📡 Technology. Noise. Attention. Isolation.

As you probably already know, smartphones can (and do) gather a lot of information about their users and then “phone home,” meaning send them to the companies behind their operating system; usually, Google or Apple.

According to a new study, Google, in particular, likes to keep tabs on its users. The study analysed how often Android phones and iPhones send information to Google’s and Apple’s servers during a 24-hour period, distinguishing between the amount of data collected in idle mode and during normal use.

The results are pretty clear: even when not used, Android phones send information to Google around 40 times per hour, compared to just 4 times iPhones send info to Apple’s servers. During normal use, that total rises to 90 information requests per hour for Android phones compared to 18 for iPhones.

Interestingly Google even collects more data from iPhone users than Apple itself does. This, however, only works when the phone is used. In idle mode iPhones very rarely communicate with Google’s servers. 

Read more on Statista.

China is the second-largest consumer market in the world, hitting $4.3T in consumer expenditure in 2016 alone (for reference, the US ranked first with $12.5T, and Japan third with $2.7T).

The Chinese smart home market will reach nearly $23B in 2018, according to Juniper Research. Smart speakers and AI voice assistants are becoming an integral part of that.

Now that smart speakers are becoming commonplace, the early entrant, Amazon, is losing its market share — and not just to its rival Google, but to newer players emerging in China.

Read more on CBIsights.

It’s interesting how close Flipboard is to Twitter and Google News in terms of referral traffic. If you’re a publisher (or work for one), make sure you have a strategic presence on Flipboard.

👆Hugo Gernsback wearing his Isolator, which eliminates external noises for concentration, from Science and Invention, July, 1925. [Credit: Syracuse University Libraries, Special Collections Research Center via NYBooks]

Just watch the two-minute video… It’s so good.

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