China's mobile users have distinct preferences for Android vs. iOS.

The infographic of the day shows  key points of a new survey conducted among mobile users in China revealing who is buying mobile apps, user preferences for iOS or Android, and user tolerance for ads appearing in their apps.

Guohe, a mobile advertising management platform in China has just released a study, Mobile Advertising: Six Key Trends in 2012 – How marketers can best utilize mobile advertising as part of an integrated digital strategy in China.  Guohe surveyed 600 users of mobile phones including Apple, HTC, Samsung, Motorola, Sony, Ericsson, and others. 54% of users interviewed had Android phones, and 39% had jailbroken phones.
The survey showed that users were most accepting of ads within news apps and least tolerant of them in apps such as photography, graphics, or even location and map apps. Gaming as a category is a hit with both iOS and Android users and works well for advertisers choosing to reach them through gaming apps where the study showed a significantly higher click-through rate.
iPhones tend to be more expensive than their Android counterparts in China, so it follows that more affluent city dwellers, entrepreneurs, businesspeople, and fashion-conscious users buy iPhones and gravitate toward game, utility, and shopping apps. On the other hand, Android users are more into reading apps.
According to Guohe, a greater percentage of China’s iOS users spend more money on apps than do Android users, possibly because of Apple’s early willingness to accept China’s RMB currency as payment. In fact, only 23% of the study’s Android users ever purchased any apps, though they’ve likely downloaded plenty of free apps from over 100 different third party app stores for Android in China that mostly offer them for free. About 25% of iPhone users surveyed prefer paid apps that are ad-free.
Conversely, only 13% of Android users would rather buy an app that is ad-free rather than get a free app monetized by inserted ads. Many people in China choose to buy Android phones in the first place because free apps are more plentiful than for iPhones. In addition to the many independent Android app resources, mobile device makers like HTC and mobile service providers like China Mobile also have their own app stores pre-installed on selected mobile devices.
Generally, though, consumer attention on mobile platforms is far from being fully utilized, particularly in China. “2012 will be the tipping point for everything mobile, as we see proliferation of high quality mobile apps developed for the China market, and faster adoption of 3G networks. And we are working hard on making brand contents specifically tailored for the mobile consumer.” said Neo Zhang, co-founder of Guohe Ad.
The full report, “Mobile Advertising: Six Key Trends in 2012” may be downloaded at http://bit.ly/y3YVCc
The infographic may be downloaded in high resolution here: http://bit.ly/IKa7Rb

Wine tasting cool-off in a portable luxury tent

Summer is coming and the heat is already gracing Sonoma’s vineyards. Last weekend Scribe Winery hosted a members wine tasting and picnic. Their chilled Riesling was perfect for the lamb, radish and hummus hors d’oeuvres. Crunching into a not-too-pretty but absolutely delicious radish straight from their garden was a real treat and we felt privileged to share the bounty of the the earth.  In the case of Scribe Winery it is quite historic earth that they are preserving, making a concerted effort to transcribe the vineyards back to their origins, avoiding pesticides and using only natural vinification methods.
Lunch was served on the Scribe hillside that was dotted with picnic tables and umbrellas. Yurt-like tents from Shelter Co, an upscale lodging company surrounded the picnic area, offering welcome shade and even a place for a bit of private wine-inspired canoodling.  These tents remind of of yurts I have seen on the coast of Big Sur and Central Asia, but far more portable. These were decked out with small sofas and area rugs, floor pillows and coffee tables. You can find them at www.shelter-co.com.

An old hacienda stands vacant on the Scribe grounds, begging to be transformed into its former glory.  She has good bones but needs a lot of TLC.  Old wallpaper, sickly green painted cabinets and inlaid hardwood floors all beg to be transformed, along with the vineyards themselves, into their original glory.

How often have you wished you could bring someone along on a particularly enjoyable vacation?  Looxcie, the makers of the wearable mobile-connected video cam, are letting you do that…almost.  Wearable over your ear or attachable to a ball cap, car visor, bicycle handle bars or helmet, the hands-free camera captures video just that way you see it.

Rather than wait till you get home to share it, Looxcie Live, a free app for both iOS and Android lets you share the video in real time with friends and family.  GroupCast lets you choose who you want to invite to see the broadcasts.  You can even annotate what you’re shooting with  a push to talk button on the camera.

We’re just pulling the bicycles out from winter storage and I could see having our friends join us on virtual vacations.

