Early Adopters Not Enthused About Multimedia Handsets -- The cellular phone industry's hype machine has been in high gear over innovative music- and TV-centric devices and services, but a new In-Stat report shows that some early-adopters are lukewarm about them. Fewer than 9 percent of respondents to an In-Stat early-adopter consumer survey were very or extremely interested in buying a cell phone capable of playing MP3 or other music files, and less than 11 percent were very or extremely interested in broadcast TV functionality. Only in the past year or so have smartphones started to build a significant market, after several years of hits and misses. A similar road is likely ahead for multimedia cell phones. Some mobile programming is quite clear: news and weather are winners.
Ultra-Wideband (UWB) is quietly becoming one of the most strategic short-range wireless technologies in the market, moving from niche deployments into the mainstream of smartphones, cars, and smart spaces. As the ecosystem matures and next-generation implementations arrive, UWB is shifting from nice-to-have to a foundational capability for secure access, sensing, and high-performance device-to-device connectivity. UWB Technology Market Development Unlike Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, NFC, or legacy IEEE 802.15.4 implementations, UWB combines three powerful attributes in a single radio: secure ranging, radar-like sensing, and low-latency, high-throughput short-range data. This allows networking and IT vendors to architect experiences that blend precise location, context awareness, and rich interaction in ways traditional connectivity stacks cannot easily match. According to the latest worldwide market study by ABI Research, UWB is expected to be one of the fastest-growing wireless connectivity...