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Today’s topics include predictions of record-setting iPhone 6s sales, Google hires a new CEO for its self driving car project, IBM tests of its new social sharing technology at the US Open and AT&T partners with Permobil to develop wirelessly-connected wheelchairs.
Apple’s preorders for iPhone 6s models are coming in so quickly that the company believes that they could exceed the all-time iPhone first-weekend sales records that were set with the release of the company’s iPhone 6 models in September 2014.
In its statement, Apple said that it is working to build and ship enough new iPhone 6s smartphones to meet the global demand based on pre-orders and the Sept. 25 release date.
Google has hired auto industry veteran John Krafcik as the CEO of its self-driving car project. Krafcik comes to Google from car shopping and price comparison Website TrueCar, where he had been president since May 2014.
He will assume the new role at Google sometime in late September. Prior to TrueCar, Krafcik was the CEO and president of Hyundai Motor America, a company he worked at for more than a decade.
Krafcik, who holds an undergraduate degree from Stanford University and a master’s degree from the MIT Sloan School of Management, started his career in the automobile industry as an engineer at the Ford Motor Co.
Fans that attended the finals of the US Open tennis tournament Sept. 12-13 got an enhanced on-site experience thanks to a new kind of social-sharing technology called Simulcastr courtesy of IBM.
Simulcastr is a pilot feature that was built into the IBM-developed official US Open iPhone app. Developed by IBM Research and IBM Interactive Experience, Simulcastr allows onsite fans to gain access to unique camera angles around the grounds as well as broadcaster video streams covering match play across 11 courts real time.
Telecommunications giant AT&T and health IT company Permobil, which specializes in power wheelchairs, announced they developed a proof of concept system for wirelessly connecting wheelchairs to increase user independence.
The connected wheelchair concept uses AT&T’s Internet of Things technology so that the chair can be monitored for comfort, performance, maintenance requirements and location.
The system allows users to access data that impacts their everyday life and can be remotely accessed in the secure cloud and shared with caregivers, fleet technicians and clinicians.