Looxcie comes in two versions, one with ten hours of video storage MSRP $199.99 and one with five hours of storage for MSRP $179.99.   Available at www.looxcie.com

UPDATE:  TourWrist wins People’s Choice Award at DEMO, the emerging technology conference.  TourWrist won top honors among five DEMO God finalists and was awarded one million dollars in media from IDG, producer of DEMO and publisher of VentureBeat and other technology publications.

Check out the panos on TourWrist to get a real perspective of what it’s like to be a presenter at DEMO.

The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way, and then dipped suddenly down, so suddenly that Alice had not a moment to think about stopping herself.”

When Alice fell down the rabbit hole she would have done well to check with TourWrist in advance to see if there were any 360° panoramic images that might have better acquainted her with Wonderland.

TourWrist is a virtual tour platform that lets you shoot and upload your own 360° panos with your smart phone or iPad, either online or offline.  Stitching the images together is easy.  The end result is a panoramic image that lets you take a look around…literally.  We first saw TourWrist at The Connected Traveler Technology Showcase at The New York Times Travel Show in March 2012 where TourWrist gave booth visitors an iPad with a pano of a resort.  The visitors spun around, raising and lowering an iPad to get a full immersion feel of the resort.

Today at DEMO Spring 2012, the emerging technology event, TourWrist revealed its next step:  Hot spots or PanoSpots™ that can be added to a panoramic to help explain details of the panoramic image, adding audio, video, or even a link to another web site.  The PanoSpots can also take you to another adjacent pano, almost like opening the door to another room (they call it planar acceleration).   Hmmm.  Alice would have liked that.

You can download TourWrist from the Apple App Store for free or from the company’s web site where TourWrist is building an online library of panos – a virtual community where you can view and even get referrals to pano photographers around the world.  www.tourwrist.com

Ever shoot a video with your iPhone only to have the audio disappear into mush?  A new mini boom mic that fits atop your iPhone 3GS, 4 and4S  phone will change all that.  This little mic plugs into your earphone jack and delivers professional sound and has a near and far setting so you can capture an interview with a musician and also capture the musician’s performance on stage without overdriving the mic.

It runs on a AAA battery and is only 4″ long. How much is this little cutie?  Just $40 on Photojojo.

UPDATE:

The winner of the documentary contest is from Salt Lake City.  Her whirlwind tour  took her from the snows of Salt Lake City to San Francisco, where the fog decided to give her a break, allowing her to walk barefoot on the beach and sip California wine.  Next stop was London then off to  Lisbon for some instruction is surfing (yes, you can surf there) and what fabulous food.  Her entire tour was guided by the experienced input of the Gogobot community that gave her tips on what to see, where to eat and how to enjoy.  Watch for the documentary soon.  We’ve been promised a clip.

Oh goody,  a chance at fame.

gogobot, the super friendly social media travel site has just put out a casting call for their first-ever travel documentary.  Apply by February 8 2012 and if you’re the lucky chosen winner, you’ll be off to a six-day all expenses paid adventure with a gogobot film crew recording your journey.

Well, being somewhat of a ham and always open to travel, I thought I’d look further.

It’s open to registered gogobot users with over 10 original reviews of hotels, restaurants and destinations.  Check.

You have to be 21 years old.  Check.

Valid U.S. A. or E. U passport.  Check.

Free to travel from 20 – 27 of February.  Check.

Able to “handle rigors of extended travel including strenuous activity.” Check.

Able to work well in “stressful situations and in new environments with new people.”  Well, almost check.  I have this thing about small airplanes and sheer cliffs.  People stress I can deal with.  So that’s an  Almost Check.

And here’s the fun part.  You have to submit a link on youtube or vimeo to a one-minute video where you can explain why you should be selected and send it to casting@gogobot.com along with the form.  The winner is notified by February 11.  Sweet.

This company gets it.  They understand goodwill and connection with their public and the power of creative promotions.  They’re top of mind when it comes to recommendations and I’ve used them numerous times and contributed reviews as well.  While I don’t really care about earning badges, they have a good feel for rewarding their contributors.

So as long as they don’t have me dangling from a small plane or peering into a chasm from the edge of some glacier, this is an adventure I might consider.

When I was just a kid I asked my mother for a Dymo label maker for my birthday.  I just thought it was the coolest thing and started making labels for everything in  wood grain, black , and red peel-off tape with embossed lettering in white.  Such a simple device but I had to figure out how exactly it worked so I took it apart.  BOING! The trigger spring jumped out and my labelmaker was no more. In tears I called the company and the somewhat amused woman upon hearing my sob story sent me out a new one that I have to this day.   (Aside from a few, my subsequent customer support experiences have been downhill ever since.)

