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EVANSTON, Ill., Feb. 7 (UPI) — U.S. researchers say they’re developing a smartphone that can learn to spot symptoms of depression in a user and urge the user to call or go out with friends.

The project is part of an effort by Northwestern University researchers to invent Web-based, mobile and virtual technologies to treat depression and other mood disorders, a university release reported Tuesday.

“We’re inventing new ways technology can help people with mental health problems,” Northwestern psychologist David Mohr said. “The potential to reduce or even prevent depression is enormous.”

The new smartphone will spot symptoms of depression by harnessing sensor data within the phone to interpret a person’s location, activity level (using the phone’s accelerometer), social context and mood.

The phone will record if the user is making phone calls and getting e-mails, or is home alone for hours.

If the phone, after learning the usual patterns, senses a user is isolated, it will send a suggestion to call or see friends, researchers said.

The technology, still being finalized, is called Mobilyze! and has been tested in a small pilot study were it helped reduce symptoms of depression, they said.

“By prompting people to increase behaviors that are pleasurable or rewarding, we believe that Mobilyze! will improve mood,” Mohr said. “It creates a positive feedback loop. Someone is encouraged to see friends, then enjoys himself and wants to do it again. Ruminating alone at home has the opposite effect and causes a downward spiral.”

Article source: http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2012/02/07/Smartphone-can-intervene-in-depression/UPI-54181328646266/?spt=hs&or=sn

Feb 7, 2012, 16:45 GMT

Customers around the world snapped up a total 158 million smartphones in the quarter, compared to 102 million in the last three months of the previous year, with Apple’s 37 million iPhones leading the way.

‘By the end of the quarter, one out of every three mobiles phones shipped worldwide was a smartphone,’ said IDC senior research analyst Ramon Llamas in a statement.

‘The launch of Apple’s iPhone 4S played a key role in smartphone growth to capture pent-up demand, and smartphone launches from other vendors also provided a broad selection to meet varying preferences and budgets.’

Llamas said falling smartphone prices and consumer desire to upgrade to more powerful models were the main factors behind the global smartphone surge.

Despite Apple’s late year sales spike, Samsung still sold the most smartphones in 2011, shipping a total of 94 million, compared to Apple’s 93.2 million, the report said.

In total, customers bought 491.6 million smartphones last year, up 61 per cent on the 304.7 million they bought in 2010.

Nokia was the big loser of the year, as its market share slumped by more than 50 per cent to 12.4 per cent, while Blackberry manufacturer Research in Motion saw its market share drop from 14 per cent to 8 per cent.

A separate study by the NPD group published Tuesday found that Apple and Android devices accounted for more than 90 per cent of the smartphone market, with Android accounting for 48 per cent of the market.

The Google-powered operating system was especially strong among first-time smartphone buyers, 57 per cent of whom purchased Android phones, the report said.

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San Francisco – Massive fourth-quarter sales of the iPhone 4S helped Apple reclaim its crown as the world’s top smartphone maker, as global smartphone sales jumped 55 per cent on the same period last year, according to a report published Tuesday by research firm IDC.

Customers around the world snapped up a total 158 million smartphones in the quarter, compared to 102 million in the last three months of the previous year, with Apple’s 37 million iPhones leading the way.

‘By the end of the quarter, one out of every three mobiles phones shipped worldwide was a smartphone,’ said IDC senior research analyst Ramon Llamas in a statement.

‘The launch of Apple’s iPhone 4S played a key role in smartphone growth to capture pent-up demand, and smartphone launches from other vendors also provided a broad selection to meet varying preferences and budgets.’

Llamas said falling smartphone prices and consumer desire to upgrade to more powerful models were the main factors behind the global smartphone surge.

Despite Apple’s late year sales spike, Samsung still sold the most smartphones in 2011, shipping a total of 94 million, compared to Apple’s 93.2 million, the report said.

