Washington, DC Residents are Clumsiest Tech Users in the Nation

SquareTrade®, the #1-rated protection plan trusted by millions of happy customers, today released the results of its annual Clumsiest States Index. The Index reveals how states fare year over year when it comes to their citizens' rate of iPhone accidents and damage. The Index is based on claims filed by state betweenOctober 1, 2012 and September 30, 2013.

"Our Clumsy States Index gives us a chance to look back at the events that transpired over the year and consider how device damage was impacted. For example, we know that 23 million Americans have damaged devices during sporting events: did the Washington Capitals and Redskins' success last season increase DC's clumsiness ranking?" commented Ty Shay, CMO at SquareTrade. "Were Hurricane Sandy-related damages responsible for pushing New Jersey into the top 10 this year? Did the addition of long-awaited Wi-Fi on the New York City subway system nudge the state into the top 10?"

Top 10 Clumsiest States in 2013:	Top 10 Clumsiest States in 2012
1. Washington DC	1. Mississippi
2. Florida	2. New Mexico
3. Georgia	3. Rhode Island
4. New Jersey	4. North Dakota
5. Utah	5. South Carolina
6. Texas	6. Georgia
7. New York	7. Alabama
8. California	8. Louisiana
9. Louisiana	9. Colorado
10. Wyoming	10. North Carolina

SquareTrade is a registered trademark of SquareTrade, Inc.

SOURCE SquareTrade

Hyundai To Debut Next Generation Blue Link And Infotainment System In 2015 Genesis At PepCom's Digital Experience The Evening Before CES®

WHAT:	The 2015 Genesis will be heading to PepCom's Digital Experience to premier Hyundai's next generation Blue Link® telematics platform and infotainment system prior to its debut at the 2014 North American International Auto Show.    The 2015 Genesis features: •      Next-generation Blue Link® with destination search engine powered by Google® •      Genesis Intelligent Assistant app •      aha™, SoundHound® and Pandora® integration with smartphone •      Hyundai Assurance Connected Care powered by Blue Link •      All-new infotainment system with: •      Advanced Voice Recognition (AVR) •      Completely redesigned touch interface and navigation •      Swipe gestures for quick access to core features •      HD Radio™ technology
WHEN:	Mon., Jan. 6, 2014, the evening before the CES® show opens at 7:00 to 10:30 p.m. PT
WHERE:	PepCom's Digital Experience at Mirage Hotel & Casino on the Las Vegas strip
WHO:	System demonstrations and interview opportunities: Barry Ratzlaff, executive director, Customer Connect and Service Business Development for Hyundai Motor America Michael Deitz, senior group manager of Connected Car at Hyundai Motor America

SOURCE Hyundai Motor America

AT&T Customers Can Now Enjoy 4G LTE Wireless Speeds While Traveling In Canada

AT&T Is First U.S. Carrier to Offer International LTE Roaming

 AT&T* announced today that it has launched LTE roaming in Canada with Rogers Communications.  The agreement with Rogers makes AT&T the first U.S. carrier to offer international LTE roaming.

AT&T has a broad selection of LTE devices. In fact, about 42 percent of AT&T postpaid smartphone customers use an LTE device.** With today's announcement, AT&T customers roaming in Canada can use their existing LTE device to surf the web, download apps, upload content and more on Rogers LTE, Canada's fastest LTE network.

"Our agreement with Rogers affirms our commitment to deliver superior international coverage to our customers," said Bill Hague, executive vice president, International, Alliances and Integrations, AT&T Mobility. "AT&T customers already have access to the nation's fastest, most reliable 4G LTE network while in the United States and now they can enjoy LTE speeds while roaming in Canada."***

Rogers LTE delivers Canada's fastest download speeds, enabling AT&T customers to stay connected while traveling north of the border. The Rogers LTE network reaches 70 percent of Canadians from coast to coast and continues to expand. This year alone, Rogers will expand its LTE coverage to 95 new markets.

AT&T customers can select from one of three Data Global Add-On packages that offer discounted rates in Canada and over 150 countries – 120MB for $30/mo; 300MB for $60/mo; and 800MB for $120/mo.

