July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Sitting on a shelf in my entertainment room are five oblong plastic boxes.

One is the remote control for my TV, another for my surround-sound receiver. One is for my blue-ray player, another is for the PVR, and yet another one is for no discernible purpose.

But if I wasn’t half the lazy idiot I sadly am, I could replace them all with a simple app on my iPhone or iPad, like Roomie.

We’re getting fairly used to our mobile devices being remote controls for the various aspects of our digital and not-so-digital lives. Your LG fridge has an IP address, can text you when food is going bad, and can be controlled by your phone. Home security systems that come complete with an app, and can tell you what’s happening in your home, are almost the norm.

OnStar gives your car a remote control too, and if it’s not exactly a James Bond-style actually-drive-your-car-by-remote app, it at least tells you the condition of your battery, how much gas you have, and lets you remotely unlock your vehicle. (Oh, and by the way, if you do want to drive your car by remote control, just buy the Chinese BYD Su Rui, an ordinary 5-seater sedan that yes, can be driven by remote control — at 1.2 miles per hour.)

Next week at VentureBeat’s Mobile Summit 2013, we’re going to be talking about mobile as a remote control for life. Security systems, cars, homes, appliances: everything modern, seemingly, has a remote control.

Even you.

One of the things we’re increasingly using our mobile phones/remote control is to control ourselves. Sometimes with little devices like a Fitbit or an Up, but often also simply with our phones and apps like Digifit, which monitors and tracks our fitness and workouts. Others help us get better sleep, stop smoking, and walk more, simply by letting us set goals, and then holding us to them.

One, the Gain Fitness app, helps us to manage our fitness with one simple feature: the workout streak tracker. Although the app does other things, it tracks every day you do a workout, and every day you do not. Miss one, skip one, or avoid one, and your workout streak is broken, and you start back down at zero. Essentially, it’s a simple motivational trick to make yourself do what you know you really want to do, but sometimes don’t feel like.

In essence, a remote control.

More on devices, gadgets, the internet of things, and the mobile computers we call phones that are enabling this remote control trend at Mobile Summit 2013, April 1-2 in Sausalito, California.

photo credit: Stéfan via photopin cc

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Online coupon company FatWallet says the economy is improving, as most holiday shoppers plan to spend at least as much or more on Cyber Monday as they spent last year. But most of what people are buying isn’t technology … it’s clothing, toys, and appliances.

The good news for online retailers is that a third of shoppers plan to spend more, according to FatWallet’s consumer survey of 600 consumers across the U.S, while 54 percent are planning to spend the same amount. And most shoppers — 62 percent —  believe they’re going to get the best deals of the holiday season at the beginning of next week.

(One caveat on those numbers: they’re based on a subset of consumers who plan to shop on Cyber Monday, so they likely de-emphasize those with skinnier wallets to begin with. On the other hand, of those who plan to shop online this Cyber Monday, only three-quarters said they did the same last year.)

50% of people are looking for toy deals on Cyber Monday

But it’s a bit surprising to see what people are looking to buy on Cyber Monday. It’s not technology, at least primarily. Here’s what people will be shopping for next week:

• 70%: clothing deals
• 50%: toy deals
• 34%: appliance deals
• 32%: tablet deals
• 32%: laptop deals
• 26%: HDTV deals
• 23%: smartphone deals
• 26%: other deals

Clothing, toys, and appliances. Ignoring the fact that the main point of Cyber Monday is online shopping, there’s not a lot of technology showing up … especially the traditional technology purchases such as computers, smartphones, TVs, and home stereo systems.

Which I guess is the good news for online retailers: online shopping is now truly widespread.

photo credit: Kevin Marks via photopin cc, spieri_sf via photopin cc

It’s become a tired pattern these days: create an innovative product, then sit back and watch the patent lawsuits pile up. That’s what happened to the smart thermostat maker Nest, which wowed the world with its gorgeous web-connected device in October, but later faced a patent infringement lawsuit from Honeywell.

Today, Nest officially denied Honeywell’s claims (PDF filing), and made it clear it wasn’t going to let up without a fight. The company has brought on former Apple chief patent counsel Richard Lutton Jr. as a vice president and general counsel, who has been advising it for several months.

Nest Labs is no ordinary startup — it was founded by Tony Fadell and Matt Rogers, two people who were instrumental in developing Apple’s iPod, and it has the investor backing of Kleiner Perkins, Google Ventures, and other heavyweights. Fadell tells The Verge that investors are “totally behind us,” which means Nest is better equipped than most small companies to take on industry heavyweights like Honeywell.

“This lawsuit is a bald effort by Honeywell to inhibit competition from a promising new company and product in a field that Honeywell has dominated from decades,” Nest wrote in today’s court filing. “Instead of countering product innovation with its own new products, Honeywell has a track record of responding to innovation with lawsuits and overextended claims of intellectual property violations.”

Honeywell claims Nest is infringing on seven of its patents, but Nest refutes that in today’s filing. The company points out that many of the patents require a mechanical hardware like a potentiometer, which the Nest doesn’t have, and it says many of Honeywells patents are invalid since they were never disclosed to the Patent Office.

“We’d be more than happy to have a professional discussion with Honeywell to understand what their issues really are” Fadell tells the Verge, adding that Nest is open to multiple options “if there’s something that makes business sense to our investors, our employees, and our consumers.”

The first big item LG showed off is its LG Smart TV with integrated Google TV. Normally, Google TV is an external accessory. The company did not mention pricing or availability, but we expect the TV to appear in the first few months of this year for a pretty penny.

The company will also be heavily investing in non-Google TV-powered TVs as well and has a smattering of new 3D TVs on the way, including a monster 84-inch model. New premium 3D TVs will feature LG’s proprietary L9 chipset, which has a quad-core CPU and enhanced 3D picture quality. These next-gen 3D TVs will have immersive cinema 3D, with 2D to 3D conversion, 3D sound zooming and 3D depth control.

The company also showed in person its previously announced 55-inch OLED, the largest OLED display we’ve seen to date.

Wanye Park, LG President and CEO, said 3D TVs continue to do well, and in the past year LG has increased its overall market share in LCD and LED-based TVS. “Despite a challenging 2011, life is still good at LG,” Park said.

On the mobile front, LG showed off its new Spectrum Android superphone for Verizon Wireless. It will feature a 1.5GHz dual-core processor, a 4.5-inch display, and 4G LTE. The device will be available on Jan. 19 for $199 with a two-year contract with Verizon. In many ways, this is LG’s successor to its Revolution smartphone.

LG noted that it owns 23% of key patents in LTE technology, worth an estimated $7.9 billion.

On a final note, the company showed off new smart appliances, including a refrigerator that can help you do a lot with your food. The new smart fridge has LG”s “Smart Manager,” with a food manager system, voice recognition, the ability to scan grocery lists, and the ability to order groceries from your fridge panel.

The company also talked about its new “blast chiller” technology, which can reduce the temperature of a can of soda or beer in five minutes.

You can check out a gallery of LG products from the press conference below: