Marsh Supermarkets and Inmarket Launching First Ibeacon Platform for iWatch

iBeacon Platform for Apple’s Wearable Product

Marsh, one of the first retailer using UPC Barcode scanners in 1974, will now be extending the iBeacon platform beyond smartphones to Apple Watch in 2015. inMarket’s mobile at retail platform, since 2010, had led millions of consumer product towards the stores all across the country and over 100 brands have influenced inMarket in engaging shoppers at the most receptive time, causing in verified sales lift. inMarket’s SDK will enable shoppers with Marsh app, shopping app on the inMarket Beacon platform with Apple Watch app and obtain contextual mobile experience in the store.

Marsh Supermarket together with inMarket has recently announced the launch of a closed-loop iBeacon platform throughout the 75 supermarket locations of Marsh, providing shoppers with Apple Watch and Smartphone, the opportunity of having their favoured apps to come alive in store which is the world’s first iBeacon wearable integrations at retail. Userswould be receiving interactive alerts together with other content on their devices depending on the proximity to Marsh’s beacons. The program being the first integration of iBeacon technology with Apple’s wearable product is expected to be launched to the consumers in the next several months.

New Way of Connecting with Mobile Shoppers

iBeacons is creating new ways of connecting with mobile shoppers in the store with inMarket enabling them to reach many shoppers through the app which is a favourite and is used daily, according to Senior Director of Customer Loyalty, Amit Bhardwaj, of Marsh Supermarkets.

 He states that, now with wearable integrations, shoppers using Apple Watch would be enjoying the same digitally augmented real world shopping experience.Marsh together with inMarket are working in developing a platform which will initially have March’s own app as well as inMarket’s List Ease app together with other apps to follow in quickly.

As seen in inMarket’s beacons in Marsh stores, it will enable trigger alerts like shopping list, ads as well as other content with Marsh mobile app or one of the apps that may incorporate inMarket’s Proximity SDK.Users who prefer to opt for the program would be receiving offers; recipes as well as other alerts on their mobile devices while they walk through the store and the system would automatically extend to Apple Watch the same day as the apps are updated, adding support to the device.

Marsh, First in Extending Apple’s iBeacon Capabilities

Marsh could be the first in extending Apple’s iBeacon capabilities to the Apple Watch though it is not the first in adopting the location based technology. Other retailers among the early adopters who rolled out iBeacons in their own respective venues are Macy’s, Major League and Virgin Atlantic airlines. According to CEO, Todd Dipaola, of inMarket, states that, mobile is not just the phone anymore.

It includes any device that conforms to life and helps based on `who’ you are, `where’ and even `when’ you are and it is aamazing time for consumers and commerce as digital and physical experience converge.Marsh and inMarket are the first to extend iBeacon enhancement for over millions of smartphone users to the new audience of `wearers’, with Apple Watch integration.

3 Ways Apple Could Push Maps Forward With iOS 9 in 2015

Revamped Maps App – 2015

Three years after Apple evicted Google Maps from iOS, the company’s own mapping and navigation offering seems to have some critical weaknesses and the company is focusing on what lays ahead for the next twelve months for Apple Maps.

A revamped Maps apps is presumed to be one of the iOS 8’s tentpole feature with updated data for the much awaited edition of public transit direction, though the most interesting modification ended being the introduction of nine new cities for a three dimensional flyover feature. Apple has tapped in ten new sources for business listing and the additions of DAC Group, Location3 Media, Placeable, Marquette Group, PositionTech, SIM Partners, SinglePlatform, UBL, Yext and Yodle to the initial trio of Factual, Neustar/Localeze and Yelp enhanced the number of firms with point of interest data to a baker’s dozen.

The company also began another data related move in a comprehensive data scrubbing program which included the launch of a self-serve Maps Connect portal enabling local businesses to add directly or modify listings as well as personal calls to business owners from Maps team members to manage conflicting data and changes can now be rolled out daily instead of once a week.

Moreover, Apple Maps has also obtained its web debut last year, which has powered the iCloud version of `Find my iPhone’, though has not yet propagated it to all of Apple’s web properties and the retail store driving directions of the company are still powered by Google. Apple is always known in making process in every performance and is in the midst of overhauling things front to back.

Public transit: The company will integrate the basic door to door path finding technology which is needed by purchasing transit companies like HopStop and Embark with a likely HopStop’s future trip planning that would enable users, pre plan journeys such as, comparing cross town rush hour routes during lunch times and Embarks’ heads up notifications providing users with route advisories and closures. Apple has provides some details with regards to its plans with a pair of patent applications which were revealed last month wherein the documents provide information of a dynamic routing system functioning as a sort of person commuting assistant collecting routing date, timetables together with information on amenities like Wi-Fi availability in one place.