To learn more about AT&T's discount roaming packages, including tips for selecting the best data package for your international travel needs, visit att.com/worldpackages.  

*AT&T products and services are provided or offered by subsidiaries and affiliates of AT&T Inc. under the AT&T brand and not by AT&T Inc.

**As reported in AT&T Earnings for 3rd Quarter 2013: About 42 percent of AT&T postpaid smartphone customers now use an LTE device; 70 percent use a 4G-capable device (LTE/HSPA+)

***4G LTE speed claim based on national carriers' average 4G LTE download speeds. Reliability claim based on data transfer completion rates on nationwide 4G LTE networks. 4G LTE availability varies.

SOURCE AT&T Inc.

AVG Delivers Shopping Privacy for the Holiday Season With New Wi-Fi Do Not Track feature for Smartphone Users New feature in AVG PrivacyFix™ for Android™ offers enhanced privacy options to protect against unwanted Wi-Fi surveillance

"Using Wi-Fi technology to capture our location data in stores provides retailers with analytics. The problem is that consumers have limited notice of these activities, often no opportunity to opt-out, and many may not realize they are even being observed in this way," said Gary Kovacs, Chief Executive Officer, AVG Technologies. "My view is that trust is at the heart of all successful transactions. Take that away, and you devalue technology's significant potential. AVG was the first security company to provide active Do Not Track in our desktop products and, with consumers increasingly using mobile devices to get online, we have maintained our leadership by extending this choice to the physical world."

 AVG Technologies N.V. (NYSE: AVG), the provider of Internet and mobile security, privacy and optimization to 172 million active users, today announced the release of a new Wi-Fi® Do Not Track (DNT) feature available in its flagship AVG PrivacyFix^TM for Android^TM application, aimed at giving consumers the choice to block tracking of their location enabled by Wi-Fi networks in retail stores and other public venues. By using AVG PrivacyFix to choose the adjustments they wish to make their smartphone settings, shoppers can now trust that their retail experience will be more private than ever before.

The new Wi-Fi DNT feature within AVG PrivacyFix for Android enables users to have the Wi-Fi on their smartphones automatically suspended when they are out and about, only reconnecting in the vicinity of pre-set trusted Wi-Fi locations, such as their home, office or regular coffee shop, for example. This prevents the device from transmitting a unique code (MAC address) which retailers and marketers have begun using to track the movement of shoppers based on physical location. Retailers are using this information to count visitors, optimize store layouts or measure the effectiveness of mobile advertising.

"The commercialization of Wi-Fi tracking of shoppers appears to be on the rise with companies offering such services to retailers. Yet often these services lack any opt-out mechanism for consumers and fail to provide assurance of basic encryption protection of your device identifier. AVG PrivacyFix offers individuals the choice and control over their privacy that the industry has yet to provide," said Jim Brock, VP Privacy Products, AVG Technologies. "Until we see broadly accepted and protective industry standards in place to regulate smartphone tracking in the real-world, consumers need to fend for themselves. We're here to make that easier."

AVG PrivacyFix featuring the new Wi-Fi DNT feature has been developed as an additional element to the existing AVG PrivacyFix application, which allows people to manage their privacy settings across popular online sites, such as Facebook and Google+ and is available now to download for Android smartphones here. 

About AVG PrivacyFix™

• AVG PrivacyFix is a free application that puts control of a consumer's personal online privacy back in their hands. Available for PC, mobile and tablet, it allows people to check, manage and personalize their privacy settings across popular sites such as Facebook®, Google®, LinkedIn®, and across websites in general, all from one easy-to-use central control panel. Key features include:
  • A personal privacy dashboard, available when you want it, on your phone, tablet, and computer.
  • The ability to keep your privacy up to date, as AVG PrivacyFix lets you know when settings change or new settings need review.
  • A warning feature that alerts you before you give your Facebook data to Facebook apps that don't provide privacy assurances.
  • Keeping loved ones private by showing you when their Facebook profiles may be exposed.
  • Information that helps you understand who's collecting data about you and what your data may be worth to Facebook and Google.

