So lets put a few snips next to each other just FOR fun.

Peel is excited to announce that our CEO Thiru Arunachalam has received the rare honor of being among a handful of top industry leaders chosen to deliver a keynote speech at Mobile World Congress 2015 in Barcelona. 

"We are excited to announce ******************our partnership**********************with QuickLogic as their unique, ultra-low power sensor hub capability combined with their hardware flexibility enables delivery of an end-to-end OEM solution that can be quickly translated into real differentiation and value in the mobile device marketplace," said Bala Krishnan, founder and chief product officer of Peel.

Looks nice doesn't it.

translated into real differentiation and value in the mobile device marketplace," said Bala Krishnan, founder and chief product officer of Peel.


just so cool, and it came out of nowhere and now its the big stage in Barcelona.

Wow, when Alibaba speaks with its $$ all of a sudden people want to hear what you have to say.
Steven Johnson's adjacent possible ideas makes this the BEST little dot that may not stay little for long.

Go here and read of the honor for PEEL on the really big, no HUGE stage.


http://blog.peel.com/blog/

Peel CEO Chosen as Keynote Speaker at Mobile World Congress 2015

11 11 , 2014No Comments

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Peel is excited to announce that our CEO Thiru Arunachalam has received the rare honor of being among a handful of top industry leaders chosen to deliver a keynote speech at Mobile World Congress 2015 in Barcelona. Thiru joins Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, Mozilla head Mitchell Baker, along with the CEOs of Huawei, VISA, AVG and Renault, in addressing the latest innovations and issues in the mobile industry.

MWC, the top mobile industry event, will host more than 85,000 attendees, including 4,500 CEOS, and will feature 1,800 exhibitors from all over the world.

Peel earned the honor after achieving near record growth in the last year, reaching 100 million activated users last month.  Peel has also expanded rapidly into the home control arena, and plans to include a display of real-time data from its millions of simultaneous users along with a live demo of intelligent home control.  Stay tuned for more details.

 Mobile World Congress will be held in Barcelona from March 2-5, 2015. For more information about the Keynote Speakers, please visit the MWC website.

QUIK, get that S2 with PEEL embedded into China!  Thanks in advance.

It is nice to have the BIG dog INTC working so hard here....

2015 International CES

Challenging Developers to "Make it Wearable" -- At 2014 CES, Intel launched its "Make it Wearable" development challenge to "encourage innovation in wearable technology and help create new connected experiences." Steven Holmes will share some of the most compelling new developments arising from the challenge.

Speaker: Steven Holmes, vice president - New Devices Group & General Manager - Smart Device Innovation, Intel Corporation

Intel & Luxottica Tie Up to Grow Wearables Market Presence

Intel  recently announced that it will team up with Luxottica Group SpA (LUX - Snapshot Report), global maker and distributor of eyewears, to develop high technology smartglasses for the wearables market.

Based in Italy, Luxottica designs, manufactures and distributes fashion, luxury and sports eyewear to over 80% of the world's major eyewear brands. Its best known brands include Ray Ban, Oakley and Persol. It also makes sunglasses for brands like Giorgio Armani, Burberry, Stella McCartney, Versace, Vogue and Donna Karan, among others.

The eyewear, featuring fashionable designs and latest technology, will offer Intel an edge over Google’s (GOOGL - Analyst Report) Android Wear smartwatches and Apple’s (AAPL - Analyst Report) iwatch. The partnership will help both to the companies to capitalize on the phenomenal growth expected in the niche wearables market. The first glasses are expected to be launched in 2015.

The wearables market offers products ranging from smartglasses to fitness bands and watches. These gadgets appeal to consumers as gadgets as well as fashion accessories. Though currently at a nascent stage, this market is expected to have radical implications on a number of sectors, like fitness, healthcare, medical, industrial and military. A growing number of technology giants, like Google and Apple, are betting high on this market’s potential and developing wearable technology products.

