MSFT Win10 News

Today's Windows 10 Desktop preview is the second Microsoft has made available to testers in March, and the fourth Windows 10 Desktop build the company has released as of October 1, 2014.

Like Windows 10 Desktop -- which runs on PCs, laptops and tablets -- Spartan is still not feature-complete at this point. The first Spartan preview does, however, include most of the functionality that Microsoft execs showed off on January 21 during an early demo of Spartan as part of a Windows 10 press event.

Specifically, the integration between Spartan and Cortana, Microsoft's personal digital assistant, is in today's Windows 10 release, as is the "Ask Cortana" user assistance technology. The ability to annotate Web pages with a pen or mouse is included in today's Spartan build. Users can share annotated Web pages using this new "Web Note" technology and view the annotated pages in a variety of browsers.

The new Reading View, which allows users to view content with fewer distractions and/or save it for later, also is in Spartan in today's new test build. (The ability to read saved content offline is not yet enabled in today's test build.)

Too Much Screen Time?

Children aged five to 16 spend an average of six and a half hours a day in front of a screen compared with around three hours in 1995, according to market research firm Childwise.

Screen time is made up of time spent watching TV, playing games consoles, using a mobile, computer or tablet.

The Connected Kids report has collated data from 1995 to the present day to create a comprehensive picture of children’s media habits. It finds that teenaged girls now spend an average of seven-and-a-half- hours watching screens, compared with 3.5 hours of TV viewing in 1995.

Younger children fare slightly better – in 1995, five to 10-year-olds averaged around two-and-a-half-hours of TV. Fast-forward to 2014 and screen time has risen to four-and-a-half hours.

Children are also now multi-screening – using more than one device at the same time, for example, watching TV while surfing the Internet on a tablet or mobile so some of the screen time will be concurrent.

Boo, hiss to Lexmark

We received this tonight:

We are notifying all Lexmark Rewards customers that we will be ending the Lexmark Ink Rewards program on June 30, 2015. Fortunately, there are nearly four months to earn free cartridges before the program ends. All purchases and returns received by June 30, 2015 will still count towards a free cartridge. Plus all the promo codes you’ve earned will remain valid for 90 days after receipt.

Office 365 Free on Mini Tablets

Microsoft drew a line in the sand on Tuesday, as its Office 365 chief said that editing and viewing documents on small-screen devices would continue to be free—likely killing off the idea of a small-screen Surface Pro mini, incidentally.

Kirk Koenigsbauer, the corporate vice president for the Office 365 Client Apps and Services team, revealed in a blog post that Microsoft believes that 10.1 inches is the dividing line between a “personal” and “professional” experience. Pros need the reliability and security of paid apps, while “personal” users are more interested in free.

“Currently, we are also using screen size to delineate between professional and personal use,” Koenigsbauer wrote. “Based on our research, we are classifying anything with a screen size of 10.1 inches or less as a true mobile device: You’re probably using it on the go, when it’s not practical to use a larger computing device such as a PC or a Mac. You probably aren’t using a mouse or a keyboard, instead navigating via touch interface. It’s probably not a “pro” category tablet that is used for design or presentations.”

HP Switches to B&O

Hewlett-Packard once relied on Beats for audio technology in its PCs and tablets, but that was before Apple acquired it. HP has now found a new audio partner in Bang & Olufsen.

HP will use Bang & Olufsen audio technology to its PCs, tablets and accessories. The companies will “custom tune” audio for each PC model; different models typically have different hardware specifications in order to meet different expectations. For example, a gaming laptop typically delivers more booming sound than a low-cost laptop.

HP will put the Bang & Olufsen brand on the high-end Spectre, Omen, Envy and some other commercial PCs. The B&O Play label will be on lower-cost Pavilion PCs and tablets. The companies will also resell audio Bang & Olufsen accessories for HP hardware.

Wearable News

Technology developers from the UK have designed a new wearable technology where the garment itself becomes an active motion sensor. Xelflex uses bend-sensitive fiber-optic that are stitched inside the clothing to provide intelligent feedback for athletes without encumbering them with bulking electronics.

The makers say that until now smart fabrics have had multiple electronic sensors, making them bulky and sensitive to moisture. Xelflex's fiber-optic thread is robust enough for use in sportswear, with only a small, credit card-sized, electronics pack being the only other component.