Further information

• Follow Jim Brock at his blog and on Twitter @privacychoice: http://blogs.avg.com/author/jim-brock/
• Find out more about AVG PrivacyFix: http://www.avg.com/gb-en/privacyfix
• Download AVG PrivacyFix application for PC, mobile and tablet:  
• http://www.privacyfix.com/start/install
• Hear Jim Brock talk about privacy and the digital world:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiLLTnYxgng&feature=youtube
• Download our free eBooks on online safety and privacy:
  • An Online Safety Guide for Parents: http://www.avg.com/ebooks/guide-for-parents
  • Parent's Guide to Early Years Online: http://www.avg.com/ebooks/digital-early-years#.UnKkLWVFDIU
  • A Baby Boomer's Guide to Facebook: http://www.avg.com/ebooks/baby-boomers-guide-to-facebook#.UjNGF2VwbIU
  • Online Shopping Guide: www.avg.com/ebooks/online-shopping-download

 All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Patent pending.

(Logo:  http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120306/SF65434LOGO)

About AVG Technologies (NYSE: AVG)AVG's mission is to simplify, optimize and secure the Internet experience, providing peace of mind to a connected world. AVG's powerful yet easy-to‐use software and online services put users in control of their Internet experience. By choosing AVG's software and services, users become part of a trusted global community that benefits from inherent network effects, mutual protection and support. AVG has grown its user base to 172 million active users as of September 30, 2013 and offers a product portfolio that targets the consumer and small business markets and includes Internet security, PC performance optimization, online backup, mobile security, identity protection and family safety software.
www.avg.com      

SOURCE AVG Technologies

Publishers Finally Have an Automated Way to Match Videos to Articles, Improving Reader Experience while Doubling Video Inventory

Touchstorm Takes on Taboola and Outbrain with Content Recognition Technology that Prioritizes Video Quality and Relevance Over Cookies and Click Bait; Creates New Venture veeseo North America

Publishers can finally align their video assets with their editorial text using content relevance technology from veeseo. Proven in Europe with some of the region's top websites, including AOL, Axel Springer, Handelsblatt, MSN and Spiegel, veeseo adds significant value to site editorial, which results in videos with mid-article placement, higher engagement scores, and clicks that remain on the publisher site. Touchstorm partnered with Hamburg-based veeseo GmbH to bring the technology to the North American market, setting up a new venture, veeseo North America, to run the business.

veeseo is unlike traditional content recommendation tools that use oft-wasted space on the bottom of a publisher site to post articles and videos, which then link readers to other sites. veeseo embeds relevant publisher videos into the editorial mid article (see screenshot), which results in higher click-through rates that stay within the publisher site.

The Advantages of Semantic Matching

Using advanced speech-to-text technology and semantic matching refined over many years, veeseo identifies the meaning of the article and video—not just keywords and topics—and matches them based on relevance. As an example, an article about a tiger in the woods will bring up videos about that same or other tigers, not golfer Tiger Woods.

As a publisher adds new video to its library, veeseo scans and inserts that video within minutes into related editorial. This automated and continuous matching system is ideal for breaking news sites where editors are challenged by the constant addition of new content. Once the reader views a video, he or she is presented with another set of relevant options based on video-to-video matching, which keeps users engaged in the site. See how veeseo works here.

"Publishers deserve a more effective alternative to recommendation engines that don't support the quality of the publisher's content and send clicks away," said Jan Andresen, founder and CEO of veeseo. "Current tools recommend content based on cookies that track where the user has been, and as cookies disappear from the horizon, those engines end up running click bait paid for by other sites. This approach impacts integrity when a high quality news site teases a story about the latest celebrity scandal. veeseo is robust, simple and profitable because the videos are relevant to the reader's experience right now, and it all happens in real time."