Intel, though a late entrant in the smartphone and tablet market, is firing on all cylinders to expand into the growing wearable technology arena such as smart watches and other Internet-enabled wearables. This partnership with Luxottica is yet another effort by the chipmaker in this regard.
Additionally, in September, Intel teamed up with Fossil Group, the global maker and distributor of consumer fashion accessories, to develop next-generation fashionable products for this market. Reportedly, the new version of Google Glass, to be launched in 2015, will also be powered by Intel’s chips, replacing the ones from Texas Instruments. Additionally, the chip giant has already collaborated with The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research to develop a wearable device to better monitor and treat Parkinson’s disease. It also acquired Basis Science, which manufactures health-tracking smart watches, earlier this year.

According to IDC, nearly 112 million units of wearable gadgets are expected to be shipped by 2018. Another report from Transparency Market Research states that the market is poised to reach $5.8 billion by 2018.

We believe that with the recent collaboration, Intel stands to gain from the significant growth potential of this market.

However, success in the wearables space could prove to be crucial for Intel. In 2013, it incurred a loss of $3.15 billion in its mobile chip division. So the company plans to make the most of the promising wearables market.

Homework on Indoor location....

http://www.insiteo.com/joomla/index.php/en/

The adjacent possible says these guys will go this yr.  Movea was in France, just like these guys.
QUIK how is Indoor location coming,  if you dummy Indoor location down to save power, it won't know where you are, its good that you can't cheat.  More sesnors, more data= a better result.  It's 10 axis not 9 and that one more axis takes 30% more compute power.  The S2 can do 12 axis so they can make progress on this VERY IMPORTANT application solution.  Hoping for a breakthrough here.

WHO WE ARE

Insiteo is a leading company in indoor geolocation and indoor positioning systems (IPS). We propose a complete indoor location platform for the development of innovative and high value-added services inside buildings, for different sectors: Retail , Shopping malls , Trade Shows and Exhibitions, Museums, Public Buildings or Offices .

With the increase of digital in store and the development of new shopping experiences, location-based services enhance the relevance of mobile applications that you offer to your customers and visitors :

- Dynamic Mapping

- Proximity detection (iBeacon)

- Accurate Indoor Geolocation (microlocation)

- Geopush and geofencing

- Routing and geolocated shopping lists

- Tracking and datamining

Our solution is based on WiFi and Bluetooth Low Energy (Bluetooth Smart and Bluetooth 4.0) and is compatible with the iBeacon protocol introduced by Apple.

Indoor Location market in 2014

Interview of Maxime Faure, CMO at Insiteo on www.servicesmobiles.fr. Read original article here.

ServicesMobiles.fr: What are the most active sector concerning indoor location?

Maxime Faure: Retail is the sector for which indoor location offers the most interest. While customer POS experience has become a priority in retailers strategies, the indoor location provides useful services to consumers such as product research and effective tools for retailers such as indoor geofencing (Geopush)

The shopping malls are also increasingly active on the subject since they spend more and more resources on the creation of strong brands, with complete digital ecosystems that provide continuous and seamless support to the consumers from website, to social networks and the malls equipped with their own mobile application. Indoor location becomes then an essential element of the in store strategy mixing loyalty programs and CRM.

SM: There is much talk about iBeacon. What is the contribution of this technology launched by Apple?

MF: First, iBeacon is not really a technological innovation contrary to what we can read everywhere. The real innovation from Apple was in 2011 with the adoption of Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) in the iPhone 4S. A long time before the iBeacon output iOS. Actually iBeacon is the tool in the Apple SDK that now allows each iOS developer to let his mobile application interact with BLE beacons.

But the fact that Apple makes available this technology creates a great emulation on the market. And at a time when retailers are focused on improving their points of sale with digital tools, this puts the indoor location at the centre of discussions. And this is a very good thing.

