Today’s topics include Lenovo preparing to offer Google’s first Project Tango smartphone, Qualcomm revealed a number of products at CES 2016, IBM and Pathway Genomics have launched a Watson-based wellness app, and a recent study done by the IDC shows Web platform standards are enabling the creation of hybrid applications.
Lenovo is engineering and building Google’s first Project Tango smartphone—which is slated to give users a wide range of 3D views and data about indoor physical locations, and is expected to be released later this year.
The Project Tango smartphone initiative was announced by Johnny Lee, technical project lead for the program, in a Jan. 7 post from the CES 2016 event in Las Vegas on the Google Developers Blog. No technical details or specifications of the coming smartphones were unveiled, but Lee wrote that application developers are being invited to submit their ideas for gaming and utility apps that could be made available for users in the future.
Qualcomm officials came to CES last week armed with products to power the growing number of smart devices and systems and the technologies to connect them.
The company unveiled the Snapdragon 820A family of systems-on-a-chip for the connected car market and demonstrated Snapdragon Flight, a board aimed at the booming drone space. In addition, Qualcomm introduced a smart home reference platform based on its Snapdragon 212 processor.
IBM and Pathway Genomics teamed up to create the Pathway Genomics OME app, a new personalized wellness application powered by IBM’s Watson cognitive computing system.
The companies unveiled the new app at the Digital Health Summit at CES and launched a closed-alpha release of the solution. The Pathway Genomics OME app merges cognitive computing and deep learning with precision medicine and genetics to enable Pathway Genomics to provide consumers with personalized wellness information.
Progress in the Web platform standards such as HTML5 and in the latest versions of iOS and Android has made Web languages and tools more viable for a greater swath of enterprise apps, according to a recent IDC study.
In the IDC report, analyst Al Hilwa says Web platform technologies now occupy an “ever-larger footprint” inside of many third-party cross-platform mobile platforms.
Hilwa points out that HTML5 is finally taking off as browser vendors support the standard more completely and as the industry, particularly advertisers, accelerates its shift from Adobe’s Flash technology.