Though this problem has been growing steadily worse as mobile connections have been getting worse, the issue has been catapulted into the spotlight over the last few weeks after dozens of cell towers in the country’s capital were deemed invalid by the municipal corporation. This brought the three largest mobile device makers in India before a parliamentary committee in the hopes of discovering a solution to this widespread issue. Modi has called to his officials to repair this problem.

According to mobile technology consultant Prasanto K Roy, “India’s mobile network is under tremendous stress,” adding that “if we fail to address mobile connectivity problems, it will directly hit the government’s Digital India initiative.”

Wearable technology played a vital role in the Warriors win, says Iguodala

| October 2, 2015

The NBA Finals MVP has declared that wearables are exceptionally helpful to athletes.

Andre Iguodala has given tremendous praise to wearable technology when he recently spoke about the role that it played in the title win by the Golden State Warriors.

Wearables have been increasing in popularity among athletic teams and individual athletes, alike.

Iguodala spoke at a panel, recently, where he said that “The wearable market helps athletes more than anybody. You can say they helped us win a championship.” This is no small statement, as wearable technology was just credited with assisting the athletes to an actual championship win. Teams have been using these mobile devices at a growing rate to not only better understand the performance of the players, but also to help them to reduce the risk of injury.

The NBA player also recently visited the headquarters of Jawbone in San Francisco for more wearable technology.

Wearable Technology - Andre IguodalaWhile there, he met with Hosain Rahman, the CEO of Jawbone. This allowed him to share the personal sleep data that had been collected by Iguodala’s UP activity tracker and the related mobile application. An analysis was conducted comparing the amount of rest that the player was able to receive and his performance during a game the next day.

What they discovered was that when Iguodala was able to receive at least eight hours of sleep on the night before playing a game, he was able to play for an average of 12 percent more minutes per game, and his scoring was 29 percent higher per minute. Moreover, he was also able to boost his free-throw shooting by an average of 9 percent and he saw a 2 percent increase in his three-point shots. That minimum of eight hours of sleep also led to a 37 percent decrease in his turnovers and a 45 percent decrease in personal fouls.

While it was not the wearable technology, itself, that allowed for the improvement in Iguodala’s performance, the device is what collects the data that can then be analyzed in order to understand the relationship between factors such as sleep and other health and wellbeing stats with his ability to play during a game.