SM: And it also means that the indoor location is no longer restricted to a few actors such as Insiteo but becomes accessible to all?

MF: Not exactly. If iBeacon is accessible to many, it remains a simplified version of the indoor location. For this, we would rather speak of "proximity detection". In fact, iBeacon can detect the presence of a BLE beacon near the iPhone and get an estimate of distance. In the end, we know that the user is within a more or less precise range around the beacon, but not much more. 

On the opposite, an indoor location system will enable to determine the exact position of the user in the store or mall. This involves a technical expertise that requires several years of R&D and thus is accessible to a very limited number of actors. 

This part is by itself...QUIK is burning the midnight oil, and they have been on this important area......

Will we hear more on it?  I don't think so, nothing till they are ready to show it.

When would that be?  This yr. is about all that can be said.

But in the end proximity detection and indoor location are not to be opposed. They are two complementary approaches that both meet different retailers needs.

SM: At Insiteo, how do you see the market evolution in the coming months?

MF: The market for indoor location is growing fast. The year 2013 ended with a large number of projects and 2014 should be a decisive year. The first semester will inevitably see a multitude of initiatives where the barrier between success and failure will be very thin.

Strategies that will experience success are those that will prioritize the value perceived by the customer and that will aim to improve the in-store experience. This improvement may result in a multitude of services (product search, geopush, guidance, 3D maps, etc..) but can be done only by considering the indoor location as a complementary tool that enhances features such as CRM or loyalty programs in the context of an omnicanal purchase path. It is this approach that will make the difference between spam and relevant advices at the POS on the point of sale, between gadget applications and value added services.

the above is a great summary of the importance of Indoor location and that ALL the players will have to have a solution....

Quo Vadis, Indoor Location?

Srivatsan Raghavan, Consultant
12/1/2014 06:05 PM EST
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Today, the majority of 911 (emergency) calls are made from cellphones, making it necessary to pinpoint indoor location, including floor level, with reasonable accuracy.

During one of my shopping jaunts to the mall, my school buddy declared that we're close to the day when we will be able to navigate within large indoor spaces, single or multi-level, with full 3D maps. My first thought? What kind of technology driver is needed for this to happen?

The concept of indoor location navigation is not new, but the current impetus is coming from an unlikely source, E-911. Apparently, the FCC conceived of E-911 wireless rules when access to cellphones was minimal and most 911 calls were from landlines. Today the majority of calls for help are from cellphones, making it necessary to pinpoint indoor location, including floor level, with reasonable accuracy. Current accuracy stands at around 100-300 m -- equal to a city block -- making things difficult for first responders. However, it looks like indoor location accuracy and requirements will be characterized separately from outdoor. The proposed accuracy requirements stand at 50 m for horizontal coordinates and 3 m for vertical coordinates.

So, what more is needed from GPS and cellphones to make all this happen? GPS, as we all know and have experienced, works best outdoors. Why? Well, GPS uses weak signals and needs a minimum of 3-4 satellites to narrow down the position. Can WiFi or Bluetooth beacons, which are common indoors and deliver higher accuracy, help here? I think they can. Some companies (e.g., iBeacon and Skyhook Wireless) have developed services around this. Can public safety ride on these technologies? Not in the near future -- the range of these beacons is smaller, and you need more beacons to cover a wide area, which means a user would need a network management operator on a nationwide scale to certify the beacon location and guarantee quality of service.

This was evident from the three companies -- Qualcomm, Polaris Wireless, and NextNav -- that took part in the evaluation process conducted by CSRIC, the committee tasked by the FCC to evaluate currently available indoor location technologies. Two of the three companies already deal with network management. The test methodology included calls placed everywhere from dense urban to rural areas and from building structures made of different materials. Among the parameters measured were accuracy in x-y-z coordinates and time taken to first fix location. Only NextNav volunteered for the z-axis coordinates. The others felt that providing raw height might not be useful until annotated on to 3D models of building structures.

Qualcomm, true to its CDMA origins, showcased its Advanced Forward Link Trilateration (AFLT) technology. In AFLT, weak GPS signals from three satellites are substituted with strong signals from any three CDMA towers whose positions are known. Since CDMA signals are synchronized to a common time base (as is the case with GPS), your position is calculated based on the time differences in the signals' arrival. The pros: Handsets require only software/firmware modification, and signal strengths are higher. The cons: Having three base stations in sufficient proximity to aid in trilateration can be challenging in dense urban areas.

Polaris Wireless technology is quite unique and innovative. Just as every human has unique fingerprints for identification, Polaris Wireless has a database of locations tagged against RF imprint, based on signal strength and interference patterns. During a call, your cellphone transmits the necessary RF parameters as measured on location to a server that runs it against the tagged locations for a match. It would be interesting to see what kind of location accuracy one can obtain using this technology, since it is directly related to how extensive, granular, and recent the RF signature scan is.

On the face of it, NextNav's technology -- which is based on a terrestrial network and signal arrival time -- looks very similar to AFLT, but there are some significant differences. Cellular tower placement/position is decided with the goal of increasing coverage and addressing cell traffic, but rarely for location. So NextNav's secret sauce is in the optimal or strategic placement of terrestrial towers to aid in the trilateration process. The result? Better accuracy. NextNav's other differentiator is in detecting height from barometric readings taken at the tower and receiver. This is an ingenious innovation, since air pressure is a localized phenomenon. So the pros are very little modification to cellphones and greater location accuracy with regard to vertical coordinates. The main con is the installation of new towers.

Horizontal location accuracy in meters.
(Image: CSRIC WG3 report)

So how do these companies and technologies fare among themselves? I expected NextNav and Qualcomm AFLT technology to perform similarly, due to their terrestrial beacon and arrival time-based technology. But results for dense urban and urban area show that NextNav performed better than AFLT. Does this mean that strategic beacon placement coupled with a different signal structure (unlike CDMA) holds the key for better location fix?

It is too early to declare winners at this time. This round of evaluation showed that current participants have come close but are still shy of the FCC search rings. There is an expectation that forthcoming evaluations may have new players like Boeing (using Iridium satellites), while current participants will improve and showcase their next-generation technologies to hit the mark.

I feel horizontal location and accuracy improvements are relatively easy compared to fixing vertical location and accuracy. It will be interesting to see what future evaluations show us. Those that meet the requirements will not find instant gold; market dynamics with cellular network operators will determine who gets the backing. Remember that some of these technologies have upfront costs, take time to deploy, and may involve handset modification.

I feel an overriding and important aspect will be how scalable the technology is, so that gradual improvements increase accuracy over time without the need to rip things out over and over again. Until then, keep watching and say, "Quo vadis, indoor location?"

Q&A with ABI Research about CSR Acquisition by Qualcomm

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On October 15, 2014 mobile chipmaker Qualcomm agreed to acquire Cambridge, U.K.-based chipset vendor CSR for £1.56 billion (circa $2.5 billion). CSR is first well-known for its Bluetooth chipsets but also for its GPS expertise, since its acquisition of SiRF in 2009.

GPS Business News asked Patrick Connolly, a recognised expert in GNSS IC and analyst at ABI Research his thoughts on the acquisition and what it means for the geo-location market.

GPS Business News: First, what is the rationale of the acquisition?
Patrick Connolly: Well, it would certainly seem that GPS was only a small part of the decision, with the focus primarily on CSR’s Bluetooth credentials, and in particular the ability to penetrate into markets like IoE, automotive, home entertainment, etc.

ABI Research estimated CSR’s market share from total Bluetooth chips targeting non-mobile and computing devices to be about 20% in 1H 2014. As far as IoE is concerned, Qualcomm has made the strategic choice to invest in Bluetooth rather than ZigBee because the technology could help the company build on its existing mobile assets and create a more cohesive connected world, using Bluetooth as a core technology to connect everything to the Internet.

