Consumer Electronics Daily News

Trolls vs. Vikings Release Date Revealed!

Trolls vs. Vikings is ready for launch next month. The game is set to hit the App Store on February 26, 2014 in English, French, Spanish and German. Android and browser versions are expected to release during the spring and summer of 2014.

With Trolls vs. Vikings, Megapop has delivered a super tight tower defense experience, with astounding depth of play for a mobile game, all wrapped within a lush and wacky game world. Although a tribute to a certain Plants game, it has sought to re-innovate the beloved formula, adding a range of fresh and unique features. This includes more engagement through movable and active units, a dynamic tiles system, social features, and epic boss fights with the Nordic gods themselves such as Thor, Odin and Loki.

Trolls vs. Vikings is for both casual and hardcore players alike with difficulty modes ranging from normal to a divinely crushing hard. As the gamers progress into the hard levels, all new tactics and challenges are presented for each round, effectively opening up an entirely new gameplay approach! The game boasts 30+ hours of gameplay with even more content to come in future updates, including multiplayer.  

All the developers on Trolls vs Vikings have extensive experience from the games industry, and Megapop's team has previously co-founded companies like Funcom, Artplant and Innerloop.The team have thus directed or been leads on a long range of award winning games over the last 20 years, including  Age of Conan, Anarchy Online, Dreamfall - The Longest Journey, Battlestar Galactica Online and many, many others. The team also consists of composer Aleksander Dimitrevic, which makes one of his first forays into the games industry. He has previously composed trailer music for more than 100 Hollywood movies, including Harry Potter, Narnia, X-men, Pirates of the Caribbean, Wall-E and the Simpsons movie.

Survey Reveals That Majority of Smartphone Users Share Their Location Through An App

Life360, a location and communication app for families, has shared findings from a recent omnibus survey that show a growing acceptance and use of location sharing apps. The survey, conducted by VeraQuest among a group of more of 1,169 teens and adults who own a smartphone, examined habits and feelings about sharing one's location through an app.

More than 60 percent of smartphone users report that they use at least one location sharing app on their smartphone, and 36 percent say they use two or more. 41 percent of adults say they are more willing to share their location today versus five years ago.

Both teens and adults overwhelmingly cite safety as the primary reason they are willing to share their location through an app. Yet that feeling of safety is tied to sharing one's location with family members more so than friends. 87 percent of teens and 73 percent of adults say they feel safer knowing that their family is aware of their location through an app while only 39 percent of teens and 42 percent of adults say they feel safer knowing that friends are aware of their location.

Interestingly, given the number of location sharing apps built to promote socialization with friends and places, only 46 percent of adults and 47 percent of teens say they feel more connected to others when they share their location through a location sharing app.

"As our user base has exploded to more than 20 million families, we were curious to learn more about the habits and motivations for location sharing," said Chris Hulls, co-founder and CEO of Life360. "It's particularly interesting to see that safety is the primary reason driving the use of location sharing apps, and that location sharing with family trumps sharing with friends."

Founded in 2008, Life360 is a free app for iOS and Android that uses location-based technology to help its users stay connected throughout the day via a private map and chat stream, regular check-ins, and "panic alerts" when needed. The Life360 "Circles" feature enables users to set up separate groups for family, friends, babysitters and others with separate privacy controls for each circle. The app's popular "Places" feature allows users to designate their favorite locations and receive automatic alerts when family members arrive. Users have the option to sign up for Life360 Premium, which for $5 per month or $50 per year provides access to a 24/7 Live Advisor, roadside assistance, unlimited use of Places, expanded location history,$100 in stolen phone protection, and location lookups for non-smartphones. 

Conducted by VeraQuest, Inc., the survey sampled 1,950 online general population respondents aged 18+ and 250 teens within the United States between June 27 and June 30, 2013. Respondents were randomly selected to be proportional to the demographic strata of total U.S. population. The estimated sampling error for adults is +/- 2.2 percent +/-6.2 percent among teens at a 95 percent confidence level. These statements conform to the principles of disclosure of the National Council on Public Polls.

