ABI Research Blog

 The small cell network operator is moving fast on its plan to run a global carrier-neutral small cell network starting with Norway as the first location in Europe. Earlier this year, the operator has revealed the availability of its solution based on integration with Cisco’s products. Last month, Cloudberry acquired a 2.6 GHz spectrum license from Norwegian broadband service provider Nextnet, completing the last piece in its plan.

After years of speculation, Apple has finally unveiled its entry into the wearables market. While the Apple Watch does not bring a great deal of new functionality to the market that hasn’t already been available from rivals, it does bring Apple into the wearables market. Given the power and reach of the company and the strength of its brand this cannot be underestimated. Apple has a long history of making existing technologies appeal to a far wider audience and going on to make its offering synonymous with the wider market. Given health and fitness tracking capabilities in the new device, what will be the impact on the existing market?

It’s funny, there is so much hype around wearables, yet few I speak to are fully convinced about converged devices- there is a real emperor’s new clothes feel about this market that is leaving many reluctant to truly back it unless the emperor (in this case Apple) says it’s okay-to paraphrase a semi-famous neighbour, “the rich buy dearest cause they need to be sure”. In an unusual reversal of trends, todays converged wearables are largely coming ahead of dedicated devices targeting the real opportunity here -  health, quantified self and ambient intelligence. In a lot of cases, these markets will initially be best served by sensor heavy devices that can be worn or placed in the environment, but do not necessarily require a detailed user interface like a wearable watch.

Politics make for strange bedfellows, but the pursuit of a common goal often makes an unthinkable alliance come to pass.  AT&T and Verizon Wireless jointly deployed a Distributed Antenna System at the University of Oregon Autzen stadium.   A joint venture like this makes sense for probably three reasons.

A new kickstarter project is due to launch called 4SeTV, which brings multiview capabilities to anyone for both a tablet and your TV.

Gizmodo published a nice write-up about Netflix's OpenConnect, available at: http://gizmodo.com/this-box-can-hold-an-entire-netflix-1592590450

Zero-days, the bane of organizations worldwide, is the golden goose of cybercriminals, jealously guarded and highly prized, serving to feed top-tier exploit kits and financial and political cyberespionage campaigns. Zero-days allow any number of exploits to be created, and are particularly popular for targeted spear phishing attacks. The effectiveness of such vulnerabilities has had a major disruptive impact on the security industry, rendering signature-based solutions effectively useless.  The scramble has since been on finding alternative methods of dealing with zero-days. The catch of course is how to protect systems against an unknown threat?

Recently I was asked about biometrics and the potential shift that some people see, not just for fingerprint readers, but also iris and retina scanners in mobile devices.  Of course, this could easily extend to other devices but mobile is so big, and smartphone adoption continues to grow so quickly, that it is the most obvious entry point to consider when looking at the launch of new technologies.