"Beyond saving editors time, veeseo is a revenue machine," said Alison Provost, CEO of Touchstorm and veeseo North America. "The relevancy creates higher click-through rates and all user clicks stay with the publisher, creating more video inventory for ad sales. Publishers can double their video views relatively quickly, and can triple revenue over the typical yield from other recommendation tools. Publishers can add veeseo to their mix because it works alongside Taboola and Outbrain, adding a level of value that hasn't existed before. In fact, we encourage publishers to use both tools to compare the quality, clicks and revenues that follow."

veeseo has been successful with major publishers in Europe for more than a year who are seeing the following benefits:

• Maintained Audience. Where other content recommendation engines send users elsewhere for videos that fit their individual behavior profiles, veeseo connects users directly to companion videos on the publisher site.
• Relevant Video. Because all readers see the same videos that correspond to articles, editors can control quality more easily; they also recognize the value of positioning videos in the middle rather than at the bottom of the page.
• Increased Ad Revenue. Instead of click payments–$0.50 every time someone goes away–veeseo lets publishers sell advertising against their own videos, turning video into revenue assets for publishers.
• Publisher Video Recognition. veeseo unlocks the video trove that exists with all major publishers by using semantic algorithms that understand the meaning and importance of whole sentences, not just the keywords, to create the perfect match between video and article.
• Simplicity and Time Saving. Publishers can start integrating relevant video into their editorial immediately by adding a simple line of code into their site, and editorial is continually refreshed with available new video.

About Veeseo North Americaveeseo North America (www.veeseo.com/us) provides the most relevant video and article recommendations for publishers and editors. Based on years of experience in speech-to-text analysis, semantics and video editing processes, veeseo provides fully automated technologies for recommending videos and articles on customer websites. veeseo is built for publishers and editors using the model that strong content relevance drives more clicks, advertising placements and revenues, which is a revolutionary model for the publishing industry. veeseo North America is based in New York.

About TouchstormTouchstorm (www.touchstorm.com) is a digital media company that produces and distributes video for big brands and online publishers. The company provides a technology-backed service that helps clients grow their YouTube channels exponentially, and a distribution network and technology platform that give publishers a wealth of unbiased editorial content that results in engagement scores significantly above industry benchmarks. In December 2013, Touchstorm brought the Veeseo content relevance technology to the U.S. and established Veeseo North America. Touchstorm offers proprietary marketing tools VOOT^®, Scoop™ and Arena™ for brands, and works with leading brands and experts to create HD-quality, journalistic-style videos under the Howdini brand. Headquartered in New York, Touchstorm is an independent, female-owned company.

SOURCE Touchstorm

Video Collaboration: New Ideas? Or just a Response to Google?

axle Video, has teamed up with leading vendors Adobe and IBM to host two free seminars highlighting important new trends in the media business. 

The 'Video Collaboration: New Ideas' events will highlight new technologies making it possible for creative teams to be far more productive, both internally and with their clients, than previously possible. Unlike most vendor-driven marketing events, the focus will be on real-world applications, and axle, along with Adobe and IBM, will provide the opportunity for attendees to spend hands-on time with their technologies at the events, and ask in-depth questions of the companies' product experts.

"I'm delighted to be part of this initiative to bring cutting-edge information and perspectives to media professionals in the country's two biggest markets," said Chris Dee, an industry consultant with management experience at major broadcasters including HBO, NBC and Disney, and the opening speaker at both events. "It's exciting to be part of the project and we're looking forward to great attendance and participation by some industry leaders."

Registration for the free events is at www.tinyurl.com/newideashollywood and www.tinyurl.com/newideasny. The agenda for the sessions is as follows:

Big Picture Overview – What's happening across the broadcast and postproduction industries today.  Chris Dee, principal at DeeTour Consulting and a pioneer of digital workflows at HBO, NBC, Discovery Channel, and Disney. 10 AM

Distributed Editing – It's been talked about as a possibility for years, but now it's real. Dennis Radeke will discuss Adobe® Anywhere for video, a collaborative workflow platform that empowers teams using Adobe professional video tools to work together in real-time across standard networks, using shared media.10:30 AM