Further Growth of Big Data, Wearable Devices and B2B Online Retailing Predicted as Global Trends for 2014

In 2014, big data will grow bigger, wearable devices will become more abundant, and online retailing will become more prevalent amongst business-to-business.
New analysis from Frost & Sullivan, Top 14 Ideas and Innovations for 2014, finds that the trends mentioned above are the top three key global game changers for 2014.
Big data is growing at a rate of 40 percent annually generating a massive pool of data offering valuable insights and opportunity for predictive analytics. This year will see increased activity from businesses in using this big data to offer personalized, customized and intelligent services that are more real-time or proactive, thus making its augmentation the top prediction of 2014.
"Virtualization of data and analytics will become imperative to businesses," said Frost & Sullivan's Visionary Innovation Team Leader and Senior Research Analyst Archana Vidyasekar. "Online retail giants, such as Amazon, have already launched interesting services, such as Amazon Kinesis, that analyzes data in the real-time to offer customized services."
Much like the first trend, wearable devices have already started to create a buzz that is only expected to become louder in 2014. Last year saw the launch of wearable smart gadgets, such as smart watches and Google Glass that emulated functions of a smartphone perfectly. While there is skepticism and hype surrounding this market, its potential in regards to new services, such as undisputed monitoring of health, has propelled these gadgets to the forefront of products to watch in the wellness industry. In fact, most of big technology and web companies are actively pursuing this market.
Finally, while e-commerce has recently grown tremendously through B2C retail, many do not realize that there has been a massive upturn on B2B online retailing in the past few years, contributing more to the e-commerce market than B2C.
"Electronic B2B that was traditionally comprised of conventional electronic data interchange platforms with minimum choice of vendors and a costlier implementation system, is moving to the wider web of the internet toward online platforms that offer more choice, flexibility and price options," said Vidyasekar. "These online platforms provide instant quotes, thus offering quicker responses and much more agile procurement and supply services."

Marvel And Aeria Mobile Launch X-Men: Battle of the Atom Mobile Game For iPhone

 Marvel Entertainment has teamed up with developer Aeria Mobile to launch X-Men: Battle of the Atom for iPhone. Featuring gorgeous original art by Marvel artists and stories adapted by prolific X-Men writer James Asmus, the new free-to-play card battle game (CBG) stars everyone's favorite Uncanny X-Men in a battle across time and space.

Relive 50 years of X-Men as they call on past and future allies to combat some of the most dangerous villains ever known. Building a roster from a staggering amount of characters including Wolverine, Storm, Iceman, Beast, Kitty Pryde, and many more, players will tackle more than 45 missions and experience upcoming events based on landmark stories like Schism, Messiah Complex, Age of Apocalypse, and of course, Battle of the Atom!

Join 20-player X-Teams to participate in epic 20 vs. 20 battles in real time. Multi-month story arcs will also feature raid events in which these X-Teams can square off against the most iconic and powerful villains in X-Men history, including Magneto, the Hellfire Club, Apocalypse, and Dark Phoenix. The real-time ranking system also stirs up all-out competition as players vie for recognition as the top Super Hero teams. Regular content updates will consistently introduce new characters, stories, and art; giving players an ever-expanding universe in which to play.

"It's an honor for us to develop a game for such a storied and beloved franchise, one that is a personal favorite of mine," saidLan Hoang, founder and CEO of Aeria Games. "X-Men: Battle of the Atom captures the amazing artwork and drama of the greatest comic book storylines, bringing them to life with exciting, dynamic battles between dozens of players in real time."

"With the release of X-Men: Battle of the Atom, Aeria Games has done a tremendous job of celebrating 50 years of X-Men," said Andreea Enache-Thune, Senior Vice President, Games and Digital Distribution at Marvel Entertainment. "We're especially excited that the game will include hundreds of characters who have populated the X-Men universe over the years, spanning limitless timelines and alternate realities. Fans will be hard pressed to think of any characters not in the game – and if the characters are not there now, they likely will be eventually via one of the numerous classic story adaptations in store for players. It's a great time to be an X-Men fan."

X-Men: Battle of the Atom is available as a free download for iPhone. For more information, find the game on the App Store.

Music Streaming Application Snap Play Now Available on Windows Phone 8

Snap Play is now available for Windows Phone 8.  The move rounds out Snap Play's cross-platform appeal, ensuring that a wide-range of consumers can listen to the music saved on all their devices, from anywhere. Snap Play is also available on iOS, Android, and any internet-enabled device via the Snap Play Web portal.

Snap Play streams a user's synced music from the cloud to any device, at any time. The application organizes music by song, album, genre, playlists and favorites, and users can create new playlists right from their mobile device and stream them from anywhere. A distinguishing feature of Snap Play is that users can stream their iTunes library from any device. For example, a user can have a Mac computer at home and take a Windows phone on the go, and still be able to play and listen to their iTunes music.