Patrick Connolly

Related articles

• Q&A with CSR About Indoor Location Android SDK

• CSR to Offer Indoor Location Technology SiRFusion as a SDK for Android

• ABI: Worldwide Commercial Telematics to reach 25M Subs in 2014

• OriginGPS Claims Smallest GPS Module with Antenna

The continuous efforts of CSR to innovate over Bluetooth beyond SIG standards are key assets Qualcomm could use to drive its strategy for IoE. For example, CSR has recently upgraded its Bluetooth radio interface with mesh network capability, and it also made its Bluetooth technology friendlier to IPv6, while the existing Bluetooth SIG standards continue to use protocol translation techniques to get things/applications connected to the Internet.

GPS BN: What was the GNSS/location business of CSR at the time of the acquisition?
PC: From a GNSS perspective CSR is/was midway through a tough but necessary transition away from high volume cellular markets, refocusing on more traditional automotive, fleet management and module business. To enable this, it was migrating its SiRFstarV platform towards true Galileo support, concurrent GNSS capabilities and moving from ROM to Flash based memory.

On indoor, it has its cloud-based SiRFusion Positioning Centre, which would have enabled it offer LaaS to OEMs, irrespective of the underlying GPS and/or connectivity ICs.

GPS BN: What does it mean for Qualcomm in terms of location technology, and for the whole GNSS IC business?
PC: From a GNSS IC development point of view, Qualcomm is acquiring expertise and a very strong brand, but Qualcomm’s dominant position in GNSS IC shipments is no secret, so in terms of market share, CSR offers very little apart perhaps from traditionally strong positions in emerging automotive/vehicle spaces. Having acquired Atheros primarily for its Wi-Fi capabilities, Qualcomm sunsetted its GNSS offering. The SiRF brand and technology is a very different thing, but should it take a similar path it will really open up smaller markets to the likes of u-blox, ST Micro and Mediatek, who have in recent years been significantly chipping away at CSR’s market share. 

GPS BN: In terms of indoor location technology, shall we expect SiRF expertise in sensor fusion to strengthen Qualcomm's technology portfolio? 
PC: Qualcomm has its own sensor fusion capabilities and no doubt it will be an integral part of its future ubiquitous location offering. CSR’s expertise can certainly add to this, but perhaps in non-cellular/retail markets such as industrial, government, automotive, etc. 

Now QUIK might do some great gesture and context on their own, and they might do a very good sensor part of the Indoor location, but to do what needs to be done it needs GOOD PARTNERS, with REAL expertise in the matter.....only a handful of such names exist.  Hoping to hear more on this in any way shape or form...

Not all sensor apps will be created equal.  None will be like this one...

Q&A with CSR About Indoor Location Android SDK

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British semiconductor vendor CSRannounced two weeks ago (readhere) the upcoming availability of an indoor location technology SDK for the Android platform. GPS Business News spoke to CSR’s Product Line Director Dave Huntingford to learn more. 

GPS Business News: You have announced for the first quarter of 2015 an Android SDK with indoor location, can you give us an overview of this product? 
Dave Huntingford: Let me give you a bit of background first. As you probably know, back in 2009 CSR acquired SiRF the leader in GPS chipsets. Already at that time we knew that the challenge in the future would be to bring this precise location experience from the outdoor to indoor. 

So we started investing in pedestrian dead reckoning, trying to count steps and heading based on sensors. But on its own this was not sufficient, after half an hour or an hour indoor true location drift was so big that it was not usable. 

So we went back to the drawingboard and we started looking at a fusion system that would bring together GPS, WiFi geolocation, and inertial sensors. This is how we came up with SiRFusion that we are announcing now. 

