Cellular Trends: How Smartphones and the Internet of Things Will Change Your Life

0.18 MB·english

by  Vulich Nick.

Cellular Trends
How Smartphones and the Internet of Things Will Change Your Life

Copyright © 2016 Nick Vulich

Cover Illustration
© Can Stock Photo Inc. / bbbar
http://www.canstockphoto.com

Table of Contents

Table of Contents
Getting Started
Mobile Will Change Everything - Again
Data
Apps
Price
Device Innovations
Contextual Intelligence
Beacons
Security
Mobilegeddon
What’s Next
The Internet of Things
Drones
Wearables
Medical Innovations
Connected House
Connected Cars
Infotainment Systems
Connected Car Simulators / Hot Spotting
Autonomous and Semi-Autonomous Cars
FordPass
Meet the Experts
Learn More about Nick’s Books
About the Author

Getting Started

What’s the one thing you can’t live without?
If you answered your “cell phone,” you’re not alone. 95 out of 100 Americans agree—
their cell phone is an indispensable part of their life. According to a recent survey, 44
percent of us sleep with our cell phones. Over half of us would turn around and head back
home if we discovered we’d left without our phones—even if it made us late for work or
school.
In twenty short years, cell phones have totally changed the way we communicate, shop,
and interact with each other, and the world around us.
In the past, most changes occurred so slowly you couldn’t really tell they were
happening.
Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone in 1876. The few people who were in
the know considered it a play toy, rather than a useful invention. It was really cool, but no
one saw a practical use for it. The spread of the telephone was painfully slow during its
first few years. In 1877 Bell had 3,000 subscribers. By 1878 that number had climbed to
10,000 phones in service, and by 1900 there were telephones in over 600,000 homes and
businesses. Still, success was anything but certain.
The next generation saw unparalleled growth, and by 1923 Bell Telephone reported
there were 14,050,565 telephones in the United States. Phone installations skyrocketed
after World War II. Then just as quickly, cell phones killed the landline. Ten years ago,
nine out of ten households had landlines. Today (according to a Center of Disease Control
and Prevention report) that number has dwindled to approximately two in ten households.
The first mobile phones debuted in St. Louis, Missouri, on June 17, 1946. The network
could only handle a maximum of twenty calls for the entire metropolitan area. The first
portable phone, that you could actually carry around with you, hit the market in 1983. It
weighed two pounds, had a thirty minute talk time before it needed to be recharged, and a
hefty price tag of $3995. Fast forward to 1996, cell phones were still waiting for their
breakthrough moment. Prices remained high, and the majority of people continued to look
at mobile phones as futuristic devices. Over the next few years, prices fell and ownership
skyrocketed. Here we are in 2016, and over 90 percent of adults in America own a cell
phone, while landlines are well on their way to extinction.
I graduated from high school in 1976, the same year two California inventors, Steve
Wozniak and Steven Jobs, were banging around in their garage, pounding out the first
Apple computer. By the time I graduated from college in 1980, personal computers had
just started to go mainstream. Users had their choice of Tandy, Timex-Sinclair, and
Commodore, among other brands. IBM didn’t announce the PC until August 12, 1981.
According to the U S Census Bureau just 8.4 percent of U S households owned home
computers in 1984. By the year 2000, 51 percent of Americans owned a home computer,
and 41 percent had home internet service. Today, 84 percent of Americans own a PC or
tablet, and 73 percent of those households have access to broadband internet. That’s a 74
percent increase in computer ownership in just over thirty years. What’s even more
remarkable is broadband internet use soared from zero to 73 percent in a twenty-year
period.
In 1980, IBM approached Bill Gates, a Harvard Business School dropout, to develop an
operating system for their new personal computer (PC). Gates purchased licensing rights
to a program called 86-DOS from Seattle Computer Products, and modified it for use with
the newly released IBM PC. In return, he received a one-time payment of $50,000 from
IBM. Microsoft released the first version of its Windows operating system in 1985. Two
years later, Gates made his first appearance on Forbes list of the World’s Wealthiest
People. He has topped the list consistently from 1995 to 2014, and is currently ranked the
richest man in the world.
During that short thirty-year period from 1985 to 2015, Microsoft rocketed from a
virtually unknown company to the most well-known software company in the world. IBM
is still the big kid on the block when it comes to computer hardware, but their mistaken
belief that hardware was where the money was at, not software—cost them hundreds of
billions of dollars in profit.
Another Harvard dropout, Mark Zuckerberg, created a website that changed the way
over a billion people communicate. Facebook’s first release, known as Facemash, was
shut down by Harvard University just days after its first appearance. The Harvard-only
site, was extremely popular among students, but it quickly sucked up the school’s
bandwidth, knocking out several of their servers. Students also complained about privacy
violations, because Zuckerberg posted student pictures and profiles without their
permission.
Since its inception on February 4th, 2004, Facebook has changed the way users
communicate, and share personal, and professional information. In twelve short years, it
has gone from a Harvard-only thing to a worldwide phenomenon that helps over 1.2
billion users keep in touch. Currently, 800 million people use the Facebook Messenger
app to text back and forth, rather than using device based texting. That number is only
going to grow as more people download the app.
Another 500 million people use WhatsApp, an app that lets users text back and forth
without incurring SMS charges. In the long run, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and
similar offerings are going to totally change the way we communicate. They’re also going
to knock the cellular industry for a loop, as smartphone users continue their current shift
away from talk, to text only communication.
Facebook has also revolutionized the way we share information. Every time you post a
picture, video, or comment, you allow 1.2 billion potential Facebook users to discover
what’s up in your private life (depending upon your privacy settings). Five years ago it
would have taken a professional investigator a full week to discover the amount of
personal information they can learn about you from a five-minute visit to your Facebook
Timeline.
When you think about it, that’s kind of scary.
A computer program has coaxed us into willingly sharing our most private moments,
ones we’ve been taught to carefully safeguard. And, the even scarier thing is—you haven’t
seen anything yet.
GPS location services already let everyone know where you are, and where you have
been. Close-up photos from Google Maps can pinpoint you going in and out of your
home, school, place of work—everywhere.
If we aren’t careful, personal privacy will soon become a thing of the past.