While my husband resist my working on him, I still love taking things apart and finding out how things work.  I thought David Macaulay’s book, The Way Things Work, was a gift to inquisitive kids like me who always like to know what goes on inside of things.  Increasingly  I became fascinated by the digital world and cobbled together a PC or two myself…mostly in a big beige standard box.

So when chipmaker VIA just published its eBook,  Small is Beautiful: Ten Years of Mini-ITX, full of  the PC mods and projects people have created with the VIA Mini-ITX board, I was thrilled.  The 7″ x 7″ motherboard was unique in that it had a complete chipset:  audio, video, communications, and a built-in x86 CPU that used so little power that it immediately became the darling of modders who saw the potential of the board for robotics, car PCs, dorm PCs, and even in-wall PCs because it ran quietly and needed little cooling.  But then things got kinda crazy and PC enthusiasts latched on to the board and started shoving it inside things that were never meant to be a PC:  Accordions, model cars, gas cans, encyclopedias, even a model Millenium Falcon.   What VIA experience next was a flood of artisans who created unique cases, probably the most memorable being Jeffrey Stephenson’s cigar humidor PC and 1946 tabletop radio made out of splendid woods.

There were plenty of serious projects in the book too including SRI, which used the Mini-ITX for Centibots – autonomous robots that could be used in search and rescue where it was too dangerous for humans to venture.  And the DARPA Grand Challenge, another autonomous robot project, this time courtesy of the Department of Defense with a $1 million purse to the winning design.

I seized the VIA Mini-ITX and a lovely oak roll-top breadbox.  The Mini-ITX was easy, but my dexterity with a Dremel tool and woodworking was lacking.  My husband Russ had much greater luck with his World Vibrations radio station in a box, that continues to run his international radio station,  Connected Traveler Radio 24/7 with nary a blip on our utility smart meter.

So where does that leave us today?  Laptops are laptops and tablets are…well…tablets.  And they come in pretty standard configurations, though the quality varies wildly.  But you can’t take them apart.  You can’t modify them.  But with Internet Everywhere, we’re back in a place where things you don’t expect to be computers really are, with embedded PCs that will turn signs and kiosks into information devices (think of the display that recognized Tom Cruise in the movie Minority Report) and guide someone with a Starbucks app on their phone to the nearest barrista.  Consider pill boxes that alert the user that they’ve not taken their pill that day (and tattle to the patient’s doctor).  Sensors and cloud computing come together with GPS devices that let parents track remotely track the travels of their children on a school field trip.

And now as computers becomes ubiquitous, we may take them  for granted.  That said, we tip our hats to the creative people who took the VIA Mini-ITX and ran with it.  Early.  At a time that art and computers were rarely seen in the same sentence.

China’s leading app store solution provider is teaming up with one of the country’s top mobile security technology providers to tackle security issues associated with mobile apps. ASC (“App Store Connect”), the leading provider of mobile app store solutions in China, today announced its strategic partnership with Tencent Mobile Security Lab, one of the leading providers of mobile security solutions in China. App Store Connect will use Tencent’s app security testing and certification service to provide users the assurance that the mobile applications offered by ASC-powered mobile app stores have been thoroughly checked and are safe for download onto their mobile devices.

“Tencent’s MTAA will strengthen our set of content management technologies and set a higher standard of mobile content security offerings.”

The relationship with ASC, the leading mobile app store provider in China, is the first strategic partnership Tencent has entered into since unveiling its Mobile Security Lab based on its MTAA (Mobile Terminal Assurance Architecture). Through the partnership, mobile applications and contents offered on the ASC-powered mobile app stores will be tested and certified using Tencent’s cutting edge mobile security engine before distribution to consumers.

“As a technology solution provider for mobile app stores, ASC serves some of the main mobile device manufacturers and content providers. We are committed to providing the highest quality of mobile contents to consumers. Copyright and security are the key issues we are dedicated to addressing since day one of our operations.” Said Neo Zhang, GM of App Store Connect. “Tencent’s MTAA will strengthen our set of content management technologies and set a higher standard of mobile content security offerings.”

