The number of people attracted to voice calls continues to grow. Throughout 2004, around 800,000 new subscribers have joined the mobile world every day, driven by strong growth in emerging markets such as China, India and Brazil. There are 1.3bn mobile subscribers in the world today and, in fact, there are now more mobile phones in the world than fixed-line phones.The combined effects of the new wave of compelling mobile applications and services and the explosive growth in emerging markets means we expect the numbers of mobile subscribers to reach 2bn by 2007, one year earlier than previously forecast.
The initial driver for growth in mobile phones was mobile voice communications and subsequently, to the surprise of many, SMS. If voice going wireless was the initial impetus, the next driver of growth in mature markets is multimedia.
Consumers in Europe accustomed to voice calls are now ready for the next step. The mobile market is already expanding into new areas of games, entertainment, media and business. Consider new devices such as phones with large screens and cameras; or phones that work as music players or games consoles. These products are creating entirely new ways of communicating. Ten years ago if someone had said we would all have cameras on our phones, we would have laughed. Today we see the global mobile device market volume reaching approximately 600m units, of which one third is camera phones.
Soaring property values in California have made many homeowners there rich -- and many real estate agents here delighted. In an exodus that some demographers say could reshape the American landscape, young professional families are increasingly fleeing the exorbitant coast for Austin, Dallas or San Antonio, for Atlanta, Denver or Phoenix, for Charlotte, N.C.They're selling their cramped "starter homes" in California, some worth $500,000 or more, and buying luxury homes, for cash, in the nation's interior.
...
The 2000 census tracked movement of college graduates around the country and found the metropolitan areas around Atlanta, Dallas, Denver and Phoenix were top magnets. (San Francisco made the list, though demographers say it's attracting more single dot-com workers than young families.) Experts say the migration inward has accelerated since the census, as housing prices in California and New England have soared.
Calling the shift dramatic, demographer William Frey has dubbed the Southwest and Southeast the nation's "brain gainers." A scholar at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank, Frey sees a "smart belt" emerging in the Sun Belt.
More and more Americans are surviving cancer, a disease that was previously perceived as a death sentence for those diagnosed with it.Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the U.S. after heart disease. The four top cancer killers: lung, colon, breast and prostate.
The American Cancer Society claims that cancer accounts for one in every four deaths in the U.S. More than 1,500 lives a day are lost to cancer.
While the number of U.S. cancer cases are expected to continue to increase, the top four killer cancers will decrease, the cancer society predicts.
Yesterday, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published findings from a 1971-2001 U.S. "Cancer Survivorship" study. The results of these findings: The number of Americans surviving cancer climbed more than threefold, from 3 million to 9.8 million, in the past 30 years.Posted by Jennifer King at 10:16 AM | E-mail to a Friend | TrackBack
With TiVo's fast-forward, viewers' shrinking attention spans and new media choices, the 30-second TV ad has more rivals for consumers' attention. That is pushing marketers' thinking increasingly outside the TV box for ways to make the costly but still dominant commercial work harder.They are stepping up use of alternatives, such as Internet, print and outdoor ads, and "viral marketing" - word of mouth on the Web. These options are being used alone or in combination with commercials to expand the reach of TV campaigns.
...
Network TV ads still deliver the big audience - this year in the USA alone, advertisers are expected to spend $22 billion on them, a 9.8% increase over 2003, according to ad tracker TNS Media Intelligence/CMR. But many experts think the days are past when an advertiser can bet on TV spots alone.
"Before, you had the good old days of broadcast and mass media," says Roger Hatchuel, festival chairman. "With the money, you had access. It was easy. Today, with technology and digital, the consumers are in control. They can avoid advertising.
A cream containing an ingredient of human breast milk appears to be an effective treatment for warts.The preparation, nicknamed Hamlet by is Swedish creators, has been shown to dramatically reduce, and often completely banish, stubborn warts.
It contains an ingredient that collects in the core of wart cells, and triggers them to self-destruct.
Details of a trial using the cream are published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Common warts, which usually appear on the hands and feet, are caused by infection of the epidermal layer of the skin with human papillomavirus (HPV).
They can be resistant to treatment with creams, but freezing is often an effective way to deal with them.
However, the researchers, from Lund University, hope their findings may eventually provide the basis not just for a treatment for common warts, but for more serious conditions too.
The same class of viruses that cause warts are also responsible for cervical cancer, genital warts, and some types of skin cancer.
Student Gracinia Lim has made new friends thanks to mobile phone software that alerts her to compatible people nearby.She is an early customer of a service in Singapore called BEDD that uses Bluetooth wireless communications to scan strangers' phones for their personal profiles.
The application joins a swelling number of Internet and mobile phone based services that offer to widen people's social networks.
Users download the BEDD software into a compatible phone, complete a short profile of themselves and include a description of who they want to befriend, or an item they want to buy or sell.