"A great benefit of Snap Play is that consumers no longer have to worry about music files taking up a lot of storage space on their device," said Michael Subhan, VP of Marketing for SnapOne, Inc., producer of Snap Play. "By streaming music from the cloud instead of keeping songs on your mobile device, you can purchase a cheaper smartphone with less storage capacity."

Snap Play is downloaded as part of the Snap One^® suite of apps that includes Snap Secure®, Snap Sync™ and Snap Play™, and allows individuals and families to easily secure, sync, back up, stream and share their digital lives through a secure, centralized cloud. Snap One subscribers can add up to six users, 1 TB of cloud storage and unlimited devices to one account. To stream music, subscribers must first sync the music on their devices with Snap Sync, which is included in the suite.

"Including Snap Play as part of our flagship service, Snap One, offers individuals and families an even more comprehensive security and content management service," said Subhan. "Being able to stream music from any device means instant access to entertainment and the freedom to enjoy music whenever the opportunity arises."

"Kung Fu Robot" iPad App Celebrates 100,000 Download Milestone

The Kansas City-based collaboration team of Kid Rocket Inc. and Propaganda3 celebrated a major milestone with their iPad app Kung Fu Robot by recently reaching over 100,000 App Storedownloads since its release in May 2013. The app quickly hit #3 in the books category in the US App Store, reached #5 in the newly created Kids category for children ages 9-11 in September and has gained a notable following in the UK, China and the Middle East.

Available as a free download for the iPad, the inaugural edition of Kung Fu Robot introduces children of all ages to a robot's love of kung fu, his conscientious sidekick's fear of getting in trouble, android ninjas, a crazy rooster bent on world domination and the pursuit of the perfect peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Its original storyline, art, animation, soundtrack and mini-games have caught the attention of critics as well and in November was named by Parents Magazine as one of 2013's "Best Free Kids' Apps."

A standalone Spanish-language version of Kung Fu Robot, titled "Cómo Hacer Un Sándwich de Mantequilla de Maní, Mermelada y Kung Fu," is also now available for download in the App Stores for Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia,Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Spain,Uruguay and Venezuela.

Three more installments of the "How to Make a Peanut Butter, Jelly & Kung Fu Sandwich" story arc are slated for 2014, with Volume Two planned for release in early March.

"Bringing this character and story to life has been a long journey," says Kung Fu Robot creator and Kid Rocket Inc. founderJason Bays. "To finally see him out in the world and being embraced by kids of all ages is truly amazing."

"Working with Jason has been a tremendous source of excitement for us," says Propaganda3 founder/CEO Cello Vergara. "At our core we are storytellers. To be trusted by a fellow storyteller with something as personal as this is quite humbling. We look forward to seeing where this ongoing collaboration takes us." 

Fingersoft and Viima Games Ltd Publish Stuntman Saga "Fail Hard"

Fail Hard is an action-packed and physics-based game from Oulu-based studio Viima Games Ltd. The game is published by Fingersoft and is about a stuntman who tries the craziest stunts, only to (you guessed it) fail hard in all the best possible ways. He falls so hard and often that it almost hurts to play it. It¹s fun for the whole ER!

The stuntman may fail (hard), but the game is destined to succeed. Fail Hard has over four million downloads on Android, and in Apple's App Store, the game immediately gained number one spots in the racing and action categories in several countries, including the USA and Germany. And what's more, Fail Hard is ranked the fourth most popular iPhone app in the USA at the moment.

This is the first collaboration between Fingersoft and Viima Games – and there will be more.

"We are excited to get Fail Hard out on iOS. The game is quite a ride, and it's been great to work on it with the talented weirdos at Fingersoft," says Viima Games CTO Visa Smolander.

Fingersoft itself has a proven track record in crazy and impressive stunts. Fingersoft is known for its global hits Hill Climb Racing and Benji Bananas. HCR has held the number one spots in Apple's App Store and Google Play in several countries, including USA, India, Germany, Russia and Spain. Today Fingersoft games have globally over 160 million downloads altogether.

Fail Hard will follow in the footsteps of Benji Bananas to become the second co-published Fingersoft game. While not aiming to be a full-time publisher, Fingersoft will continue full-time world dominance with carefully selected titles.

"Fail Hard has a great set of elements we like to see in mobile games. Equally important is that with Viima Games, we found a capable and passionate team to hang out with," says Jarkko Paalanen, Business Development Director of Fingersoft.

IBM Commits $1.2 Billion to Expand Global Cloud Footprint

 IBM plans to commit over $1.2 billion to significantly expand its global cloud footprint. This investment includes a network of data centers designed to bring clients greater flexibility, transparency and control over how they manage their data, run their businesses and deploy their IT operations in the cloud. 