Crowdsourcing:It is rumoured that Apple in 2013 had offered around $500 million in order to acquire traffic app Waze who is believed to have asked for more and eventually it was Google who snapped up the Israeli company for almost $1 billion. Apple still tends to leverage Waze as one of the various sources for real-time traffic data though the company seems focused on in-house crowdsourcing headway.An iOS developer working on mapping application informed AppleInsider that crowdsourced traffic date is envisaged as a `serious target for Apple’s Maps team.

Since Waze’s success proved active, user reporting with regards to traffic conditions tend to have significant advantage over traditional passive device location monitoring that is presently the main method where companies compile traffic date. This is borne out by patent application of Apple which details a system similar to Waze and this approach of Apple would enable users to report accidents or any other hurdles and slowdowns that could then be directed to other drivers approaching that area.

Indoor location:Identifying a user’s location accurately is very important as the services and software tend to provide useful contextual information which is relatively an easy task when the user is outdoors or in the range of a signal from GLONASS or GPS satellites. It could be different situation when walls and a ceiling tend to be in the way.

Apple has taken two different though complimentary approaches to this issue, the first being the iBeacon system that depends on Bluetooth transmitters the size of a palm, placed around a certain space. When an iOS device recognizes an iBeacon, it analyses the signal in determining the approximate distance from the beacon. With the use of multiple iBeacons with known locations, the developers can navigate the position of the user. This could not be of much help since due to the absence of central database of iBeacon locations and such data, by and large could only be used by the owner of the beacons.

To handle the larger problem, Apple has acquired small indoor mapping firm, WiFiSLAM earlier in 2013. The technology of WiFiSLAM connects data from on-device sensors with Wi-Fi signal trilateration to plot user’s path and the signals provide the relative position while the on-board sensors record the movement. With the combination of all the data, over a period of time, could bring about detailed patterns for instance, if an obstacle is three feet from point A, it can be avoided by moving two feet to the left. Extending data can capture and pattern recognition to users of iPhone that visit a shopping mall on a particular day. This enables the development of detailed as well as highly accurate map without the need of dedicated data gathering initiatives or overhead satellites.

Apple to Launch Hardware Stylus – Enhance User Experience of iPad

According to reports from KGI Securities, industry analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple is likely to launch a hardware stylus to enhance user experience for its long rumoured 12.9 inch `iPad Pro’. It is reported that the Cupertino based company is planning to launch a stylus in the second quarter of the year to compliment the larger iPad. Kuo is of the belief that users would not need the stylus initially, thereby prompting Apple to launch the device as an optional add-on.

The report considers that the stylus would be simple to begin with and the future generations of the device could add features such as 3D handwriting. The stylus would be using the Lightning connector to charge and wireless charging would be a much more convenient option for consumers though adding the feature would probably increase the overall cost of the devices. Moreover the device is like to give rise to new breed of application especially for artists as well as for the educational market and the company has now filed for various patents with regards to the stylus which includes a stylus enabling users to transcribe handwritten notes to digital notes which could be viewed and edited from an iPad.

3D Handwriting Feature for Future Models 

Kuo states that the stylus could be more precise than a person’s finger and more convenient to use than the combination of keyboard and mouse in some cases and believes that Apple’s stylus would improve the user experience of 12.9-inch iPad. Moreover, Kuo who has a reliable track record, on predicting Apple’s future product direction, did not indicate any particular source for the rumour beyond Apple’s own patent filings which marks an unusual turn for him, who is known to have close connection to Apple’s supply chain partners.

He commented that coupled with its unfavourable cost structure, high selling prices could turn consumers off, if the said iPad is always bundled with it and therefore it is expected that the stylus should be an optional accessory before sufficient feedback is received from users. Though he does not expects features like a built-in gyroscope or accelerometer in its first year, he believes that Apple would be adding new features gradually and is expecting a 3D handwriting feature to their future models.

Good Application for Stylus

According to Kuo, he states that with the addition of a gyroscope accelerometer to a stylus, it enables users to write on the display as well as on other hard surfaces and even in the air. This being a good application for a stylus, the required software and hardware has not been fully developed yet and hence they cannot expect Apple’s stylus to support 3D handwriting in 2015.

He further added that while wireless charging would also be convenient, there was less likelihood of its implementation in its forthcoming stylus with regards to the higher cost as well as difficult antenna design and that charging could be expected via a Lightning connector. He believes that the stylus would be improving the user experience and that they would help Apple in developing specific customer groups like the corporate sector as well as the educational institutions.