The software automatically searches for and exchanges profiles with other phones that come within a 20-meter (65 ft) radius. Matched users are given each other's contact details.
The software, created by futures trader Stephen Carlton and Swedish engineer Olle Bliding about three years ago, was launched last month in Singapore and will be rolled out in most of Asia by year-end.
BEDD differs from rival services in that it relies on phone-to-phone transmission, running on the short-range Bluetooth technology.
...Last year, U.S. consumers purchased 16,000 vehicles priced more than $100,000, a 43 percent increase over 2002.But if one adds up sales forecasts for luxury vehicles entering the United States in the next two years, affluent Americans would have to buy an additional 7,000 units a year. That would require 40 percent sales growth in a segment that was flat the year before sales spiked.
Automakers such as Lexus, Audi and Cadillac are planning to enter the $100,000-plus luxury segment. It's unclear if consumers like Barron are ready to spend so freely.
Says Barron: "I'm not one to take a chance on a limited-edition type car, where I need to worry how I'll get it serviced. I associate that with complex, expensive, hard-to-repair cars."
The industry's expectations of growth in the ultraluxury segment have some trend-watchers nervous. Said Susan Jacobs, who tracks the luxury automobile sector from Rutherford, N.J.: "There are a lot of affluent buyers looking for exclusive models. But are there enough to absorb all the targeted volume?...
Wealthy consumers tend to be pragmatic about their vehicles, according to a survey by Unity Marketing, a market research firm in Stevens, Pa.
Unity Marketing interviewed individuals with an average income of $150,000, and found that they are leery of buying a product that costs more than some people's houses. They were especially leery of driving such vehicles among the uninsured masses and parking them at the supermarket.
Wealthy consumers also become price resistant when a vehicle's sticker price tops $150,000, says Eric Noble, president of The Car Lab consultancy in Orange, Calif. Noble has done marketability studies for several luxury carmakers.
His conclusion: The key price point seems to be $150,000. Below that price, there are plenty of potential buyers, Noble says. But significant sales volume beyond $150,000 is illusory.
"Rich buyers didn't get rich by being stupid," Noble says. "The truly rich don't want to look like it..."
The Rugged Elegance Inspiration Network:
SEATTLE, Washington (AP) -- Lucy Brown somersaults backward down a ramp, leaps over a mat, rolls across a platform, jumps a series of hoops, squats into a yoga pose and hops over a row of cones.And all with her diaper intact.
The cherubic, grinning 2-year-old was one of eight toddlers stretching and puffing their way through yoga poses and aerobic exercises at a recent toddler fitness class at the Seattle Holistic Center.
As the country's population of overweight children swells, parents are flocking to baby exercise classes where tots as young as one day old can start getting fit.
Blog readers are just a bunch of kids with too many opinions, too little money, and too much time on their hands. Think again. According to a survey of blog readers conducted by Weblog ad network Blogads, they're older and wealthier than what's portrayed by their stereotype. What's more: many buy and donate online, spend on books and magazines, and have clicked on a blog ad.In what may be the first survey of blog readers as an emerging demographic, Blogads asked 17,159 blog site visitors about their age, income, media consumption, online spending habits, and political affiliations during a two-day period in May. It turns out that 61 percent of blog readers who participated in the survey are over 30 years of age. Almost 30 percent are between the ages of 31 and 40, while over 37 percent span the ages of 41-60. And nearly 40 percent have a household income of $90K and above.
A recent, end-user survey performed by In-Stat/MDR found that 13.2% of US wireless subscribers are extremely or very interested in purchasing mobile video services for their wireless phones. "While still a relatively small niche of the market, this figure is significant in that it represents the "natural demand" for mobile video services, prior to any large-scale carrier deployments or market messaging," says Clint Wheelock, Director of In-Stat/MDR's Wireless Research Group. By 2009, mobile video services are expected to generate $5.4 billion in annual revenues.
In-Stat/MDR also reports that:
• By 2009, 22.3 million Americans will be viewers of mobile video content, and 31.1 million will use video messaging services.
• Sprint PCS subscribers, who typically exhibit more early adopter characteristics than customers of other wireless carriers, were the most likely, among those surveyed, to be interested in mobile video services.
• By 2009, mobile video services will account for approximately 14.9% of total wireless data revenues.
But there are signs of change: from cars to couture, more Western companies are starting to crack the Chinese code. The outlook is improving for Microsoft as well, owing in part to a 180-degree shift in strategy. On several recent occasions, Ballmer has conceded that China is perhaps the one nation "absolutely big enough" to seriously challenge global computer standards like Windows. Between the lines, it's now clear that Microsoft is no longer trying to change China; China is changing Microsoft.For the software giant, the problem with doing business in China comes down mainly to one thing: piracy. Touts line the street outside a new $80 million Microsoft research center in Beijing, steering customers through alleys to run-down apartments where bootleg Microsoft Office and Word are peddled for about $1, at least $199 less than the global retail price. Ninety percent of Microsoft products used in China are pirated, and for years the company battled back with its signature mix of bullying and intimidation. But in China, the government has been sympathetic to the pirates and openly hostile to the Microsoft monopoly, and has officially embraced Linux, the free rival to Windows. Cheap software has been critical to China's economic boom, and Beijing saw no upside to forcing citizens with an average annual income of $1,000 to spend much of it on Windows.
