Revere Digital

[Commentary] So it looks like Aereo will have to fold up the tent. What else will happen in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision? Nothing. Which is a problem, both for consumers and for the media companies celebrating their victory.

Aereo’s legalized presence would have certainly given the networks and providers a reason to move much faster to provide their own specialized packages. Not “a la carte” TV, where a TV subscriber can sign up for Disney and Comedy Central, but not ESPN and MTV. But at least a slimmed-down offering with a range of options and prices.

Now we’re back to a world where the only incentive the TV guys have to move faster is the nagging fear that their growth has permanently stalled, and that their subscription rolls will decline as new generations of video-watchers enter a world where paying for TV seems ridiculous. That group of “cord-nevers” hasn’t grown big enough to show up on the TV Industrial Complex’s books yet. But it’s hard to imagine it won’t get there.

Earlier in June, Apple made its big pitch to developers, describing an integrated, seamless user experience built around its platforms, devices and services. Now it’s Google’s turn to do the same thing.

At its upcoming annual I/O developer conference, Google will tout the latest updates to Android and Chrome, and the growing variety of devices on which they run, as the foundation of a continuous user experience across devices. More so than ever, Google and Apple’s versions of the connected life are colliding.

A fight that broke out in your pockets has spilled over onto the wrist, into the living room and out to the car.

Both companies want to convince app developers that theirs is the best way to reach millions of users around the world. But the two tech giants are coming from very different places.

In the smartphone age, Apple has succeeded by providing a cohesive ecosystem built around the tight integration of hardware and software, with a curated set of applications and services that run on it. Meanwhile, Google has made Android the world’s most popular smartphone operating system by allowing any handset manufacturer to roll out its own version.

The battle to own digital health will escalate with Google expected to introduce a new service to collect data from fitness trackers and apps. The tech giant’s addition to its mobile operating system, likely to be described in greater detail at the I/O conference in San Francisco, follows Apple’s unveiling of HealthKit, Samsung’s SAMI announcement and WebMD’s launch of Healthy Target. Each is a play to become the consumer platform for health, a one-stop hub for a person’s own biometric data as well as personalized insights and health content.

It’s the latest in a long line of fierce wars for the mobile customer, which have ranged across phone specs, developer loyalty, navigation services, music, media and more.

Health offers the next opening to differentiate operating systems, the next opportunity to tie consumers into ecosystems and the next source of information that can be tapped for consumer insights. To succeed, companies will have to figure out how to deliver something of real, perceivable value (which would seem like an obvious statement but for the litany of copycat devices cluttering the market today).

Better monitoring sensors should lead to more useful health data. For one, a real-time feed of medical data into clinics and hospitals means doctors can be alerted and respond in the event of alarming divergences. Devices that can collect increasingly reliable data at home, including glucose levels, could also be a significant boost for telemedicine, saving people the cost and hassle of going into the physician’s office.

Now throw in genomic data, thanks to plummeting prices of DNA sequencing.

The even bigger promise here is that collecting increasingly complete medical profiles from millions and millions of people, healthy and sick and somewhere in between, will offer fresh insights into the causes and cures for devastating diseases. Everyone will effectively be enrolled in a medical study on a length and scale that we’ve never seen.

A San Francisco startup has developed a wearable device that monitors breathing patterns and a mobile app that suggests adjustments, promising to allow users to control stress levels or otherwise improve their states of mind.

Or as the press release says in a cereal-box-worthy claim, Spire helps people “have a balanced and focused day.”

But the product arrives in a cluttered wearables market where similarly vague wellness assertions have yet to translate into broad consumer demand.

Spire resembles a smooth gray stone, if smooth gray stones came with belt clips. It slips on near the hip and measures respiration by tracking abdominal movement. The smoothness and consistency of breaths as well as the inhalation-to-exhalation ratio can reveal periods of tension, relaxation and focus, the company says. If users take shallow breaths for an extended period -- while, say, grinding through a story on deadline -- the iOS app might remind them to take deep breaths, clear their mind or release tension.

If it sounds more like a yoga teacher than a doctor, that’s no accident. As with most wearables, the company hasn’t earned approval from the Food and Drug Administration, so it can’t make medical-grade diagnoses or weighty health claims.

Wireless companies successfully convinced regulators in 2010 to keep mobile networks mostly free of network neutrality rules -- and it should stay that way, the mobile industry’s top lobbyist said.