Easy Media Management – This used to be a contradiction in terms; we'll explain how you can simply, affordably add media management to current workflows and shared storage. axle Video's Sam Bogoch will show you how to stop hunting around and start being productive! 11 AM

Truly Scalable Archiving – Archiving once involved complex user interfaces and custom setups; worst of all, vendors' unique storage formats meant you couldn't even exchange data.  IBM's Dave Taylor shows us how LTFS LE is making scalable, searchable, exchangeable archives a reality. 11:30 AM

Q&A and Demos – Stay with us for an open-ended discussion in the main room, and technology demos in the foyer. We'll make sure there's plenty of opportunity for hands-on interaction. 12 Noon

According to the event details on www.eventbrite.com: The exploding use of video throughout the economy – from Vine on smartphones, through global 2K/4K distribution – is driving tremendous change in how we look at the medium.  Current high schoolers and college students will enter the workforce simply expecting that video will be the preferred way to communicate.  Wherever they go, video will follow.  

 

We'll look at some key technologies that make it possible to manage, edit and archive all this content with today's flexible workforce. With the influx of people and companies new to the video revolution, industry knowledge and capabilities are likely to see strong demand for the next decade.  But this demand is likely to come from unlikely places – sports teams, not-for-profits,, corporate networks, and universities in addition to the usual suspects: mainstream content providers, networks and movie studios.

 

One certainty is that more of everything – more participants, more formats, and more sheer storage – will be needed almost continuously going forward.  This seminar will examine several long-term trends in how we work with video, and demonstrate examples of tools that address these trends.

SOURCE axle Video, LLC

Cloud Platforms Will Be Hottest Technology for Next Two Years

TheInfoPro, a service of 451 Research, released its latest servers and virtualization study, which shows spending on infrastructure slowing over the next two years as attention shifts to software defined datacenters.  Cloud platforms stand out as the hottest technology for adoption in the next two years, followed by the management and automation functions required for production and virtualized data centers.  

Other highlights from the TheInfoPro Servers and Virtualization Study include:

• Server virtualization projects are still driving spending, but the virtualization server spending bubble has burst and the majority of customers expect to be, at best, in a steady-state purchasing environment for the foreseeable future.
  
• There is an overall slowdown in spending expected in 2014 compared with 2013 across all infrastructure technologies, but the standout in both years is the x86 rack-format server, with 35% of respondents projecting less spending in this area in 2013 and 41% in 2014.
  
• Integrated infrastructure offerings are now gaining strong acceptance in their various forms. General-purpose offerings include unified computing and converged infrastructure, which are currently in use by 32% and 17% of respondents, respectively. In the next two years, a further 10% and 16% of respondents will be actively considering each of these technologies. 
  
• Micro servers, which are making a bid to become the next generation of server architectures for scale-out workloads, have yet to gain any noticeable market traction, but are receiving some attention for possible future deployment by 5% of respondents.
  
• Server professionals are switching their attention to the software required to run cloud-ready data centers, with spending increasing across the board in 2014 as compared with 2013, almost the exact opposite of the situation for infrastructure technologies.
  
• In 2013, the highest spending areas are focused on the management and automation of virtualized data centers. For 2014, cloud platforms jumped to the top of the pack with 30% planning increased spending.
  
• From the infrastructure vendor perspective, Cisco, EMC, HP, Oracle and VCE stand out as the vendors with the most upside opportunity for integrated infrastructure. For solid-state disk EMC, Fusion-io, and server vendors Dell, HP and IBM get mentions. 

• With cloud platforms leading the software heat index, VMware, Microsoft, Citrix and OpenStack all receive attention.  For data center management and automation functions VMware and Microsoft receive the most frequent mentions with BMC Software, CA, HP and ServiceNow also gaining noteworthy attention.

"As organizations move beyond virtualization of production workloads, attention is shifting towards the management and automation of the software defined datacenter," said Peter ffoulkes, TheInfoPro's Research Director for Servers and Virtualization. "Over the next two years, the foundations for enterprise cloud computing will be deployed with cloud platforms standing out as the hottest technology and the most critical strategic decision to be made."