“Tencent Mobile Security Lab has built a comprehensive framework for strategic partnerships, and is open to cooperating with mobile Internet industry partners. “ Said Ken Hu, Vice President of Tencent 3G Product Department. “App Store Connect represents some world-leading mobile device manufacturers including HTC and thousands of mobile developers with their high quality applications. Tencent Mobile Security Lab is glad to work with ASC to further promote mobile security in China.”

According to the data from the China Internet Association Anti Virus Alliance, over 1,600 mobile viruses or malwares have been identified, which infected 8 million mobile devices in 2010. Among which, viruses like “Virus Media” and “Phone Skeleton” infected over 2 million and 830,000 phones respectively during the year. The rapid development of mobile app stores and app download websites makes the spread of such viruses possible.

Industry experts remarked that coordinated efforts by the entire industry chain are instrumental for improving mobile security in China. App Store Connect is setting the pace and hopes that other mobile app store providers will introduce mobile security solutions to control the spread of mobile viruses at the source. Tencent and ASC will also promote QQ Phone Manager Application to provide security solutions at the end user level to further protect the smartphone users.

Sometimes we get so entrenched in our traveling habits that it takes an event for travel press like the recent  Connected Traveler Technology Showcase to open our eyes to some serious technology as well as gadgets and devices that make traveling more efficient and enjoyable.  Here are some of them.  My next post will look at the apps and other software at the event.

Every so often someone comes up with something so incredibly easy and so useful it just makes me smile. At the recent Connected Traveler Technology Showcase in San Francisco the inventor of the GoSmart Clip was showing a small plastic bracket that attaches to your car steering wheel or your golf bag or shoulder bag and fits just about any smart phone. It uses a ratchet to resize and release your phone. Nice for GPS – keeps it squarely on your steering wheel, which makes it impossible to use for texting, but plenty easy for more passive GPS and phone calls.

Often during international trips I find myself staring at the ceiling of the hotel room in the wee hours of the night, my body was telling me it is four o’clock in the afternoon. So I might as well catch up on email or do some writing but I don’t want to switch on the hotel light. That’s one of the features that I found attractive on the new lightweight netbooks from HP, not to mention the unusual peacock blue trim. I’m still trying to find where tablets fit into my life as a writer, and questioning whether I really need to lug around my full sized laptop. These seem to fit the bill.

From my own personal experience I can tell you that I don’t go on a trip without my Verizon MiFi device. It lets me get online from just about anywhere and also acts as a hub so we can circumvent the problem of the one-device one Internet connection limitation typical of many hotels. At the Connected Traveler Technology Showcase Verizon also showed a number of tablets with 3G and smart phones with 4G connectivity.  The HTC Thunderbolt (left) uses the latest Verizon 4G and turns the phone into a wireless router for up to five devices. You don’t really know how handy that is until you’re in a hotel room that charges exorbitant fees for slow connectivity and you have to fight over who gets the WiFi.  You both do.  Invite some more people to the room.  Hey, this makes it a regular connectivity party.

I use three displays in my office and truth be told, could even add another one. I like to spread out my notes, research and browser on one display while writing on the other. I also keep my social media and email on one monitor throughout the day. Mobile Monitor Technologies, showed the Field Monitor Pro, a portable display is light enough to be able to pack in a bag and can be set up vertically, horizontally or even hung on a wall. Its built-in keypad probably comes in handy for traveling accountants. While I probably wouldn’t take it on an overnight trip, I sure would when I plant myself down someplace for a week or so and need to get some serious work done. Wouldn’t be without it.

You get used to having connectivity to VPN into your office but you can’t always count on having it when you travel. So portable storage like the drives from Western Digital make a lot of sense, especially when you’re shooting a lot of video or photos or need access to your documents. What’s really nice though, is that these drives sync in the cloud so everything is updated between your portable drive and the drive in your office.  They showed their Scorpio Black hard drives for notebooks with up to 750GB of storage that give you the faster performance of desktop PC drives, yet don’t eat up a lot of battery life.  By the way, it isn’t that hard to open up your notebook and install a new drive.  Here’s how.

General Imaging showed a family of affordable digital cameras under the GE moniker, including dust-proof, shockproof, waterproof, even a prosumer camera with a 27 – 405mm lens that felt very nice in the hand. But the one that caught my fancy had a built-in pico projector that would be great on camping trips, shooting daytime activities and projecting them on the wall of the tent after sundown.

