Revere Digital

WebMD is due to launch Healthy Target, a service that collects data from wearables, wireless scales, glucose meters and more to offer up personalized health content and tips. If it sounds like a familiar move at this point, it’s because lots of tech companies are positioning themselves as all-in-one platforms for digital health.

Samsung announced SAMI, Apple trotted out HealthKit, Google is reportedly coming out with Google Fit, Microsoft is still plugging away with HealthVault and Qualcomm Life offers the 2net Platform.

Healthy Target allows consumers to pick among goals like losing weight, eating healthier and controlling blood sugar. It then helps them achieve those aims by recommending lifestyle adjustments, sending reminders and providing encouragement. The service also helps users track their progress by translating health data into easy-to-understand visuals.

The app automatically pulls in information from devices developed by Entra, Fitbit, ForaCare, Jawbone, Telcare and Withings -- in most cases by syncing with the 2net Platform, a secure online health information locker already approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

[Commentary] The Internet of Things looms as possibly the most disruptive shift in technology since the creation of the Internet itself. Analysts estimate that up to 30 billion devices will be wirelessly connected by 2018.

According to recent reports, the average US household already charges up to 10 devices at any one time, and that number is expected to rise as the number of connected devices continues to surge. Imagine charging multiple devices, including a smartphone, tablet and smartwatch on a single surface -- no more fussing around with multiple chargers and outlets.

Wireless power, which allows users to charge multiple electronic devices without the use of a cable, promises to finally cut the cord for good. While wireless power technology has been around for some time, its evolution from first-generation inductive technology to second-generation resonant technology is now promising to take it mainstream. And because it will be easier to charge multiple devices at the same time, wireless charging makes sense for the burgeoning IoT marketplace such as fitness trackers, wearables and health monitors. Consumers would soon have the ability to charge their devices nearly everywhere.

[van der Lee is Director, Product Marketing, Broadcom]

[Commentary] With the 2014 World Cup kicking off, there is significant opportunity to engage fútbol aficionados by putting access to the games in their hands -- both literally and figuratively.

Univision’s Spanish-language coverage is disrupting the sports streaming model by eliminating all barriers and providing live, around-the-clock coverage for 56 matches on multiple screens, including TV, online and several mobile platforms, including Unimás and Univision Deportes.

During 2010’s World Cup, Univision reached more than 32 million viewers, and that number is expected to grow across all platforms. We are focused on broadcasting the games to as many viewers as possible and in as many platforms as possible. As new products and providers emerge every day, live-streaming piracy is on the rise and is a challenge that requires serious attention -- yet it also represents a significant opportunity to learn from business intelligence and to deliver on unmet consumer demand.

Here, we explore three key steps to help content owners and distributors disrupt piracy, reengage consumers, and uncover business intelligence from piracy.

• Good defense: Disrupting piracy and protecting your rights isn’t just about setting up barriers and thinking, “my content is secure now.”
• Reengage your fans: Give them the stadium experience anywhere and everywhere. People of all ages watch the World Cup.
• Use data to predict the next move and come up with a better game plan: This step is possibly the most important, because content owners and distributors can’t move ahead unless they know what pirate activity happened during a broadcast.

[Viva is Vice President, Univision; Ragland is Vice President, Irdeto]

Google said it had bought Skybox Imaging, a company that provides high-resolution photos using satellites, for $500 million in cash.

Google explained the deal as such: “Their satellites will help keep our maps accurate with up-to-date imagery. Over time, we also hope that Skybox’s team and technology will be able to help improve Internet access and disaster relief -- areas Google has long been interested in.”

Skybox provides sub-meter images as well as 90-second videos from its network of small satellites. It points them at specific spots to provide analytics about how they change over time.

Applications listed on its website include monitoring agriculture for the purpose of identifying pest infestations, modeling insurance by checking in on assets, informing commodity traders with updates about oil storage, and tracking ships and container activity in ports to analyze supply chains.

People familiar with Apple’s plans tell Code/red the company hopes to schedule a special event in October 2014 to show off the device, which is designed to make good use of the HealthKit health and fitness information-gathering app it recently showed off at World Wide Developer Conference.

Senate lawmakers expressed doubt about legislation to overhaul the National Security Agency’s bulk-data collection program as the US marked the first anniversary of surveillance revelations from whistleblower Edward Snowden.

