Employers continue to be concerned about the risk and liability posed by employee use of mobile devices while driving on the job. Seven in 10 companies have adopted written policies designed to curb employee distracted driving, but only 32% are confident that current enforcement methods are effective at achieving compliance.

These are among the new findings from Aegis Mobility’s third-annual survey of 547 fleet safety and risk management professionals. Key findings include:
"Hands-Free" and "Zero Tolerance" are most popular policies. Forty-five percent of existing employer policies prohibit all use, except hands-free. Forty-one percent prohibit all use, no exceptions. Twelve percent prohibit texting, emailing and browsing.

Efforts to enforce distracted driving policies remain steady. Eighty-six percent of companies report taking some steps to enforce distracted driving policies.

Confidence is lacking in current policy enforcement. Confidence in current...

According to a new research report from the analyst firm Berg Insight (www.berginsight.com), the total value of the global real-time mobile location-based advertising and marketing (LBA) market will grow from € 526 million in 2012 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 65% to € 6.5 billion (approximately US$8.5 billion) in 2017.

This will then correspond to 32.8% of all mobile advertising and marketing. This means that location-based advertising and marketing will represent around 5% of digital advertising, or more than 1 percent of the total global ad spend for all media. SMS, mobile search and coupons are today important high-volume LBA formats. The ability to precisely target prospective customers using real-time location is currently one of the most promising additions to the advertising toolbox.

"Key drivers for LBA include the growing adoption of both outdoor and indoor location...

Research and Markets (www.researchandmarkets.com) says the global cloud-based gaming market will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 15.9% from now through 2015.

One of the key factors contributing to this market growth is the increasing audience for social media games and mobile games, says the research group. The Global Cloud-based Gaming market has also been witnessing the increasing adoption of next-generation technologies. However, the requirement of high broadband speed could pose a challenge to the growth of this market, according to Research and Markets.

According to their report: ''Cloud-based gaming provides large opportunities to publishers for promotions and marketing. One such opportunity is the free-to-play business model, which is also known as the freemium model. It consists of the consumer playing the core loop of a game for free, but then eventually paying for...

Univa (www.univa.com), a data center automation company, has announced the findings of its "2013 Open Source Software Use" survey.

Conducted online by uSAMP, the report finds that Free and Open Source software (FOSS) is prominent with businesses today with 76% of companies using FOSS, while 75% have experienced a problem with using it. Businesses are relying heavily on unsupported Open Source solutions; therefore 64% say they would pay for supported software should it solve their problems.
 
A lack of enterprise-grade support is the largest problem FOSS users experience in their company with 27% of respondents raising this as their top concern. Other troublesome issues include usability (24%), maintenance (20%), crashes (19%), bugs (18%), downtime (16%), loss off productivity (16%) and interoperability (16%).
 
Indeed FOSS’ importance today means that 64% are willing to pay for better quality,...

3D printing is disrupting the design, prototyping and manufacturing processes in a wide range of industries, according to Gartner (www.gartner.com).

Enterprises should start experimenting with 3D printing technology to improve traditional product design and prototyping, with the potential to create new product lines and markets, according to the research group. 3D printing will also become available to consumers via kiosks or print-shop-style services, creating new opportunities for retailers and other businesses. 

"3D printing is a technology accelerating to mainstream adoption," says Pete Basiliere, research director at Gartner. "It is a technology of great interest to the general media, with demonstrations on science shows, on gadget websites and in other areas. From descriptions of exciting current uses in medical, manufacturing and other industries to futuristic ideas -- such as using 3D printers on...

A new report from Juniper Research (www.juniperresearch.com) forecasts a rapid uptake of 4G LTE mobile broadband technology in the next two years, with the subscriber number doubling from an estimated 105 million subscribers this year to nearly 220 million in 2014.

The new report finds that, with 2012 being a breakthrough year for LTE and deployments gaining momentum, subscribers will begin to sign up for services in volume this year (2013), but will still have a very limited global reach. The emerging factor that will and is driving the consumer take-up in the forecast and beyond is the embedding of LTE technology in consumer devices.

With LTE roll-outs gaining momentum, primarily in developed markets, Juniper Research acknowledges that while migration to 4G is expected to follow an evolutionary path, there is a genuine opportunity for many operators in developing countries to completely...

Kaazing (www.kaazing.com), a web and mobile communication platform for live data delivery, has announced the findings of its annual "Modern Architectures for Mobile Enterprises Survey."