Microsoft's new China strategy attempts to create a constituency for full-price software, starting with the political and business elite. This means improving customer support for big Chinese companies, helping Beijing develop a domestic software industry trained on and tied to Microsoft products, sharing more technology than it normally would and easing up on buyers of pirated software (but not on pirates).
ChevronTexaco is not the only big oil company whose production is falling despite rising reserves, though it has the largest gap. As consumers, economists and governments around the world wonder if oil supplies can keep pace with rising demand, production trends at the industry's publicly traded companies are not promising.Collectively, they paint a picture of an industry that has depleted nearly all of the world's easily exploited reserves outside the Middle East and that is now struggling to sustain production, much less increase it. Fears about supply shortfalls and rising demand have already caused prices to climb about 20 percent this year, hovering around $40 a barrel. The four biggest companies own only about 4 percent of the world's reserves, which are mostly government-held, but they offer a unique glimpse of supply trends because they must disclose their reserves and production each year.
Meanwhile, thousands of free hot spots have been established by public agencies, mom-and-pop businesses hoping to attract customers and individuals working to build a grass-roots based network. A handful of city governments, some in cooperation with local businesses, are deploying free Wi-Fi networks in parts of Jacksonville, Fla., lower Manhattan and Portland, Ore., among other places."It's going to be hard for commercial carriers to make a profit," said Dewayne Hendricks, the chief executive of Dandin Group, a wireless Internet service provider based in Silicon Valley, who serves as technical adviser to the Federal Communications Commission on wireless Internet issues.
Mr. Hendricks said the remarkable spread of free networks was forcing commercial carriers to rethink their strategies.
"The infrastructure is being built from the bottom up," Mr. Hendricks said, referring to a municipal and grass-roots effort to deploy wireless connections. "How that plays out is potentially monumental," he said in affecting the way Internet access is provided.
BAY 43-9006 [developed by Onyx Pharmaceuticals], which could reach the market in one to three years, is one of a new generation of "targeted" therapies that are transforming cancer treatment by attacking the underlying molecular mechanisms of the disease.Some experts see [this patient's] experience as a harbinger of a future in which cancer, while not cured, will be held in check for years by drugs tolerable enough to take on a continuing basis.
"Cancer will become a chronic disease that we will manage much the same way we manage high blood pressure or diabetes," said Dr. Andrew C. von Eschenbach, the director of the National Cancer Institute.
Dr. Harold Varmus, president of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, warns against setting strict timetables that would create "false expectations." But he agreed that it was now a "reasonable goal to dramatically reduce death from cancer, making it a chronic disease."
The recreational vehicle capital of the world is in the midst of a hiring boom.In the sprawling manufacturing plants south of Interstate 80-90 in Elkhart County, the scene resembles a bustling construction site, the sound of drills buzzing in the air, as plumbers, electricians and carpenters work at outfitting the giant rigs with all the comforts of home.
Despite record-high prices at the gas pump, the Recreational Vehicle Industry Association expects sales of RVs to reach their highest level in 25 years, fueled by middle-aged Americans' increasing affinity for the big fuel-thirsty rigs.
"It's a challenge for us to get good employees right now," said Jim Mac, marketing director for RV maker Monaco Coach Corp., which operates four plants in the Elkhart area.
...
"This is the baby-boom generation that has fueled remarkable increases in demand the past several years and will continue to do so in the next decade," said Richard Curtin, director of consumer surveys at the University of Michigan
Cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins may prevent various forms of cancer, including prostate and colon cancer, two teams of researchers said on Sunday.Israelis who took statins had a 51 percent lower risk of developing colon cancer than those who did not take the drugs, Dr. Stephen Gruber of the University of Michigan told a meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.
A second study at Oregon Health & Science University Cancer Institute showed that men who took statins had a 58 percent lower risk of prostate cancer.
Combined, the studies suggest that statins, which reduce how much cholesterol the body makes, may also affect some the of the processes that underlie cancer.
Rugged Elegance Inspiration Network:
A privately-developed rocket plane will launch into history on June 21 on a mission to become the world's first commercial manned space vehicle. Investor and philanthropist Paul G. Allen and aviation legend Burt Rutan have teamed to create the program, which will attempt the first non-governmental flight to leave the earth's atmosphere.SpaceShipOne will rocket to 100 kilometers (62 miles) into sub-orbital space above the Mojave Civilian Aerospace Test Center, a commercial airport in the California desert. If successful, it will demonstrate that the space frontier is finally open to private enterprise. This event could be the breakthrough that will enable space access for future generations.