Tag: mobile devices

Mobile devices used for 49 percent of online time, comScore

| October 14, 2014

Nearly half of all of the traffic on the internet from Canada stems from a smartphone, tablet, or similar gadget.

According to the research firm, comScore, the use of mobile devices by Canadians is making its way beyond an important milestone, as the number of hours spent online over these gadgets closes in on the fifty percent mark.

Of all of the time that Canadians spend online, 49 percent of it comes from smartphones and tablets.

Canadians are currently spending an average of 33 total hours online when taking the use of all of their connected gadgets into account. Forty nine percent of that is coming from mobile devices such as their cell phones, tablets, wearable technology gadgets, the iPad Touch, and other connected electronics. If things continue in the same direction, it won’t be long at all before people in Canada are using their smartphones and tablets for more of their online time than their laptops and desktop computers.

comScore explained that messaging apps, web searches and social networks are driving the use of mobile devices upward.

mobile devices - CanadaThe firm explained that these are the purposes for which mobile gadgets are being most used while connected to the internet. For some of those users, smartphones and tablets represent the only way in which they are using the internet, and they have given up on their desktop and tablet computers, altogether.

There are currently 1.3 people in the country that will use a mobile device exclusively for accessing the internet, and who will not even touch a traditional computer, said senior account manager at comScore, Paul Rich. Rich explained that “Four per cent (of Canadian Internet users) look at online content in a month with (just) their mobile devices — their smartphone or tablet —and they don’t access anything on the desktop. That’s an emerging shift we’re seeing.”

On the other hand, while the use of mobile devices the only way that 4 percent of Canadians were accessing the internet, there was still a tremendously larger 47 percent who used their computers exclusively for their online activities, added Rich. Among those who used only smartphones or tablets, women made up 55 percent.

Google Glass is now on its way to Canada

| October 8, 2014

The company has confirmed that the wearable technology is headed north of the border, following new e-labeling laws.

Canada has now passed a law that has stated that high-tech devices that have screens that are non-removable – such as in the case of Google Glass – are no longer required to use a physical label for information such as their serial numbers, as they are now permitted to use an e-label, instead.

This change in Canadian law says that smartphones and wearable technology can now use electronic labeling.

That difference is quite important to the ability to bring new types of high tech devices, such as Google Glass, certain smartwatches, and other forms of wearable technology, to Canada, provided that they are capable of showing e-labels on displays that cannot be removed from the device. The labeling laws in the country, which previously required these mobile devices to don physical labels of serial numbers and other information, was making it prohibitively difficult

Industry Canada made this announcement in a recent press release, welcoming Google Glass and Apple Watch.

Google Glass coming to CanadaThe news release said that these labeling regulations are “opening Canada’s markets to the latest wireless wearable devices such as Google Glass and Apple Watch.” The old laws stated that all electronic, radio, and terminal equipment devices needed to show serial or model ID numbers, registration numbers, and certification numbers that were printed directly onto the device, itself, or had to be attached with a sticker.

This made it difficult – or impossible – for certain electronic and mobile devices that were manufactured in other parts of the world to be able to enter the Canadian markets. Now, the regulations have been changed and have become effective, immediately. They state that high tech gadgets that have non-removable display screens can provide that information by way of an e-label, instead of a physical printing or sticker.

The types of devices that will now be able to carry an e-label are smartphones, tablets, smartwatches, wearable glucose monitors and – once it arrives – Google Glass, Apple Watch and other forms of wearable technology with a non-removable screen. Industry Canada also pointed out that electronic labels will be able to provide additional information that physical labels cannot include due to space restrictions, such as warranty information. Moreover, remote updates to correct inaccuracies are also possible with these e-labels.