Tag: mobile technology

Retailer aims to bolster presence in mobile commerce

Prominent online retailer eBay is poised to expand its presence in the mobile space, according to the company’s new chief product officer, RJ Pittman. The newly hired Pittman recently left a position with Apple in order to pursue new opportunities. Pittman garnered acclaim in his field for developing Apple’s popular storefront and may be a powerful addition to eBay’s staff. The retailer has been working to bolster its presence in the mobile space in order to hold more sway over mobile commerce.

The mobile space has become a priority for eBay

Mobile commerce has become a major focus for eBay due to its popularity with consumers. Many people favor mobile commerce over more traditional forms of commerce because it is more convenient for them to shop online rather than in person. Retailers like eBay offer comprehensive mobile infrastructures that make it easy for consumers to shop on their mobile devices, thereby making it more likely for them to purchase products online. While eBay currently boasts of a significant presence in the mobile field, the retailer is prepared to increase this presence significantly in the near future.

Pittman to focus on improving services

Pittman is currently working to improve eBay’s payment process in order to make it friendlier to mobile users. The retailer already has the backing of PayPal, which is an eBay subsidiary, and Pittman believes that the services offered by PayPal could be put to better use by its parent company. PayPal’s recent acquisition of mobile commerce pioneer Braintree may have some impact on Pittman’s plans as the acquisition provides PayPal, as well as eBay, access to powerful mobile commerce technology.

eBay aims to bring mobile commerce to physical stores

While eBay expects that mobile commerce will have an impact on online shopping, the retailer intends to leverage the power of the mobile space to make shopping in physical stores more engaging. Consumers may be growing more reliant on their mobile devices, but that does not mean they are abandoning physical stores. Ensuring that traditional retailers can accommodate the needs of mobile consumers by embracing mobile commerce has become a priority for eBay.

Smartphones and tablets might be able to be recharged simply by nuking them.

A recent development from tech scientists has revealed that the microwave oven may soon be used for charging the batteries of electronic and mobile gadgets, instead of just for popping popcorn and nuking leftovers.

In a joint project between two educational institutions, this technology may one day be available.

The researchers were from the Institute of Technology in Georgia, as well as from the University of Tokyo. Together, they have come up with the initial form of a device that can gather and store microwave energy from the standard kitchen appliance, so that it can be used to charge the batteries in mobile gadgets.

This could make it very fast and easy to charge gadgets and is very promising for new technologies.

According to a statement in a paper by Yoshihiro Kawahara, the leader of the team, “The energy accumulated over two minutes was found to be sufficient for the operation of some of low-power kitchen tools for a few minutes and operate wireless sensor node for 2.5 hours.”

That said, the team did acknowledge that the charging gadget still requires some work in order to perfect it, as the energy that was stored within the capacitor after the two minutes had passed “was only 15 percent of the ideal case.” The team explained that it may also be able to better the energy accumulation from the leakage that escapes microwave ovens “by using more sophisticated impedance matching and power management methods.”

In another report on the technology, it was revealed that the machine that was built by the team is able to collect the wasted microwave oven energy for charging electronic gadgets. It snatches up the escaped energy that is produced while the device is running for heating up food. It functions by picking up the excess energy through an antenna in the harvester, so that it can then be channeled into other devices such as smartphones or MP3 players. The technology still requires perfection or the microwave would need to run for a very long amount of time to be able to collect any worthwhile amount of charge for the device batteries.