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This week's recap: the last Blackberry?, a modular smartwatch, Giphy is getting big, ingestibles, iOS App Store and China

October 16, 2015.

 

Blackberry (almost) ready to throw the towel

In a recent interview, the Blackberry CEO John Chen finally admitted that the Canadian company may leave the smartphone market altogether by next year. Blackberry is about to launch a new Android-powered model, Priv. Could this mean that this whole market segment now depends on the success of a single phone??? Chen still said he remains positive, stating that he is hopeful Priv will work given Blackberry's expertise on security, especially in business markets. http://bit.ly/1VUgEex

 

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The first modular smartwatch

Currently part of a crowdfuding campaign (with an already wildly exceeded goal): BLOCKS, a customizable smartwatch. Each little module has a specific function, which users will be able to mix and match according to their specific needs. Among the modules offered: an extra battery, a heart monitor, a camera, a GPS, a SIM card... Delivery is forecasted in May 2016. From $285 US for the watch + 4 modules. We can already feel the whole global geek population shivering with excitement. http://kck.st/1QowbBU

 

We heart Giphy

Great news for those who love Gipgy, this .GIF serach engine started in 2013! After launching GyphyCam last year, an app the enables users to create their own gifs, the project just keeps expanding, to the point of becoming a real media company. COO Adam Leibsohn revealed that Giphy was about to offer several new cool editing and sharing tools, in order to make gifs more and more accessible and universal. The company's Website has over 60 million unique visitors per month, which makes us believe that what the world truly needs, is to see a dog stumbling down the stairs awkwardly over and over again. http://tcrn.ch/1L74c5Y

 

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The future of wearable technologies lies... in a surprising place

We hear a lot about wearable technologies, these hi-tech gadgets one can well, wear, from watches to bracelets to clothes with integrated sensors... By there is a way to push the idea even further: ingestibles, i.e. technologies we... ingest. According to Hosain Rahman, the CEO of Jawbones, these technologies could become widespread a lot quicker than we think. Not only do they solve existing problems with wearables (namely the fact that one has to take them off sometimes), but they could also provide data from the inside. Ingestibles would contain sensors that, once swallowed, could collect a lot of data before... ending their journey into our bodies. A few of these tehchonologies already exist in the medial realm, but the industry wants it to become more available. A single use case: preventing a car from igniting when the sensor detects that its driver's blood alcohol is too high. http://on.mash.to/1hGKKVs

 

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iOS App Store 1, Google Play 0

Companies released their financial results for the latest quarter, and it's an understatement to say that the Asian market is the main growth driver for app providers nowadays. This is due to the fact that a rapidly growing number of Chinese users have access to phones with larger screens, providing an unexpected but welcome financial manna... So, even if the Google Play Store has 90% more downloads than that App Store as a whole, income is not on par. Even with this much smaller number of downloads, the iOS App Store recorded 90% more revenue than its rival! The two things that explain the App Store success in China: social video apps (such as lip synching ones) and games, which still have a tremendous growth potential. China is now the largest global market in terms of downloads, but still third when it comes to games, after the US and Japan. http://tcrn.ch/1LvRL7D