SirFusion is an SDK for the Android operating system that allows developers to integrate indoor location in their applications. The SDK uses standard Android APIs for WiFi, MEMS inertial sensors data and GPS. It updates and queries our database of Wi-Fi signals in the cloud. This integrates a crowdsourcing approach where each device in the field gather data for our database that is then used by all SDK users.

Related articles

• CSR to Offer Indoor Location Technology SiRFusion as a SDK for Android

• Q&A with ABI Research about CSR Acquisition by Qualcomm

• OriginGPS Claims Smallest GPS Module with Antenna

• ABI: Qualcomm, Broadcom, MediaTek, u-blox & CSR Lead GNSS Chipset Market

In addition to that we will be able to augment the capabilities of the SDK in the future, for example adding the location of Bluetooth beacons. 

GPS BN: What about the accuracy? 
DH: this is typically 5 meter of accuracy, but it is often better if there is a good WiFi coverage. 

GPS BN: When is it going to be available? 
DH: We are targeting the middle of the first quarter for a deployable SDK, after having demonstrated the technology at the CES trade show early January in Las Vegas. 

GPS BN: What about the coverage of your database at launch? 
DH: To be honest at start the database will be fairly empty, apart from the places where we have been doing real world tests. We will start from scratch, but we might find a partner that can help fueling this database. 

GPS BN: And what about power consumption? 
DH: There is no question that the multiple sensors we use through the SDK are consuming power. This is why the SDK only locates the device when the app is on and the screen is on. However in the longer term we are obviously looking at offering this technology embedded in a chipset-based solution. This obviously will be much more power efficient. 

So there you have it, the window of one HUGE opportunity is WIDE open for QUIK to move through.  THey have been hard at work on this for a while now........
GPS BN: Do you expect to have a SDK for iPhone at a later stage? 
DH: As you might know, unfortunately iOS does not give developers access to WiFi signal strength data, so without that we cannot offer a good location. 

GPS BN: What is going to be the business model? 
DH: We are looking after a per device royalty model. However we are not going to charge anything at launch. The reason why is that there is a very big range of value for the customer. For example it might be possible to charge a few dollars per device for asset tracking apps for enterprise, but if you look at social networking, there is a high volume, but a much lower value per device. Overall pricing is something we will learn out of time. 

GPS BN: Thank you very much for these explanations. 
DH: My pleasure. 

http://www.ce.org/Blog/Articles/2014/December/VIDEO-How-Sensors-and-Wearables-Will-Connect-at-CE

VIDEO: How Sensors and Wearables Will Connect at CES

By: Kasey Stanton 04 December 2014

There are so many trends and storylines to follow at the 2015 International CES. Two noteworthy ones are sensors and wearables, which have grown significantly since last year’s show. The amount of data provided by these types of products is getting more specific and providing valuable information to improve aspects of our daily lives. This week we invited top industry experts to join us in three different Google+ Hangouts to discuss how all of this tech will come together and provide improved experiences and efficiency in the lives of consumers.  We have also made them available as podcasts, which you can subscribe to through iTunes or your favorite podcast app.

The internet of things is inspiring and overwhelming in this age of digitization. In our Google+ Hangout with StoryTech, Jason Mendenhall of Supernap says that by 2020 about 50 billion devices will be connected to the internet. He, and five other industry experts, discuss how all of that data can come together and interact to make our lives simpler and more efficient.

Nicole Gallucci, a featured author in Gary’s Book Club, explains how companies can take advantage of social media and big data to connect a consumer’s story with the message of the brand. In her book, “Adversperience,” she highlights the power of the consumer and their ability to influence branding with their individual outreach.

In a discussion with Lindsey Turrentine and Brian Tong from CNET, Gary Shapiro, President and CEO of CEA, explains some of the innovations in wearables and sensors that he’s excited to see at the show and how such technologies have affected other trends like automotive innovations and health and fitness.

Check out all of our Google+ Hangouts on the International CES YouTube page.

Kasey Stanton

CEA Marketing

CEA