The survey, which was conducted in March 2013 with nearly 300 global IT professionals and developers worldwide, found that nearly nine out of 10 (86%) respondents consider real-time web and data communication to be a priority for them in 2013, with 81% saying they will apply that priority to their mobile strategy.
 
Within the next 12 months respondents plan to enable two-way, real-time web applications, ranked as follows: monitoring – 33.8%; push notifications – 32.8%; collaboration – 30.4%; eCommerce – 29.7%; live chat – 29.1%; extending enterprise applications to web – 25.7%; and remote employee solutions – 23.6%.
 
Countries outside of the U.S. also ranked online gaming and real-time voting as top...

Global mobile data service revenue, made up of mobile internet and messaging revenue, will rise by 21.4% between 2012 and 2014 to represent 40.4% of the US$1 trillion mobile customers will be spending on their mobile phone services, according to new data from ABI Research (www.abiresearch.com).

Thanks to strong commitments to LTE network deployment in Latin America and Africa, not just the developed markets, growth rates in the regions will be substantially faster as the increase in usage outstrips mobile data pricing decline. This represents a significant opportunity for regional mobile content and application developers, which will stimulate a very nascent mobile apps and content market-place, says ABI Research. North America will be the first region to see mobile data service revenue eclipse voice revenue in 2016.

"By offering unlimited voice calls and texts, while making data the only component...

By Rick Sutcliffe

There is no truth to the rumour

° That Apple has become a third bidder in the suddenly interesting battle to gain control of Dell. Michael Dell himself began the process by trying to take the company private under his own personal leadership, but has hit a roadblock in the form of a second suitor who would likely show him the door. Apple was said to be ready to close the company, wind up its affairs, turn the assets into cash, and give the money back to the shareholders.

That Apple intends to buy Sony, Sharp, Panasonic, and/or RIM out of petty cash. A far better bet is the acquisition of IBM. After all, Apple makes money from computing devices and software, whereas IBM makes most of its money showing business people how to use them. "No one needs to explain our devices to seven-year-olds, but there are people out there who need a helping hand," said Apple's manager of acquisitions. "A...

New online research from Parks Associates (www.parksassociates.com) reveals consumers want to be able to access online video as part of their pay-TV service.

More than one-half of U.S. broadband households would like to have a YouTube on-demand feature with their pay-TV services. The new research is based on multiple nationwide surveys of over 2,000 U.S. broadband households and examines the impact of carriage disputes, which have prompted pay-TV providers like DirecTV, Dish Network, and Time Warner to drop channels such as AMC, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, and MTV as part of ongoing fee and licensing struggles between service and content providers.

"U.S. pay-TV operators enjoy higher ARPU [average revenue per user] than their counterparts in other countries, allowing them to test and deploy a variety of new services, although many international providers are making similar moves," Brett...

Total mobile data traffic had amounted to 13,412 petabytes by the end of 2012; an increase of 69% year-on-year, according to ABI Research (www.abiresearch.com).

3G data usage occupied 46% of the total with an increase of 130% year-on-year. 4G LTE traffic is accelerating, with a growth rate of 207% in 2013 compared to 99% for 3G traffic.

According to ABI Research, underpinning mobile data usage are smartphone apps; their downloads, and the traffic usage they generate, has become a significant contributor to mobile data traffic. Smartphone app downloads were 36.2 billion for 2012, up 88% compared to 2011.

Asia-Pacific has overtaken North America (25%), with 39% of total smartphone app downloads. IP/web browsing constitutes 51% of total mobile data traffic in 2012. However, by 2018, large mobile device screens and 4G data-speeds will stimulate mobile video streaming/downloads to account for 56...

Market research firm Infonetics Research has released excerpts from a Mobile Spectrum market size and forecast report, which analyzes radio frequency spectrum allocation and needs in the world’s top economies.

"Seven years ago the ITU predicted the world would need twice as much radio frequency spectrum as is allocated now, and that was even before the advent of the data-hungry iPhone," reports Stéphane Téral, principal analyst for mobile infrastructure and carrier economics at Infonetics Research. "But if the ITU forecast had held true, all mobile networks with significant mobile broadband usage would have crashed by now."

HSPA+ and LTE are two of the primary reasons operators have been able to squeeze more and more bits out of limited spectrum, Téral adds. HSPA/HSPA+ and LTE improve spectral efficiency so significantly that the need for spectrum has been greatly reduced, often by at least half. LTE technology is not only resistant to interference between cells but...