Also in the photo department is a nifty, inexpensive gadget that eliminates the problems of flash photos that wash out faces, lose background detail or create that oh so evil red-eye effect. The LightScoop was developed by professor Ken Kobre’ and fits on top of DSLR cameras and bounces the flash off the ceiling or the wall for much more attractive diffused light. Your background objects show up in your photos and everyone and everything looks a whole lot better.  At The Connected Traveler Technology Showcase,  Dr. Kobre and his wife Betsy set up a backdrop with a hula dancer in the foreground.  The demo showed how the Lightscoop illuminates the entire space rather than just the foreground object.

Everyone knows a traveler who keeps saying “You shoulda been there!”  Here’s a way they can put your in their shoes.  Or flippers.  Or ski boots: Wearable cameras from Liquid Image. These sports goggles come in a variety of styles, some even for underwater use. A switch on the edge of the goggles lets you shoot video or stills of your diving adventures, skiing, motocross just the way you see them. I was impressed with footage from a downhill skier that they used as part of their demo. It made me think about some of the triple black diamond runs that I haven’t conjured the courage to tackle—the video actually made it look do-able.

One of the most fun and interesting tech products on display at The Connected Traveler Technology Showcase was a GPS dongle from Traxxitt. Designed with an Apple-like look, the device comes in a variety of colors and lets you track whatever you attach it to in pretty darn close to real time on maps on your smart phone or PC. They spoke about schools in Brazil that are giving one to each young student on long-distance field trips, giving their parents a much more secure feeling knowing that they can see where their children are at any given time.  This interview explains how it works.

Maybe this is exactly what the Cosmopolitan was going for — a 21 to 30 year-old stiletto-heeled and testosterone pumped crowd. While very average-looking tourists milled around the ground floor of the 100,000 square foot casino space, their numbers grew thinner with every floor as we rose up in glass elevators and escalators. Right above their heads were tight-dressed girls leaning over the balcony on upper floors, gazing through walls of chains of crystal hanging like glittery costume jewelry at a discount fashion store.
I expected more design, more elegance judging from the TV ads of that preceded the resort’s opening December 15 2010, but the first several floors of the Cosmopolitan were chopped up and lacking any flow although we felt more comfortable here than in the gaping City Center next door. Ironically Las Vegas has not implemented the sense of place that the same moguls of Sin City created in Macau’s opulent and more visitor friendly casino and resort spaces where a concierge-like attitude prevailed at every turn.
We did not visit any of the 2,995 rooms, some with terraces, some with mini-kitchens (I’d be hard pressed to cook during my stay in Vegas surrounded by countless restaurants). The Turkish-inspired spa is more my style as were the edgy fashions in the AllSaints boutique – a massive clothing store with a display of 500 stacked old sewing machines in the window – you can’t miss it.

Where does the Cosmopolitan shine? It’s massive, multi-level pool deck offering a sprawling view of the Las Vegas Strip. Though the evening was chilly during the Consumer Electronics Show in early January, space heaters and semi-private cabanas for two (all occupied by canoodling couples) gave us a taste of what would no doubt be a lush scene during warmer weather.
Sadly the pedestrian walkway over the strip stretching from the Cosmopolitan to Planet Hollywood has become a sitting space for Las Vegas’ homeless, a reminder that unemployment was 14.3% in November 2010. A gaggle of tipsy girls urged one of their group to squat next to one poor fellow shoving her thigh up against his face and posing for her friends’ flashing cameras. Their giggles merged with the hum of traffic as we continued on, wondering if they at least left him some money in exchange for humiliating him.
I’ve been going to Vegas for 25 years, at least once, often twice for trade shows like COMDEX and CES. With every year the city loses some of its sensibility and its edges grow harder, the greed deeper and the atmosphere more anxious. I’ll be happy when the economy is back on its feet and the air of desperation loosens. More places are gouging visitors with add-on “resort fees” – places like the Tuscany Suites hardly rated the extra $10 per day though I’d gladly pay for services a la carte.
We always enjoy the restaurants, the local shops, even cafes and delis where the waitress calls you hon’ and a cashier asks “where ya’ visiting from?” Our waiter and bartender at Mon Ami Gabi in the Paris Hotel and Casino were as professional and enjoyable as they come. And our waiter the cafe at Spago’s in the Caesar’s Palace Forum Shops was a pure delight, with his wry smile and just enough banter, making us feel like Vegas insiders. It’s that humor, reminding us that Vegas is one big spoof – take it seriously and you miss all the fun – that we hope will return in better times.
Will we be back? Of course. There’s nothing like Vegas and it continually changes. We look forward to seeing what’s next.