Federal Communications Commission officials are looking into whether wireless networks should remain exempt from net neutrality rules under a controversial proposal released by Chairman Tom Wheeler. They’re currently seeking comments on how they might cover wireless networks under future net neutrality rules. Not surprisingly, mobile carriers aren’t thrilled by the prospect.

“Wireless is different … it is dependent on finite spectrum,” Meredith Attwell Baker, the new head of CTIA, the wireless industry’s lobbying arm, told reporters. Baker previously served as the top lobbyist for Comcast’s NBCUniversal* division, joining the company after serving as an FCC commissioner.

[Commentary] As many industries chase the teen world and the 18-to-34 demographic -- retail being the most prominent -- health care, that historical laggard, appears to be ahead of the game with the over-50 market.

In fact -- and perhaps even more quizzical, given the ultramodern visual of baby boomers outfitted in wearable technology -- digital health represents the most visible area of that investment. Recent research conducted by StartUp Health shows that investment in digital health in Q1 2014 more than doubled year over year. And one clear trend that popped out from the data was the scope of investment focused on the over-50 market.

Led by a growing appreciation of the value of preventative medicine, venture capital funding targeted to benefit and capitalize on areas of health that impact the 50+ market represented 53 percent of all digital-health investments from 2010 to 2013. Within that, care navigation ($2.5 billion), vital-sign monitoring ($1.95 billion) and aging with vitality ($1.27 billion) were the most-funded markets. And some emerging 50+ investor areas of interest attracting excitement and investment include behavioral and emotional health, social engagement, diet and nutrition, and physical fitness

[Stoakes is Co-Founder and President, StartUp Health]

AT&T has been pretty quiet about its plans for “toll-free” data service since announcing its plans at CES in January. With sponsored data, companies foot the bill for certain kinds of data use, meaning it is free for consumers.

AT&T said at the time that it was testing the service with a handful of partners, but has gone radio silent since then. That could change if, as some suspect, Amazon chooses to subsidize some of their customers’ data usage on the smartphone it is introducing.

Amazon could offer its sponsored data as part of its Amazon Prime service, which recently got a $20-per-year price hike in order to cover some of the rising costs with the service. Amazon added a Prime music service that offers subscribers unlimited streaming (though the service lacks most recent releases and has a smaller catalog than other music services).

T-Mobile’s provocative chief executive, John Legere, couldn’t resist taking a Twitter shot at corporate neighbor Amazon for reportedly striking an exclusive distribution deal with AT&T for its forthcoming smartphone.

Legere tweeted, in a seeming fit of pique, “Really, @Amazon? What happened to home-town pride?”

Both the un-carrier’s US operations and the retailer’s headquarters are in metropolitan Seattle. AT&T will reportedly be the exclusive carrier for Amazon’s much-anticipated smartphone, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The carrier declined comment, and Amazon won’t even confirm it is indeed launching a phone -- though it has scheduled a press event in Seattle where the smartphone is expected to be unveiled.

AT&T chief executive Randall Stephenson said he doesn’t see how regulators can approve a rumored deal by SoftBank’s Sprint to buy T-Mobile USA.

“The problem as I see it is the way the government shut our deal down. They wrote a complaint and a very specific complaint. You’re consolidating the industry from four to three national competitors,” Stephenson said. “If you think of Sprint and T-Mobile combining, I struggle to understand how that’s not four going to three,” Stephenson said.

Amazon doesn’t want to sell books from Hachette Book Group. More for us, says Apple, which is taking advantage of the fight between the world’s biggest bookstore and one of the world’s biggest publishers.

Its iTunes store is promoting a sale on digital versions of popular Hachette titles, including upcoming books from James Patterson and JK Rowling. Apple won’t come out and say that, exactly.

But if you head to the iTunes book page, you’ll see Apple is highlighting a “Popular Pre-Orders: $9.99 or Less” section. Meanwhile, Amazon won’t allow customers to preorder digital versions of any of those titles, and generally isn’t selling paper-and-ink versions, either.

Beyond the fact that Apple’s happy to take advantage of a (much bigger) rival’s fight, what’s particularly interesting about the promotion is that one of the chief disputes between Hachette and Amazon is over pricing of digital books -- Amazon wants to push prices down; Hachette does not.