Two major "unseen" risks threaten businesses that use data centers -- the "data factories" that power "the Cloud," the government and every major business. A peer group of senior data center professionals last week discovered that these major risk factors are often not considered until after a data centre has been built -- in a sub-optimal country, with very serious adverse implications.

This was one of the major surprise findings when 70 C-level executives -- between them responsible for tens of thousands of data centers around the globe -- met together with legal and tax specialists to pool expertise on the risks that face multinational companies from the design, location and operation of these business-critical systems.
 
Nicola Hayes, managing director of research analysts DCD Intelligence -- which planned the event based on their recent research findings -- said, data centers now operate just about everything we do -- from running our offices factories and...

SAP AG (www.sap.com) has announced the findings of its third consecutive GSMA Mobile World Congress survey, which found that 53% of industry leaders believed that improving customers' retail experience would be essential to creating a successful mobile payments scheme.

The survey is aimed at addressing top issues facing mobile commerce service providers and reflects the sentiments of mobile operators, fixed telecommunication providers, over-the-top (OTT) players and other global mobile industry executives.

Survey results revealed that the "secret sauce" for creating a better retail experience includes location-based point-of-sale offerings (24%), point-of-sale services such as near field communication (NFC) (28%) and facilitating universal acceptance of mobile payments (25%). Less popular services included targeted offers based on consumer preferences and shopping history (12%) and integration with mass transit (...

Europe's leading cable companies score higher than their rivals in customer satisfaction with broadband service, but trail them in television service, according to the latest research from Strategy Analytics' ConsumerMetrix service (www.strategyanalytics.com).

The report, "European Cable: Customer Satisfaction and Profiles," found that customers of cable companies give them a net promoter satisfaction rating of 66% for their broadband service but only 37% for their television service. In spite of this, satisfaction with both television and broadband cable services improved during 2012, and improved significantly since 2010.

"The European cable industry, like its US counterpart, faces the challenge of striking the right strategic balance between its highly profitable broadband services and its more marginal television activities," notes David Mercer, vice president, Digital Consumer...

In its newly released MobileSTAT report, Jumptap, Inc., an audience targeting platform -- reports on how top mobile share trends will evolve in the comings months.

Among other predictions, Jumptap sees Samsung’s share among Android handset brands climbing to 59% in 2013, while HTC and LG get grouped closely together, but in a distant second place.

"As Samsung creates more distance between itself and other Android handset brands, it may begin to pose a threat to Google’s multi-device model," says Matt Duffy, vice president of Marketing at Jumptap. "Regardless of whether Google puts more muscle behind any other Android handset brand, we believe Samsung will increase its dominance of the Android device market in 2013."

Tablet share more than doubled on the Jumptap network in 2012, while feature phone share dropped significantly. This polarizing movement will continue over the coming months, with tablet share predicted to grab 29% of Jumptap network traffic, while...

Wi-Fi remains the leading data network for on-the-go data consumption in the five leading Arbitron Mobile-based smartphone panels, according to new research by iResearch Consulting (www

Even as carriers aggressively promote their newest generation of cellular data networking, the Arbitron smartphone panelists in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, and China, still consume nearly two-thirds of their mobile data through public and private Wi-Fi networks.

The United States and United Kingdom have the heaviest users of mobile data in their Arbitron smartphone panels. A substantial share of the data consumption -- 61 and 69% respectively -- relies on Wi-Fi networks. China and France have the lightest users of mobile data in their Arbitron Mobile-based smartphone panels, both in terms of the average monthly data consumed and the share of the panel who consume more the 1,000 MB a month. However, their respective share of Wi-Fi networks as a data source...

As Obscene Interactive and its partners enhance the new beta version of their debut gaming app, Phantasmic, the market that awaits the game is growing even faster than the company could have anticipated.

According to a new publication by mobile gaming market research firm Newzoo, there are now more than 500 million mobile gamers worldwide -- and they’re spending more than $9 billion annually on their favorite hobby.

"The mobile gaming market’s annual growth is now at 32%, and the revenue this industry generated in the U.S. alone increased by 16% year-on-year in 2012," says OBJE CEO Paul Watson. "That makes mobile games one of the fastest-growing industries on the planet, and we’re doing all we can to capitalize on this unprecedented growth."

Just five short years ago, computer monitors, arcade cabinets and television sets were the only places video games could be seen and played. Thanks to the explosion of smartphones and tablet computers, the time and money...