Xelflex inventor Martin Brock said making a wearable technology that was comfortable was a key factor: "Xelflex is a breakthrough sensing technology based on optical fibers; where the optical fiber is actually integrated into the garment. And really it behaves like any other thread in that garment, there's no compromise between having a sensor that gives you feedback on your motion or your performance; and having some clothing that is comfortable and wearable and elegant as part of the everyday activities."

The technology built on the developers' extensive experience in industrial fiber-optic sensors and low-cost impulse radar. Brock explained that Xelflex measures the scattering of light in the optic fibers where bending the fiber results in increased scattering and reflection, which can then be measured.

Case Logic iPad mini Cases

This year at CES we had the pleasure of meeting with the new PR rep for Case Logic (part of the Thule Group), and she is a true rock star in the industry that we have known for a couple of years. She showed us many of the new, award winning Case Logic cases and bags and we were very impressed. She was kind enough to send us two of their iPad mini cases and a backpack that we’ll be reviewing later.

The two iPad mini cases we received are the snap view (shown below) and the quick flip. Both of the cases are designed to work with both the original iPad mini as well as the gen 2  model with the retina display.

Both cases provide excellent protection and fit the iPad mini perfectly. The tablet clicks into place and there are cutouts for all of the controls and cameras. Both cases provide for three different viewing angles that should cover most situations.

The snap view is a more compact case and the quick flip is a tad thicker.

Both cases are highly recommended and provide very good protection for your investment.

MSRP for the both the snap view and the quick flip is $34.99 and they are available in multiple colors (we received a Morel color snap view and a Black quick flip) and for several different tablets from different manufacturers.

www.caselogic.com

Office 2016 Preview

Microsoft has limited the Office 2016 for Windows preview to customers with subscriptions to the enterprise-grade plans ProPlus, E3 and E4.

                                                   

The restriction took some users by surprise.

"The software appears to be looking for an Office 365 Professional Plus subscription instead of the Business/Business Premium/E plan subscriptions. The Connect page says otherwise," wrote someone identified as Rekab in a message posted to Microsoft's support forum on Monday after downloading the preview.

"I can confirm that after upgrading our Office 365 account to the E3 level I am able to successfully activate the Office 2016 Preview with my corporate account," replied Jrausch later that day. "Looks like the problem is that you need one of the Enterprise level subscriptions to use the Preview. That was not clear at all from the information that accompanied the announcement from Microsoft."

Win10 Upgrade Update

Microsoft's offer of free Windows 10 upgrades for software pirates may have some strings attached after all.

Shortly after Microsoft revealed that it will allow upgrades for “non-genuine” copies of Windows, the company clarified to Ars Technica that these copies will remain illegitimate.

“With Windows 10, although non-Genuine PCs may be able to upgrade to Windows 10, the upgrade will not change the genuine state of the license,” Microsoft said. “If a device was considered non-genuine or mislicensed prior to the upgrade, that device will continue to be considered non-genuine or mislicensed after the upgrade.”

Terry Myerson, the head of Microsoft's operating systems unit, first announced the upgrade offer at a conference in China, where Windows piracy is widespread. Microsoft then confirmed that the upgrade would be available worldwide. The hope is that illegitimate users will “realize the value of properly licensing Windows and we will make it easy for them to move to legitimate copies,” the company said.

Microsoft is staying tight-lipped on the details, such as the cost to go legit, the drawbacks of a non-genuine copy, and whether pirated users can still get patches and security updates. The company simply gave a “no comment” when pressed for more details by Ars.

Free Win 10 from MSFT

Windows 10 will be a free upgrade for Windows 7 and Windows 8 users this summer, but Microsoft is also extending its offer to software pirates. "We are upgrading all qualified PCs, genuine and non-genuine, to Windows 10," says Terry Myerson, Microsoft’s Windows chief, in an interview with Reuters. The move means that thousands, perhaps millions, of machines will get a free copy of Windows 10 even if a license has not been properly acquired. While the Reuters report is focused on China, it's not immediately clear if this extends to other regions, but Myerson's "all qualified PCs" appears to suggest so. The Verge has reached out to Microsoft to clarify.