Published in November 2013, TheInfoPro study identifies the key data center infrastructure initiatives of leading organizations while examining market factors and major players. This annual study is based on extensive live interviews with IT professionals and primary decision-makers at large and midsize enterprises in North America and Europe.

Research Director and report author Peter ffoulkes will host a 451 Research Innovation Series webinar on December 5th to discuss the report's findings.

Webinar Details:

• Title: The Virtualization Bubble Bursts, Spending Shifts to the Software Defined Datacenter
• Date: December 5, 2013
• Time: 2 pm ET
• Presenter: Peter ffoulkes, Research Director, Servers & Virtualization and Cloud Computing
• Registration: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/258584353

About 451 Research 

451 Research, a division of The 451 Group, is focused on the business of enterprise IT innovation. The company's analysts provide critical and timely insight into the competitive dynamics of innovation in emerging technology segments. Business value is delivered via daily concise and insightful published research, periodic deeper-dive reports, data tools, market-sizing research, analyst advisory, and conferences and events, including the upcoming Hosting & Cloud Transformation Summit Europe 2014. Clients of the company – at vendor, investor, service-provider and end-user organizations – rely on 451 Research's insight to support both strategic and tactical decision-making. 451 Research is headquartered in New York, with offices in key locations, including San Francisco, Washington DC, London, Boston, Seattle and Denver.

SOURCE 451 Research

Wearable Electronics Market on Track to Exceed $8 Billion in 2013

The consumer wearable electronics segment - comprising wireless and smartwatches, activity trackers, wearable GPS, heart rate monitors and smartglasses - is experiencing a period of rapid growth with a forecast value of over $8 billion in 2013, according to the latest research from Futuresource Consulting. With smartphones only beinging to reach the hands of those who I consider to be basic consumer users, I am curious to see how they will receive the new wearable tech. The days of Star Trek and the Jetsons is here. I am just waiting for the wearable make up face that Jane Jetson had to become available. I suspect Google maybe working on that one already.

"Many wearable devices are currently companion devices to other smart devices, in particular smartphones," says Oliver Rowntree, Research Analyst at Futuresource Consulting. "It's likely this will largely remain the case over the forecast period." I think it going to be a real issue for those who have not mastered how to use a smartphone or understand their in home networks. 

"The connected watch category will be the most significant growth area within wearable technology over the forecast period and Futuresource projects a combined wireless watch and smartwatch market of around 0.9 million units in 2013, with more than 60% of this accounted for by smartwatches."

Smartwatch growth will be driven by new entrants into the market, both from CE manufacturers - as companies such as Apple and LG move into #smartwatches - and from watch companies which will integrate smart features into their devices.

Smartglasses are the least established wearable category covered in this new report, as no products are currently commercially available. Futuresource therefore anticipates that the market for #smartglasses will first emerge in 2014, when #GoogleGlass will be released.

According to the research, Futuresource forecasts that in 2014 there will be less than one million smartglasses sold, growing to almost seven million by 2017, with a total retail value closing in on two billion dollars. This assumes the entrance into the market of a large number of key CE brands by 2015, though uptake will initially be limited to a fairly niche, tech-savvy portion of consumers.

"One significant question with smartglasses is the degree of autonomy the devices will have - whether they will be devices that are paired with another or whether they will be standalone," says Rowntree. "Furthermore, unless wearable devices develop to fulfil much of the function of other devices such as smartphones, uptake will be more limited in emerging markets. As with specialist fitness wearables, without the functionality of smartphones they are relatively niche luxury products."

Looking at the bigger picture, the wearable electronics segment will continue to expand as consumer awareness and acceptance take hold, and Futuresource research pegs the market at a value of around $20 billion by 2017.

Free Wearables Webinar

Futuresource will host a free webinar during CES 2014 - "Wearable Tech: How Big, How Soon?" takes place on Friday 10 January at 7:15am PST (15:15 GMT) and explores consumer uptake and industry opportunities for a range of wearable devices. Places are limited, for more information visit http://www.futuresource-consulting.com/futuresource-conferences-ev

Source: Futuresource Consulting