Parks Associates (www.parksassociates.com) has announced new connected appliance research that shows 44% of U.S. broadband households would allow utilities to manage and monitor their home appliances in order to save money by reducing their energy consumption.

Manufacturers are developing connected appliances to stay competitive in a mature market, where connectivity can differentiate products and add value through remote monitoring, enhanced functionality, and energy savings, says Tom Kerber, director, Research, Home Controls and Energy, Parks Associates. Appliance manufacturers LG and Samsung have launched Wi-Fi-enabled appliances, and most major manufacturers are launching new connected products in 2013, which will continue to increase consumer awareness and strengthen the value proposition of connected appliances, he adds.

"Our research shows more consumers value remote monitoring of...

By Rick Sutcliffe

Apple's stock continues to behave strangely, but with more explanation in recent weeks. Seems a couple of large hedge funds sold billions in Apple shares over a short period, driving the price down. More recently, another fund manager speculated on a stock split, which caused a short rally in the shares. Yet another wants to extract cash from Apple's hoard into his own pocket.

All these moves are both short-sighted and self-serving. Indeed, it seems to the Spy that any plans to sell large dollar values of a stock should be reportable, even as are ones to trade in large percentages. What if a billion in shares is less than a quarter of a percent? Surely transactions that large should be regarded as insider trading, for shares are obviously sensitive to such dumps. It's not every day that someone is ready and able to increase their holdings by several billion dollars.

Speculating on a stock split is like speculating on what new...

A study from a cybersecurity analyst firm, Big Data Analytics in Cyber Defense, confirms that big data analytics offer a powerful arsenal for cyber security, but adoption is alarmingly slow. The report, released by Teradata Corp., the analytic data solutions company, and the Ponemon Institute, contains several key findings:

° Cyber-attacks are getting worse but only 20% say their organizations are more effective at stopping them. The greatest areas of cyber security risk are caused by mobility, lack of visibility and multiple global interconnected network systems.

° Fifty-six percent are aware of the technologies that provide big data analytics and 61% say they will solve pressing security issues, but only 35% have them. The 61% say big data analytics is in their future.

° Less than half of organizations are vigilant in preventing (42% anomalous and potentially malicious traffic from entering networks or detecting such traffic (49%) in their networks.

° ...

A new report estimates the share of commercial emails opened on mobile devices will surpass 50%in the next six to 12 months, according to new research from data and digital messaging solutions provider Knotice.

The "Knotice Mobile Email Opens Report: 2nd Half 2012" reveals that most brands will likely see at least half of their commercial emails opened via mobile devices by the end of 2013. Currently, 41% of commercial emails are opened on mobile devices, up from a 27% mobile email open rate a year earlier. Key findings include:

° The number of emails opened on a mobile device (smartphone and/or tablet) during the second half of 2012 rose to 41%. This is a 51% increase over the former mobile email open rate of 36% from the second half of 2012. Data shows the steady, strong increase in mobile open rates continues, which underscores the importance of having a mobile-first mindset.

° Nearly half of all emails opened in the consumer services industry were opened...

Despite a 10% year-over-year increase for the full year 2012, the color laser multifunction peripheral (MFP) market declined 1% in the fourth quarter of 2012 (4Q12) as ongoing weakness in the global economy finally caught up with this segment. This marks the first quarter where color laser MFP contracted year over year to 995K units.

Overall, the worldwide hardcopy peripherals market declined 11.2% year over year in 4Q12 to 31.1 million units, according to the "International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Hardcopy Peripherals Tracker."

"The inkjet market is largely responsible for the declines due to weak consumer demand. However, business inkjet growth is solid, and these premium-priced products are helping vendors to overcome some of their consumer revenue declines. IDC expects the market will slowly begin to recover as consumer confidence returns, but growth rates will be in the single digits," says Phuong Hang, program manager, "Worldwide Hardcopy...

Using real-world data from eight network operators across four continents, a new study by Actix (www.actix.com) reveals how the dynamic interplay of people, places and devices is impacting mobile networks across the world. It highlights the critical importance of accurate customer handset and location data for targeting network investments, improving customer experience where it matters and coping with the influx of new devices.

Smartphones on 3G networks spend almost 85% of their active time generating data traffic, and only 10% of it on voice. The radio access network is responsible for between 80-85% of poor quality voice whilst data sessions in congested areas often fall below video-ready speeds. LTE networks deliver on performance claims but the real challenge will come when these networks become heavily loaded.

"The data performance on today’s network varies greatly and is far behind the high speeds that...