Programme Language Introduced by Apple

The programme language introduced by Apple for developers, for iOS and OS X Swift has gained a lot of popularity over the past six months as per the developer focused analyst firm RedMonk. The latest programming language rankings of the company has indicated Swift rise from the 68th place to the 22nd since its last survey. Stephen O’Grady, RedMonk co-founder and principal analyst, had commented that `during the Q3 rankings marking its debut, Swift is a language that is going to be a lot more popular and very soon, even so, the growth that Swift experienced is essentially unprecedented in the history of these rankings’.

In early 2012, RedMonk had started on regular basis, ranking the popularity of programming languages though its first analysis was done in 2010 and the WWDC app which was launched in June last year was the first app written in the new language. It was intended to be more concise so that the same functions could be created in few lines of code and would be much safer than competing languages. Its assessment is based on the relative rankings of various computer languages which were noticed on two different programming sites namely GitHub and Stack Overflow.

Swift – Tendency to Combine Performance/Efficiency

Apple had introduced Swift at the same time with iOS 8 which was the biggest release since the App Store launch and OS X Yosemite. According to Apple, billed as a language which is much easier for developers to create incredible apps, Swift has the tendency to combine the performance and efficiency of compiled languages with the simplicity as well as the interactivity of popular scripting languages. RedMonk has described Swift as `the Apple anointed successor’ to Objective-C which is presently ranked 10th on the firm’s programming language list. O’Grady had stated that `being sanctioned officially everywhere as the future standard for iOS applications, it would lead to growth. It would also make Apple’s new language a clear outlier in an ecosystem of programming languages and is known for not changing much each year. Swift’s meteoric growth notwithstanding, the high level takeaway from these rankings is stability.

Large Leap in Ranking

RedMonk it is said creates a league table of programming language each year which is believed to become more popular in the future, by mentioning them on Stock Overflow with the number of lines of code posted to GitJub. The latest week’s list indicated that Apple’s Swift had made a large leap up in its ranking. RedMonk had stated that the results were not meant to be indicators of how much a language is utilised presently but is predictive of future use’ since it portrays that programmers are learning and interacting with the language. On the website of RedMonk, a blog post by Stephen O’Grady states that at the time of the last rankings, Swift had been listed as the language to watch, a choice given status as Apple’s anointed successor to the #10 language on the list, Objective – C.

Apple Laptops Vulnerable To Virus That 'Can’t Be Removed

Thunderstrike – Malicious Code in Boot ROM 

Security researcher has discovered a way to install malicious code on a small chip built in Apple laptop which would resist any attempt in removal of it and even replacing the entire hard disk will not be capable of deleting it.

 The attack named, `Thunderstrike’ installs the malicious code in the Boot ROM of the system through the Thunderbolt port. Thunderstrike is undetectable and would need an attacker to get access to a machine for a few moments and since it is new, no security software would be on the lookout for it. Trammel Hudson working for New York hedge fund Two Sigma Investments noted the discovery when his employer asked him to check into the security regarding Apple laptops.

He wrote a comment in an annotated version of a talk given at the 31C3 conference stating that they were considering deploying MacBook and was asked to use his reverse engineering experience to look into the reports of rootkits on the Mac. The first step he took was in dismantling one of the laptops in order to gain access to the boot ROM which is a small chip containing the code that enables the computer to operate when switched on, before the main operating system is loaded.

Bootkit – Difficult to Delete

The malicious code could be hidden in this ROM and unlike other normal virus residing on the hard disk, this particular one cannot be deleted which is known as bootkit. The code could be used to do anything, an attacker would desire, from covertly probing the user to leaking sensitive data that is available on the machine.

 Researchers, though earlier have observed that modifying the contents of the ROM in Apple laptops causes the computer being completely unusable and as security measures, one should look for any changes and shut down if they come across anything. Hudson was of the opinion that these security measures could always seem to be `doomed to fail’ or `futile’ since anyone getting access to the contents of the ROM could also get access to the code which checks the ROM for changes.

On the contrary, he states that there should be some unchangeable hardware chip which could perform these checks. It was also observed that the attack could be done without the need of physically taking the machine apart in order to get the chip, which can be done by using the Thunderbolt port and theoretically any device, a monitor, printer or hard disk could be utilised in stalling malicious code by plugging it in some simple steps.

Partial Fix - By Apple

Hudson informed that Apple is planning a `partial fix’, as a firmware update would stop the ROM from being overwritten with malicious code in certain situations, though not all, like when a machine is being rebooted with a malicious Thunderbolt device plugged in. He had approached the company regarding the flaw in 2013.

His suggestion to prevent the attack is to overwrite the ROM with their own code which would disable any remote attacks through the Thunderbolt port and then paint over the screws on the laptop with nail varnish to detect any unauthorised physical access to the ROM. This measure however is time consuming since it is out of reach to all but only to the most advanced security experts.