In total, customers bought 491.6 million smartphones last year, up 61 per cent on the 304.7 million they bought in 2010.

Nokia was the big loser of the year, as its market share slumped by more than 50 per cent to 12.4 per cent, while Blackberry manufacturer Research in Motion saw its market share drop from 14 per cent to 8 per cent.

A separate study by the NPD group published Tuesday found that Apple and Android devices accounted for more than 90 per cent of the smartphone market, with Android accounting for 48 per cent of the market.

The Google-powered operating system was especially strong among first-time smartphone buyers, 57 per cent of whom purchased Android phones, the report said.

Article source: http://news.monstersandcritics.com/business/news/article_1689681.php/Apple-reclaims-top-smartphone-spot-as-sales-soar

(Guardian Web Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Apple took the lead in the smartphone market in the fourth quarter of 2011 as the sector saw explosive growth of 54.7% year-on-year to 157.8m units, and now makes up around one of every three mobile phones shipped worldwide.

The launch of the iPhone 4S early in October meant that Apple pushed out Samsung, shipping 37m units to the estimated 36m from the south Korean company, according to the research company IDC.

The preliminary figures did not show market shares for the different operating systems, but trends in the market have suggested that Google’s Android, used by the majority of Samsung and HTC smartphones, has been heading for a 50% or greater share of shipments.

“The launch of Apple’s iPhone 4S played a key role in smartphone growth to capture pent-up demand, and smartphone launches from other vendors also provided a broad selection to meet varying preferences and budgets,” said Ramon Llamas, senior research analyst with IDC’s Mobile Phone Technology and Trends team.

Apple’s 37m figure was a 128% increase on the 16.2m of the same time in 2010. But it was Samsung which saw the most dramatic growth, almost quadrupling from 9.6m a year ago.

HTC, another major Android manufacturer – though it also produces some Windows Phone devices – recorded growth, to 10.2m from 8.7m. But that was less than the market as a whole, and HTC on Monday announced disappointing financial results for the quarter, with revenues and profits both falling year-on-year by 2.5% and 12% respectively. The Taiwanese company admitted that products it launched in the quarter “are not selling as well as we expected”, according to chief financial officer Winston Yung – but forecast a further fall in the first quarter of 2012.

Nokia, once the dominant force in the market, saw its share fall to 12.4% as it shipped 19.6m handsets – down from 28.1m in the period a year ago. The figures do not break out how many of them were running Microsoft’s new Windows Phone software, which it began selling in November with the Lumia 800, and how many its deprecated Symbian platform. The company’s financial figures in January implied that it shipped fewer than a million before the end of December.

RIM, which is struggling to keep its BlackBerry platform relevant to business in the face of onslaughts from Apple and Android, managed to grow its shipments, to 10.2m from 8.7m, but saw its market share dip from 8.5% to 6.5%. The company has since replaced its chief executives and chairmen.

For the year as a whole, just over 491m smartphones were shipped, with Samsung dominating, followed by Apple, with 94m and 93.2m respectively – 19.1% and 19% of the total market overall. Nokia (15.7%) and RIM (10.4%) both managed to eke out more than 10%, but much of the rest of the growth has come from Chinese handset makers such as ZTE and Huawei and others aiming at their home markets, where smartphone sales were larger than any other country.

“So-called ‘hero’ devices, such as Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus and Apple’s iPhone 4S, garner the bulk of the attention heaped on the device type,” said Kevin Restivo, senior research analyst with IDC’s Worldwide Mobile Phone Tracker program. “But a growing number of sub-$250 device offerings, based on the Android operating system, have allowed Google’s hardware partners to grow smartphone volumes and expand the market concurrently.”

Overall, the smartphone market grew by 61.3% between 2010 and 2011 – suggesting a slight slowdown in growth in the fourth quarter. Some analysts think that those two years have seen the biggest surge in shipments, with 2010 showing 75% growth. The dominance of the smartphone over the PC has also been cemented, outselling them in every quarter – a trend that first occurred in the fourth quarter of 2010.

