Tag: mobile technology

Mobile technology startups from Xiaomi to pop up in India

| January 15, 2015

The company has now built up a massive amount of funding for its efforts to fund its next steps.

Xiaomi recently announced that its latest round of funding had closed at about $1 billion, and now it is going to take that money and pour it into efforts to open up mobile technology startups in India, as well as companies focused on connected devices and content aggregation.

The company is working on launching its own startup environment in India, comparable to what it accomplished in China.

In fact, mobile technology startups in India are included among the top priorities for Xiaomi in 2015. According to the head of Xiaomi India, Manu Jain, “We may co-develop, invest or launch their products. We have discussed with a few startups so far.” At the same time that these statements were released, the company declined to make any specific mention of the names of some of the startups that would be launched, or the size of the investment that it would specifically be making.

The company already labels itself as being a mobile technology and e-commerce business, not just a handset manufacturer.

Mobile Technology - Xiaomi and IndiaXiaomi has previously poured investments into Chinese startups that are focused on parts of the tech industry including wearable technology (such as in its fitness band), a video website, and in a smart light bulbs effort.

According to a Convergence Catalyst partner, Jayant Kolla, “Startups would find it lucrative to work with Xiaomi versus other corporates, as it is agile and has been able to grow, coupling the scale brought forward by both the internet and mobile era.” That firm is the Indian branch of one of Xiaomi’s most valuable startups on the globe and which managed to sell a million devices in the country in well under half of a year.

At the time that this article was written, Xiaomi was being valued at about $45 billion, and it has every intention to grow this year through its mobile technology and other startup investments in India. Though its past has been greatly based on smartphones, those are clearly only the beginning of what it has up its sleeves as it progresses into the future.

Separation anxiety from mobile devices makes us dumber, study

| January 14, 2015

When you can’t find your iPhone, do you feel as though you can’t think straight? It’s not your imagination.

It is a common feeling for people who are regular users of mobile devices to feel as though they aren’t able to think as clearly or to remember as much when they are separated from those gadgets, and a recent study has shown that this isn’t just a feeling…

People who are suddenly separated from their iPhones don’t perform as well on cognitive tests.

The results of a new study that was conducted by researchers at the University of Missouri determined that subjects who were the owners of iPhones and who were separated from those mobile devices ended up performing measurably more poorly on cognitive tests. This study did not go to the extent as to say that using smartphones was making people smarter. Instead, what it suggested was that people who typically had cell phones and used them on a regular basis experienced notably anxiety when those gadgets were taken away, to the point that they were not able to concentrate as well as they typically would.

Subjects were informed that they would be testing out new types of mobile devices for measuring blood pressure.

Mobile devices iphoneOnce they were hooked up to the monitors, they were required to complete a simple word search style puzzle. Once that first puzzle was completed, they were asked to finish another one. The difference during the second test was that they were required to relinquish their iPhones in order to do it, as they were told that the smartphones were causing “Bluetooth interference” with the blood pressure gadgets that they were led to believe that they were testing.

During that second test, their blood pressure, heart rate, and anxiety levels all rose. What was highly notable about this reaction was that their cognitive function slipped, as well, and they were not able to do as well on the simple word search puzzle.

The conclusion that researchers drew from this mobile devices study was that if a large exam or business meeting is coming up, don’t leave the smartphone at home, as doing so could be harmful to performance.