In May, the House overwhelmingly passed the USA Freedom Act, legislation that would move bulk data collection from the NSA to phone companies. It’s not clear yet what the Senate will do about the legislation.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) said that he “will fight for a stronger USA Freedom Act” which “bans bulk collection of data, provides greater accountability and improves transparency.” But members of another Senate committee with jurisdiction over the intelligence community -- the Senate Intelligence Committee -- took a dimmer view of the proposed NSA bulk data collection overhaul during a hearing on the legislation.

Senate Intelligence Committee members have often been more tolerant of the intelligence community’s surveillance efforts, so it’s not surprising members of both parties expressed reservations about the legislation. More notable will be what other Senators without ties to the intelligence community say about it. Several Republicans on the intelligence committee questioned whether changes are needed at all.

“We all need to step back and ask ourselves whether all of these changes are really necessary,” said Sen Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) during the hearing. Sen Dan Coats (R-IN) said “there has been significant misrepresentation of the current program” and urged his colleagues to make sure any legislation doesn’t “compromise our ability to detect and thwart threats against American citizens.”

Notably, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) said the bipartisan House passage of the NSA bill sent “a very loud signal” to the Senate and said she believes her colleagues should look at the House legislation “with a view of its passage perhaps as amended through the Senate.”

In April, Netflix signed a Web traffic deal with Verizon. Now it is telling some of its customers that Verizon’s pipes -- and, presumably, other Internet service providers as well -- aren’t up to snuff.

Vox Media designer Yuri Victor tried watching Netflix on his MacBook and ended up seeing this message from the streaming service on his browser, blaming Verizon for slow speeds:

“The Verizon network is crowded right now.” Netflix spokesman Jonathan Friedland, via Twitter, described the messaging as a way to “keep members informed.” Via email, he said the wording was a “test that advises members when their network is congested,” and that it isn’t specific to Verizon. “We’ll see whether they think it is valuable or not.”

Verizon PR representative Robert Elek responded: “This is a PR stunt. We’re investigating this claim but it seems misleading and could confuse people.” This messaging is much clearer, and Netflix is delivering it directly to its customers: There’s a problem with your picture. Blame the guy who owns the pipe.

A new mobility report from Ericsson projects that the number of net-connected devices will increase by three or four times by 2019.

There were some 200 million machine-to-machine devices online by the end of 2013 -- a broad term that describes any device that exchanges information across a network without need for human intervention. These form the foundation of the “Internet of Things” phenomenon, and encompass everything from Internet-connected “smart meters” that keep track of energy consumption to cameras with built-in SIM cards to jump onto mobile networks.

Patrik Cerwall, Ericsson’s head of strategic marketing, said these devices communicate information across slower mobile networks today, but that will change by 2016, when the majority of such devices use higher-speed 3G or 4G networks. Smartphones accounted for 65 percent of all phones sold worldwide in the first quarter, Ericsson found.

Within two years’ time, the number of smartphone subscriptions will surpass basic mobile phones. Consumer adoption of the smartphone has accelerated since Apple introduced the iPhone in 2007.

Apple made its long-anticipated foray into health and fitness information gathering with HealthKit, a Passbook-like application that pulls in data from third-party apps and consolidates them in one comprehensive health-related profile.

There are existing apps for “everything from monitoring your activity level, to your weight, to chronic medical conditions like blood pressure and diabetes,” Apple’s Craig Federighi, senior vice president of software engineering, said. “But right now that information lives in silos.”

With HealthKit in iOS 8, there’s now a single profile of activity and health. Not surprisingly, Apple named Nike as an early partner in this. But it also named the reputable Mayo Clinic as a partner.

Startup Artemis Networks showed off a new technology called pCell (which stands for “personal cell”) that it claims deliver fast, unshared bandwidth to each smartphone, tablet or laptop, even in packed places like stadiums.

The pCells are generated by small transmitters that look sort of like a larger version of a home wireless router and can be placed all over a building or a city. If adopted, they could even one day replace cell towers, according to Artemis founder Steve Perlman, who formerly worked at Apple and Microsoft and helped invent products like QuickTime and WebTV.

The pCell system works with standard LTE phones, so no new handset technology is required. And they can coexist with the current cell phone transmission system. But there’s a catch: Deploying them will require the active cooperation of the major wireless carriers, who may be suspicious of relying on a radical new technology from a small startup.