Microsoft has a long history of attempts to thwart software piracy. Windows XP was the company's first operating system to introduce software activation to verify license keys, but it was quickly defeated using a corporate license key that many pirates shared on the internet back in 2001. Software activation has evolved throughout various versions of Windows, but pirates have largely managed to bypass it each time. While Microsoft's plan might seem like letting software pirates go free, studies have found that in a lot of cases pirated Windows licenses are installed on new machines without customers even knowing they have an illegal copy. Microsoft has tried various methods to encourage those customers to return their machines or seek out a legal copy, but it’s headache and a bad experience of Windows itself if that’s the first thing you have to deal with in certain regions.

April issue

Happy first day of Spring!!

The April issue of our monthly ePub was emailed out this morning to all of our subscribers. As usual, it contains some great articles and reviews and I highly recommend it.

If you aren't a subscriber but want to be just send us an email and we'll add you to the list.

Swiss Watch Makers

To observers of the secretive Swiss watch industry, its quiet, seemingly passive response to Apple Inc's plan to attack their centuries-old business could be mistaken for submission before an overwhelming adversary.

But luxury and fashion groups Richemont, LVMH, Swatch Group and Guess Inc have been busy in the past year tinkering with smartwatches of their own, while aiming to preserve their products' more timeless appeal.

When Apple Watch was first announced last September, some experts dismissed such devices as appealing to a different class of customer - those who prize technology over prestige.

Now analysts and industry executives are starting to think that maybe the Apple Watch juggernaut will stoke sales of luxury timepieces among younger consumers used to telling the time with their phones, rather than on their wrists.

"Apple has the potential to make the watch cool again," said CCS Insight mobile analyst Ben Wood, a confessed wearable gadget freak. "I think the Swiss watch industry are going to be absolutely delighted."

New Chromebook

Google’s original Chromebook Pixel strode boldly toward a brighter, more Web-centric world—and left most of us behind, unfortunately. Google’s new Pixel still tries to lead the way, but with apps and services to help justify its updated, premium hardware.

Google launched two new Pixels—not the Pixel 2, but the “new Pixel”—on Wednesday, with a $999 base model and a $1,299 “Ludicrous Speed” (LS) version. You’d be hard pressed to tell the new Pixel from the original one; set side by side, the two clamshell notebooks look almost identical. Both go on sale today from the new online Google Store, together with a few accessories.

But the “new” Pixel improves on the older model in a few key ways. Google included two USB-C connectors, doing one better on the solo reversible USB connector that appears on the new Apple MacBook. And inside, thankfully, is a new fifth-generation Core i5 “Broadwell-U” chip, which will help extend the Pixel’s battery life from a woeful five hours to a whopping twelve.

As before, the Pixel is powered by a combination of Google’s Chrome OS and Google’s cloud services, which include Gmail, Google Drive, and the Chrome browser, as well as something new: a small collection of apps, which can run on top of the Chrome OS and add functionality the original Pixel lacked. Hardware aside, it’s these services that will make or break the new Pixel.

New IObit Software

Obit, leader of PC optimization and security software, gets prepared to release the newest version of their popularly downloaded Smart Defrag software, Smart Defrag 4. SD4 is the perfect complement to any PC based security software, offering light and stable disk defragging and streamlines your frequently used files for a faster data performance.

Fragmentation of the storage drives occurs over time as a user saves, changes, and deletes files. Due to this fragmentation, PC's often slow down as the computer needs to search for the files necessary to run certain programs. Smart Defrag 4 is a program designed to rearrange the data stored on the drives and reunite the fragmented data for the computer to operate more efficiently. Based on key characteristics from the previous version, Smart Defrag 3, SD4 offers new features to streamline the defrag process while redesigning the user interface for an easier and more efficient operation.

Smart Defrag 4 introduces two new key features for the user: Game Defrag and Boot Defrag. Game Defrag is implemented with the PC gamer in mind and performs similar to the original defragging operation. With PC games utilizing several different drivers throughout the PC, such as video, audio, etc, users can manually add the games to the Smart Defrag 4 interface to be defragged separately from the complete storage drive defrag.

IObit knows that PC users value time and the addition of Boot Defrag assists in limiting the time needed to run defragmentation. Regardless if the user is considered heavy, moderate, or light, Boot Defrag allows the ability to customize the schedule of when defrag will occur. Dependent on the amount of files and programs stored on one's SSDs, Boot Defrag can be set to as much as every day or as little as once a month. This provides a convenience to the users as well as confidence their PC is running to optimal performance.