Analysts think 2012 will see less rapid smartphone shipment growth – which also implies problems for Microsoft and Nokia in trying to establish Windows Phone as a “third ecosystem” in the market, with Android and Apple’s iOS consuming around 75% of the market, and Symbian and RIM the rest. That has so far left little room for Windows Phone except, so far, in replacement of some Symbian sales in Europe.

(c) 2012 Guardian Newspapers Limited.

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Article source: http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/-apple-pips-samsung-smartphone-crown-fourth-quarter-says-/2012/02/06/6101712.htm

ZDNet been a little slow to cover this one today.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2097106/Apples-iPhone-business-bigger-Microsoft.html

Apple’s iPhone business is now bigger than whole of Microsoft

iPhone division now bigger than Xbox, Windows and Office put together
Apple phone division now generates $24.4 billion

Apple’s iPhone business is now bigger than the whole of Microsoft, according to recent revenue figures.

The company’s smartphone division generated $24.4 billion of revenue in the quarter up until December, whereas the whole of Microsoft generated $20.9 billion in the same quarter.

That includes entertainment devices such as Xbox, as well as Windows, Microsoft Office and Windows Phone.

Microsoft’s figures were a record for the company, a five per cent increase on the previous year’s revenue.

Even so, the figures were dwarfed by Apple’s.

It sold 37.04 million iPhones – its flagship product – and 15.43 million iPads in the quarter up until December, doubling from a year earlier.

Apple’s hoard of cash now stands at $100bn – which could be enough to buy Facebook outright.

Apple only overtook Microsoft’s market capitalisation in May 2010 – the first time the company had been ahead of its rival computer company since 1989.

Apple overtook Exxon to become the world’s number one company in terms of market cap in August 2011.

Bussiness Insider, which highlighted the figures, said, ‘The iPhone did not exist five years ago.’

‘Now it’s bigger than a company that, 15 years ago, was dragged into court and threatened with forcible break-up because it had amassed an unassailable and unthinkable profitable monopoly.’

Article source: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/npd-android-attracting-more-than-half-of-new-smartphone-shoppers/68779?tag=mncol;txt

Apple continues to hold the title for some of the top-selling smartphone models, with the iPhone 4S being the best selling handset in the US last quarter, according to a new report by market research firm NPD. But while the iPhone has repeatedly made Apple the top smartphone vendor in the US, Android still appears to be attracting more new users.

Apple had three iPhone models available for sale in the fourth quarter of 2011: the just-released iPhone 4S, the iPhone 4, which Apple continues to sell as a lower-cost entry-level model, and the nearly three-year-old iPhone 3GS, which ATT still offers as essentially a $0 bargain smartphone. Collectively, all iPhones sold accounted for 43 percent of smartphone sales in the US for the quarter.

According to NPD analyst Ross Rubin, Apple sold nearly two iPhone 4S models for every iPhone 4 sold, and five iPhone 4S models for every iPhone 3GS sold. And despite the large disparity in numbers, the iPhone 4S, iPhone 4, and iPhone 3GS ended up being the top three smartphones sold in the US.

But even with the top Android smartphone (Samsung Galaxy SII) being outsold more than five to one in the US, Android handsets in aggregate still accounted for 48 percent of US smartphone sales last quarter, accord to NPD’s data. Perhaps more alarming for Apple, users buying their first smartphones chose an Android device 57 percent of the time, and an iOS device just 34 percent of the time.

While Android has been criticized for its platform fragmentation and the complexity it presents to users, the platform’s wide carrier support, growing app selection, and variety of models available from several vendors attracts a generally wider audience. Particularly in the US, Rubin noted, Android is the only choice for users who want to take advantage of LTE networks from Verizon and ATT or Sprint’s WiMAX network.

Article source: http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2012/02/apple-rules-top-three-smartphone-spots-but-loses-new-users-to-android.ars