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Android tops
smartphone operation
systems with 79%
Hand signals to control
smart devices remotely
Google’s Android OS led the world-wide
smartphone market with78.9% (265 million
units), declining 0.9% from Q1 of last year.
Gartner said that Apple’s iOS accounted for
17.9% and that Apple shipped 60.2 million
iPhones.
With 8.3 million units shipped in the first quar-
ter of 2015, Windows Phone captured 2.5%
of the global smartphone market. BlackBer-
ry shipments declined, andthe company’s
share of the global market declined from .6%
to .4%, after shipping 1.3 million phones in
three months.
Samsung led the way among smartphone
manufacturers in the first quarter of 2015,
with a market share of 24.2%, declining from
30.4% in the same period last year.
Google’s ATAP division revealed a new ges-
ture technology that enables users to give
commands to their mobile devices through
hand signals.
The new chip is developed by ATAP under the
name Project Soli. The chip creates a wide
radar bulb, designed to be big enough to see
your entire hand all at once.
The chip releases wireless radio signals from
the attached device to recognize the distance,
height, direction and speed of user’s hand.
According to project developers, the chip has
high accuracy in recognizing hand gestures.
Google said the chip is very small and has
the ability to recognize small gestures by the
hand, converting them to commands to con-
trol various devices. The chip was particu-
larly developed to remotely control wearable
devices, but Google said it can be used for
all connected devices, including the Internet
of Everything devices, computers and smart
devices.
Cars equipped with
Android Auto and Apple’s
CarPlay in 2016
Chevrolet is planning to launch cars
equipped with Apple’s CarPlay and
Google’s Android Auto in 2016.
The company has announced that
14 models of its 2016 models will be
compatible with Google’s Android
Auto and Apple’s CarPlay including
cars, trucks, and Crossovers. These
models will support both platformsac-
cording to users’ phone model.
Cars can support both platforms at
the same time, recognizing which
phones is plugged into the car’s USB
port, then enabling the relevant fea-
tures. When an iPhone is plugged
into the car, the car converts to the
CarPlay platform. When an Android
(5.0 and above) is plugged into the
car, the car converts to the Android
Auto platform.
23
June
2014