"In order to provide our users with the best experience, we decided that simplicity should be at the forefront of our interface with Smart Defrag 4," said Antonio Zhang, Marketing Director for IObit. "We took successful pieces of our last generation defrag software and added strong key components, such as Boot Defrag and Game Defrag, to create a program that is not only easy to operate, but gives depth to the optimization of their PCs."

Smart Defrag 4 incorporates a well-designed interface and increases performance based features to create strong defragmentation software that is available for Free for PC users. The software complements well with IObit's current line of security and performance optimization products, which are available through www.iobit.com.

About Smart Defrag

Smart Defrag 4 is a free disk defrag tool that will reunite and reorganize files and programs within a hard drive to enhance PC performance and efficiency. The addition of Boot Defrag and Game Defrag complements a brand-new user interface that is convenient regardless of user preference. The program, once installed and set-up, requires little user interaction and can complement a wide variety of PC security based setups.

TaxACT

TaxACT is reminding the three out of five taxpayers who still need to file federal tax returns that TaxACT offers free filing and tax help.

Unlike other free solutions, TaxACT Free Federal Edition includes all e-fileable IRS forms. That means taxpayers of all situations can file federal returns free with TaxACT, including investors, self-employed, independent contractors, and landlords.

TaxACT's easy-to-follow Q&A format guides customers from start to finish. If additional guidance is needed, customers can find detailed information specific to the topic at hand next to each question and in the program's searchable Answer Center. TaxACT also offers all customers free one-on-one tax and technical answers via email.

TaxACT offers these simple tips for filing tax returns easy, fast and affordably:

• Get started. You don't have to start and file your tax return in one sitting. TaxACT Online saves your work as you go, so you can finish and file on a computer, tablet or smartphone.

• Know the fastest path to your refund. E-file your return and choose direct deposit to get your refund the fastest way possible. The IRS issues most refunds in fewer than 21 days.

• If you owe, you don't have to pay the same day you file. You can still prepare and e-file your return today, and schedule an electronic payment any time before April 15.

• With TaxACT Online Deluxe and State, your price is guaranteed. Other brands require you to pay whatever the price is at the time you file. TaxACT's Price Lock Guarantee promises the price you were offered at the time you signed up, regardless of when you finish and file.

• With TaxACT Free Edition, federal returns are free and state returns are just $17.99 each, a fraction of the cost of other brands. TaxACT Deluxe ($12.99 federal, $9 state) includes additional imports and tax guidance.

• Easily track your return and refund status. With this year's average federal refund totaling more than $3,000, knowing when you'll have your money matters. TaxACT's free Tax Refund Status™ app provides the latest status of your e-filed returns plus the status and estimated delivery date of your IRS refund. Your status is also available at efstatus.taxact.com and by signing in to your TaxACT Account.

Who Will Buy a $2300.00 Tablet?

BlackBerry is returning to the tablet market—this time with the help of Samsung Electronics, IBM and Secusmart, the German encryption specialist BlackBerry bought last year.

This is not the PlayBook 2 that BlackBerry was rumored to be working on last year, but the SecuTablet, developed by Secusmart and IBM for a German government department.

The SecuTablet is a Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5 LTE 16GB bundled with some software from IBM and SecuSmart’s special MicroSD card, which combines a number of cryptographic chips to protect data in motion and at rest. Samsung’s Knox secure boot technology ensures that the OS on the tablet has not been tampered with, while IBM’s contribution to the security chain is to “wrap” certain apps in an additional layer of code that intercepts and encrypts key data flows using the Secusmart hardware.

Secusmart managing director Hans-Christoph Quelle hopes that before year-end the German federal IT security agency, BSI, will grant the Knox-Secusmart combination a security rating corresponding to Nato Restricted.

Happy Pi Day

3.1415926... this year's Pi Day is extra significant on March 14, 2015 at 9:26 AM

New Olympus Retro-style Camera

Due to the popularity of smartphones, camera manufacturers have had to scramble trying to find ways to keep their products relevant. And Olympus is no stranger to this.

Now, the company has announced its Stylus SH-2, a point-and-shoot camera that's using retro looks to, hopefully, appeal to the masses. Like they say, however, looks aren't everything. As such, Olympus is making this compact cam beautiful on the inside too, featuring a RAW capture mode, 5-axis image stabilization, WiFi and the ability to shoot 1080p video at 60 fps.