This year IBM plans to deliver cloud services from 40 data centers worldwide in 15 countries and five continents globally, including North America, South America, Europe, Asia and Australia. IBM will open 15 new centers worldwide adding to the existing global footprint of 13 global data centers from SoftLayer and 12 from IBM. Among the newest data centers to launch are China, Washington, D.C., Hong Kong, London, Japan, India, Canada, Mexico City and Dallas. With this announcement, IBM plans to have data centers in all major geographies and financial centers with plans to expand in the Middle East and Africa in 2015.

By some estimates, the global cloud market is set to grow to $200 billion by 2020; driven largely by businesses and government agencies deploying cloud services to market, sell, develop products, manage their supply chain and transform their business practices.

"IBM is continuing to invest in high growth areas," said Erich Clementi, senior vice president of IBM Global Technology Services. "Last year, IBM made a big investment adding the $2 billion acquisition of SoftLayer to its existing high value cloud portfolio. Today's announcement is another major step in driving a global expansion of IBM's cloud footprint and helping clients drive transformation."

The new cloud investments IBM is making will provide business clients the ability to place and control their data globally. IBM SoftLayer gives clients the ability to choose a cloud environment and location that best suits their business needs and provides visibility and transparency to where data reside, control of data security and placement. 

IBM SoftLayer is able to deliver high performance services globally across the SoftLayer network. The combination of distributed local data centers and a global network allows clients to place data where it is required, when it is required as well as the ability to consolidate or aggregate data as needed. This provides optimized application performance and responsiveness. SoftLayer's unique network architecture allows clients to optimize global performance using a private network and not be subject to the uncontrolled nature of the public networks and the internet.

"Cloudant's global expansion rate is fueled by the always-on commitment we make to our customers," said Cloudant CEODerek Schoettle. "Our mission is to be the standard data layer for Web and mobile applications. That mission requires us to push application data to the network edge, in as many locations as possible. Expanding beyond IBM SoftLayer's current footprint presents significant value to our business. The investment IBM is making to expand their global footprint will not only help fuel our growth, but the growth of thousands of Cloudant users worldwide as well."

In today's world of rapid response with mobile and social data proliferation, this type of automation and speed of access to data with high availability and control makes IBM SoftLayer cloud infrastructure an ideal capability for business clients worldwide.

"Cloud represents a growing area for venture capitalist investment," said Ann Winblad, co-founder and Managing Director of Hummer Winblad Venture Partners. "By investing in the cloud ecosystem, IBM not only makes it easier for enterprises to adopt cloud and drive innovation, but also helps new companies of all sizes get off the ground more quickly."     

American Eagle Outfitters and Shopkick Announce 100-Store Trial of New shopBeacon™ Technology

American Eagle Outfitters and Shopkick, the most widely used real-world shopping app, today announced plans to launch shopBeacon^TM in 100 top-performing American Eagle Outfitters and Aerie stores across the country. Shopkick's shopBeacon is the first Apple iBeacon-based presence signal for retailers. When this trial goes live next month, it is anticipated to be the most widely deployed trial in the nation.

"AEO has always been an early adopter of cutting edge technology, which is why we are partnering with Shopkick once again, in order to provide our customers with the best mobile shopping experience available today," said Joe Megibow, Senior Vice President of Omni-Channel eCommerce at American Eagle Outfitters. "Shopkick first launched its app in our Times Square flagship store. Now with shopBeacon, we can deliver a plug and play solution that works to personalize our customers' shopping experience in an impactful and powerful way."

As shoppers enter an American Eagle Outfitters store, shopBeacon will welcome and show them location-specific rewards, deals, discounts and product recommendations – without them even having to remember to open the app.  It can also tie at-home browsing behavior to in-store benefits; if the customer "likes" a specific product online, if they so choose, shopBeacon can remind them where in the American Eagle Outfitters store that product is sold. Even better, in the future, it can also deliver department-specific offers throughout the store – so must-have skinnies show up at the most useful time: in the jeans department.

"American Eagle Outfitters' shoppers are tech-savvy, social and love their smartphones," said Cyriac Roeding, CEO and Co-Founder of shopkick. "shopBeacon is able to connect to this new generation of shoppers as a trusted companion, by reminding opted-in users to open the shopkick app at the entrance of the store, and further personalize their shopping experience with alerts and high-value rewards.  It is helpful and fun for both the shopper and the store."

