Fitness Trackers Are Still Top-Sellers

Fitness trackers continue to post strong increases as a product category, according to a new report from International Data Corp. (IDC). Fitbit led the growth with 29.5% of units shipped, while Apple was a distant second at 15%.

One reason for Fitbit being ahead is consumers aren’t sure what to make of smartwatches, tending to view the device as an expensive notification center with insufficient battery life.

“People don’t quite see the value in smartwatches just yet,” Jitesh Ubrani, senior research analyst for IDC Mobile Device Trackers, said in a report in E-Commerce Times. “People understand the purpose of a Fitbit or a fitness tracker, but they don’t understand the importance of a smartwatch.”

That should change in the next three to five years as the cost of smartwatches comes down and features improve, Ubrani said. Style will also eventually help smartwatches become more important.

“Fashion and style is important,” said Billie Whitehouse, CEO of Wearable Experiments. “We’re seeing all kinds of new materials crop up, and I think that’s part of the evolution. It’s going beyond these big boxes on our wrists.”

Happy Thanksgiving

Enjoy the day with family and friends!

NASA Releases Software Catalog

NASA has released a software catalog of more than 1,000 apps available free to the public. A PDF version is available online and a printed version will follow on May 21.

Software comprises about a third of the innovations developed by NASA each year. The agency’s goal is to get its software to as many people as possible.

“Traditionally, our [apps] were distributed at different offices and labs around the country, so we needed to gather everything in one place,” Daniel Lockney, manager of the NASA technology transfer program, told Information Week Government. “We’re excited about the potential of this catalog because of how valuable it can be.”

Each app has been assigned a tag that shows the software release authority (SRA) to contact to acquire the item. Users then must request the item by email using the case-number prefix.

While most of the software is scientific in nature, there could be an application or two that would be of interest for collegiate retailers. But truth be told, it’s just kind of neat to browse.

More Gadgets on Their Way Out

Remember when every college student carried an MP3 player and had a CD player back in their dorm room? Or when flip camcorders were all the rage on campus? In this video, CNET editor Donald Bell lists five more items that new technology will soon render obsolete.

Service Turns Books into PDFs

1DollarScan turns a physical book into an electronic copy, supposedly for a dollar, as long as the customer agrees to allow the book to be destroyed and recycled. The company, based in San Jose, CA, markets itself as a service that archives documents and photographs, while also clearing space used to store old books.

The service has grown from scanning thousands of books in its first year to several hundred thousand books in its second year, according to CEO Hiroshi Nakano in a report in Publishers Weekly. The company claims its process produces a high-quality PDF file that can be read on a variety of devices.

The Authors Guild isn’t thrilled with the business model, claiming that turning copyrighted print content into an e-book without an author’s permission is copyright infringement.

1DollarScan counters that it only digitizes books purchased by a customer, who then uses the service to create more space in an eco-friendly way. The company requires a signed agreement prohibiting the online sharing of the PDF, while offering a way for publishers and authors to either approve or disapprove of scans.

But copyright infringement could be just part of the issue with 1DollarScan. One person commenting on the Publishers Weekly article who uses the service wrote, “The result is nothing I would want to share anyway since it’s usually got formatting and readability errors, but it’s good enough for me.”

He also goes on to report that the actual cost is $1 per 100 pages, so the service would cost $5 for a 500-page book.

PC Market Continues Its Decline

Market research firm Gartner recently reported that PC shipments in the first three months of 2013 declined 11.2% over the same period in 2012. International Data Corp. (IDC) found the tumble to be closer to 14%, but both firms suggest Windows 8 deserves some of the blame.

The problem is that PC makers are producing higher-priced devices to take advantage of the touch-centric start screen used by the Microsoft operating system, according to an article in PC World. For instance, the Samsung Series 9 ultrabook has state-of-the-art features and a price tag of $1,400, making it less attractive to many consumers.

“At this point, unfortunately, it seems clear that the Windows 8 launch not only failed to provide a positive boost to the PC market, but appears to have slowed the market,” Bob O’Donnell, IDC program vice president, clients and displays, said in an article in SlashGear.

Budget machines that offer touchscreens, along with low-cost hybrid PCs and notebooks with longer battery life, could offer relief, according to PC World. However, Stephen Baker of the consumer market research firm The NDP Group said higher-priced devices may be the right way to proceed.

“Right now, we are seeing a shift in sales volume away from under-$500 PCs towards tablets in that same price point,” Baker wrote to PC World. “We don’t see the same level of shift between the two in products above $500.”

Thank you for coming...

Just a quick note to say thanks to everyone for reading the blog. This week there were readers from every continent (except Antartica), well over a dozen different countries, and 31 of the 50 states (US). If there are particular topics or questions you would like me to address, please feel free to post a comment or drop me a note.

-M

Sorry for the silence, more postings soon

Hi everyone,

Sorry -- I have been traveling for much of the past couple weeks and have a few other priority projects that came up. I will have some more postings to contribute soon. Probably tonight if the hotel connection is good. Some of the topics I have to post on include open source textbooks, and some of the student comments regarding e-textbooks from the most recent EDUCAUSE student study. We are working on analyzing that data now for the main report (due out later this year), but I will give a sneak peak into a small set of those comments here soon. I also received a couple questions from some of you reading this blog (nice to know some folks are actually reading it). I will try to address some of those in the next few days as well. Next week I have no travel, so hope to catch up with a number of new postings.

-M