Why all of this talk about computers, software, and inventors in a book about the cell
phone? Because they’re all converging into a device so small it fits in our pockets, but so
powerful, you could run a large business, or small country from it.
It’s crazy, but it’s true—until they implant a cellular chip in our heads, the cell phone is
going to continue to change the way we live, think, and communicate.
If you’re ready for a glimpse into the future, read on…

Mobile Will Change Everything - Again

Our love affair with our cell phones will grow even stronger over the coming years.
A recent study conducted by PEW University says over 44 percent of us have slept
with our cell phones. Are you listening Victoria’s Secret? This could signal an opportunity
to market mobile nighties, and other assorted cell phone lingerie.
Honestly, cell phones are changing the way we live, work, shop, receive news and other
information. The majority of Americans under age eighteen don’t know what a landline is,
and have never lived in a home that had one.
Here are some other facts you need to wrap your head around if you ever hope to
understand these changes.
1. 78 percent of teens own a cell phone, 47 percent of those teens who own
cellphones, own a smartphone. (PEW University study)
2. 90 percent of adults own cell phones, 64 percent of American adults carry
smartphones.
3. 34 percent of teenage girls age 14-17 access the internet only through
mobile, compared to 24 percent of boys the same age. (PEW University
study)
4. Social media is killing desktop computers. 47 percent of Facebook users
accessed the site only through mobile in 2015, up from 34 percent in 2014.
(eMarketer)
5. Google recently updated their search metrics to favor mobile. Since the
inception of its 2015 Mobilegeddon Update, websites that aren’t optimized
for mobile are being removed from, or being moved to the bottom of
search results. (WSJ Digits)
6. The Apple Watch is changing the way users pay. In the short time it’s been
available, 80 percent of users are choosing to make payments with it—
instore, and online. Android device owners have similar options with their
devices.