Nissan's First iAd Campaign

Google Buys Leading Airline Data Company

Google is acquiring ITA, a Boston-based software company specializing in organizing airline data, including flight times, availability and prices.

Google has already come up with new ways to organize hard-to-find information like images, newspaper archives, scholarly papers, books and geographic data, and plans on creating new flight search tools that will make it easier for people to search for flights, compare flight options and prices and get you quickly to a site where you can buy a ticket.

ITA's software is employed by a long list of airlines and travel sites, including Kayak and Orbitz, and is considered by many to be the dominant provider of such information.

The move is logical given the prominence Bing has been giving to flight-related search and commerce.

Official Google Blog: Taking off with ITA

Mobile Data: Not the Deluge You Might Expect

Average mobile data consumption increased from about 90 MBytes per month during the first quarter of 2009 to 298 MBytes per month during the first quarter of 2010, according to Nielsen.

This represents a year-over-year increase of approximately 230 percent. While this increase is substantial, in the first quarter of 2009 more than a third of smart phone subscribers used less than 1 MByte of data per month and usage has dropped to a quarter in the first quarter of 2010.

About 20 million current smartphone users are hardly using data.

Quantifying the Mobile Data Tsunami and its Implications | Nielsen Wire

"It's Just a Phone"

Problems with your iPhone 4? "Retire, relax, enjoy your family. It is just a phone. Not worth it." Probably good advice. Also a reminder that civility is a virtue.

Exclusive: Conversation with Steve Jobs on the iPhone 4 antenna problems � Boy Genius Report

Just in Time for July 4

Why Intel Uses Ethnographers

Most companies ask customers what they want or need when designing the new generation of products or services. Intel has a bit of challenge in that regard since people sometimes don't know what they want, and Intel makes products are are building blocks for the products end users actually experience.

So Intel hires ethnographers to "stand in" for the market.

How Moore's Law drove Intel into the arms of anthropologists

470.6 Billion Mobile VoIP Minutes of Use by 2015

The number of mobile VoIP minutes carried annually on 3G and 4G networks will rise from 15 billion minutes in 2010 to 470.6 billion by 2015, finds a new report from Juniper Research.

Mobile VoIP traffic will see steady rises in all regions over the forecast period, but particularly in developed markets, due to the increasing ubiquity of 3G networks.

WiFi mobile VoIP is potentially the most damaging of all VoIP traffic as it bypasses the mobile networks altogether, says Anthony Cox, Juniper Research senior analyst. We forecast that mobile VoIP over WiFi will cost operators $5 billion globally by 2015, he says.

Annual Mobile VoIP Minutes to Double Each Year, Reaching 470.6bn by 2015, According to Juniper Research

Over-the-Top Video Will Generate $20 Billion in 2014

U.S. broadband households that view over-the-top video will grow from 38 million in 2009 to 81 million by 2014, according to In-State. Of course, "viewing" is not the same thing as "paying."

But revenue from OTT video will more than quadruple by 2014 to nearly $20 billion, In-Stat forecasts.

Most of that revenue likely will come from subscriptions and pay-per-view sources, as content owners so far have found difficult the challenge of creating a revenue stream based solely on advertising.

In-Stat - Press Releases:

iPad Replaces Menus

So the big problem is people stealing the menus, eh?

Intel backs off WiMAX

Intel has decided to dissolve its WiMAX Program Office, which was set up to promote the development of related WiMAX technologies, according to industry sources in Taiwan.

That is not exactly the same thing as suspending or ending its support for WiMAX, which continues. It does indicate the expected returns from such promotion efforts now are diminished to the point where it doesn't make sense to keep pouring resources into the effort.

Once the global GSM mobile community decided to back Long Term Evolution, that was a turning point for WiMAX.

Staff members of the WiMAX Program Office will be incorporated into Intel's Mobile Wireless Group (MWG), PC Client Group (PCCG), or Sales and Marketing (SMG) unit, depending on their skills.

Intel backs off WiMAX industry, dismisses WiMAX Program Office, say sources

Mobile Games Explain Much About Mobile App Disuse

You probably have seen statistics indicating that a typical mobile app gets used for perhaps a month, and then usage declines dramatically over the following two months. One reason is that so many mobile apps are either pieces of content or gaming apps, and will lose their novelty over time.

After looking at about 40,000 game titles, O'Reilly Radar estimates a popular game app, on average (median), spends about 15 days on the "Top 100" list.

Popular iPhone games stay highly-ranked only for a few weeks - O'Reilly Radar

Walt Mossberg Sorts Through HSPA+, 4G Claims

Looks Like Your Starbucks Purchases are a Coincident Economic Indicator

Your spending at Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts looks like a coincident economic indicator, meaning coffee purchases at the two outlets track the economy.

The Christmas season spike, when people are buying gifts, rather than coffee, appears to be the only anamoly.

Too bad Starbucks is not a leading indicator.

Google Revamps "News" to Allow More Personalization

Wi-Fi Access Plays Key Access Role for Apple Devices and Users

In case you were wondering about the growing role played by Wi-Fi access as a way of offloading smartphone traffic from the mobile network, about 24 percent of U.S. traffic in May 2010 used Wi-Fi, with very heavy usage by Apple iPod and iPhone users.

The iPod "Touch," of course, must use Wi-Fi, which accounts for its heavy profile.