American Eagle Outfitters is the first partner to deploy shopBeacon to 100 locations across the country, including New York City,Chicago, Los Angeles, Dallas, Houston, Miami, Boston, and San Francisco, chosen based on high-level traction with shopkick. By working with the 100 stores that have the highest traffic across the U.S., this trial is designed to deliver the most data and learning on how consumers enjoy shopBeacon. These stores join Macy's installations in its San Francisco and New Yorkflagship stores, which went live just before Black Friday 2013, and were the first live installations of any iBeacon/BLE technology at any large retailer worldwide.

To install shopBeacon, a retailer simply sticks the device on a wall or other flat surface. Each shopBeacon has a battery life of five years. The shopkick software developer kit (SDK) also makes it easy to customize and further personalize the ways brands and retailers interact with shoppers through their own store apps using shopBeacon.

Equally important, shopkick has built sophisticated proprietary technology on top of the iBeacon protocol into its shopBeacon, to make the scalability, security and location accuracy possible that are required for a commercially feasible retail solution. 

Shopkick delivers high-value rewards, in a currency called "kicks," to shoppers for a variety of actions they take as they go about shopping: being present in stores, browsing and interacting with products, and purchasing at participating retail stores as well as right within the app. Shoppers can redeem kicks to treat themselves with store gift cards, a free coffee or dinner, handbags, song downloads, movie tickets, donations to charity and more.

shopkick is free on the iPhone from the App Store at www.itunes.com/appstore/ and for Android from Google Play athttps://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.shopkick.app.

Mobile World Congress 2014 To Become World's Largest Certified Carbon Neutral Tradeshow

 The GSMA today announced that the 2014 Mobile World Congress will be the world's largest tradeshow certified to have a zero carbon footprint. The GSMA will certify Mobile World Congress as carbon neutral through the internationally recognised PAS 2060 standard; official certification will be awarded once the event is completed and official data on emissions can be obtained.

"For several years, the GSMA has had climate change initiatives underway at Mobile World Congress in order to reduce the impact of the event on the environment. These initiatives have focused heavily on reducing waste in printed materials, encouraging the re-use and recycling of materials at the venue, utilising digital signage and electronic tools and working with Fira Barcelona, exhibitors and local partners to minimize the carbon footprint of the event," said John Hoffman, CEO, GSMA Ltd. "This year, we have increased our environmental commitment by working to not only reduce the emissions of the event, but to go one step further and certify Mobile World Congress 2014 as carbon neutral."

The upcoming Mobile World Congress will generate approximately 150,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO₂e); it is estimated that 14 per cent of carbon emissions related to Mobile World Congress are associated with the venue and operation of the event, while 86 per cent result from attendees travelling to the event. To achieve carbon neutrality, the GSMA will first undertake activities to reduce the carbon footprint and will then purchase carbon credits to offset any remaining emissions. Carbon credits purchased by the GSMA will fund several CER (Certified Emission Reductions) projects certified by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), including a hydropower project in China and a wind energy project in India, among others.

To achieve certification of Mobile World Congress as carbon neutral, the GSMA is undertaking the following steps:

• Work with an independent certified consultant to measure the total carbon footprint of the event, including all attendees, exhibitors and the GSMA's own carbon footprint under Publicly Available Specification 2050:2011 (PAS 2050:2011);
• Implement a carbon management plan to reduce the event's carbon footprint;
• Purchase carbon credits in order to offset the emissions that could not be avoided or lowered through reduction initiatives; and
• Obtain official certification under the international standard PAS 2060, verifying the process through an independent audit.

It is expected that the GSMA will finalise the process to achieve certification by June 2014.

"Once this process is complete, Mobile World Congress will be largest tradeshow in the world certified as carbon neutral under the PAS 2060 international standard," continued Hoffman. "More importantly, our pursuit of this certification underscores our focus on ensuring that our actions create value for our industry and preserve and protect the environment."

Get Involved at Mobile World Congress 2014
Mobile World Congress will be held February 24-27, 2014 at Fira Gran Via in Barcelona. For more information on the 2014 Mobile World Congress including how to attend, exhibit or sponsor, visit www.mobileworldcongress.com. Follow developments and updates on Mobile World Congress (#MWC14) on Twitter @GSMA or on Facebook www.facebook.com/mobileworldcongress.

The Mobile World Congress is the cornerstone of the Mobile World Capital, which will be hosted in Barcelona from 2013 to 2018. The Mobile World Capital encompasses programs and activities that span the entire year and will benefit not only the citizens of Barcelona, Catalonia and Spain, but also the worldwide mobile industry. For more information on the Mobile World Capital, visit www.mobileworldcapital.com.