Just as important, the Stylus SH-2 comes with a 16-megapixel sensor and 24x optical zoom lens (24-600mm wide-angle equivalent) -- similar to what we saw on the Stylus SH-1, which was introduced last March.

It'll be available in black and silver next month for $400, while the companion carrying cases will be sold separately.

Google Glass..... Part 2??

Apple made a play for the truly affluent Monday with a watch — priced as high as $17,000 — that is aimed at shaking up not Samsung or Microsoft, but some of the most iconic fixtures of the fashion world.

The computer company has long priced its gadgets and laptops at a premium over other electronics. Some middle-class consumers may have had to stretch a bit to buy the latest gear. Yet the products were still affordable enough to become common fixtures at home and work.

But with a timepiece wrapped in 18-karat gold, Apple is now aiming to create something no consumer electronics company has ever tried before: a status symbol for the 1 percent. That aspiration makes sense for a company that is trying to portray itself as a luxury goods maker and perhaps because of the increasing spending power of the super wealthy around the globe, retail analysts said.

Still, the $10,000 starting price tag of the gold watch provoked audible gasps in the audience when it was announced by Apple chief executive Tim Cook at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. Apple appeared to be going for a different reaction when it introduced the watch with a film of fashion model Christy Turlington Burns wearing the device while speaking to a sick mother in an African hospital and then running a half-marathon near Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.

Retail analysts are split on whether Apple, for all its success, can cast itself as the Silicon Valley equivalent of Rolex, Louis Vutton or Chanel. That fans of the computer company camp overnight for the next version of its iPhone or iPad may discourage the affluent from visiting a store to buy a gold watch.

The New MacBook

Apple said its thinnest and lightest laptop just got skinnier, introducing a new MacBook with technologies that cram more features into a smaller case.

Apple said the new laptop will weigh 2 pounds (900 grams) and measure 13.1 millimeters in its slimmest dimension. It will have a 12-inch display, the company said Monday.

“We continue to innovate, we continue to lead the industry,” Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook said at a company event in San Francisco. “The definition of portability has changed led by iPhone and iPad. We challenged ourselves to reinvent the notebook.”

While the MacBook Air has set the standard for thin notebooks since Steve Jobs pulled it out of an envelope on stage in 2008, the personal-computer industry has rushed to catch up. They’re all trying to roll out devices that can win over consumers who’ve increasingly switched to smartphones and tablets to get online. Apple’s smallest laptop is now up against a variety of devices such as Samsung Electronics Co.’s Series 9 and Lenovo Group Ltd.’s Yoga notebooks.

VR Version of Android

Google is reportedly developing a virtual reality version of Android that will compete with software being built by Facebook, Samsung, Microsoft and others.

Virtual reality is being eyed as the next big thing, and not just for gaming. Facebook has talked about how VR headsets will let friends communicate as if they're together in the same room.

A team of engineers at Google is building a version of Android for virtual reality applications, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday, citing two people familiar with the project. "Tens of engineers" and other staff are said to be working on the project.

The OS would be freely distributed, the report said, mirroring the strategy that made Android the most popular OS for smartphones. The report didn't provide any launch plans, and Google didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

With rivals investing heavily in VR, it would make sense for Google to build its own OS. Facebook has referred to VR as the next big platform after mobile, and it bought headset maker Oculus VR last year for US$2 billion.

iFruit Phone

Here's a twist: Apple is about to hold an event where you probably know what the main attraction will be. Yes, barring surprises, the March 9th "spring forward" presentation will largely answer the remaining questions about the Apple Watch. However, that list of questions is seemingly a mile long. How much will it cost to get the watch you want? What's the battery life like? Are there any surprise features? And this is all before you factor in rumors about other devices showing up, like new iPads or MacBooks. It's all a bit overwhelming, but don't worry. We've gathered up the most plausible leaks and rumors surrounding the event, so you'll know what to expect -- and in some cases, what not to expect -- when Tim Cook and crew take the stage.

If you have any substantial interest in the Apple Watch, you've probably fretted over pricing. After all, Apple only mentioned a $349 base price back in September -- that doesn't tell you anything about what it'll cost to get wristwear that suits your style. When there's talk of hand-polished metal links and 18-karat rose gold, you know some Watch variants won't come cheap. And there are 22 of them (five Watch Sport, 12 Watch, five Watch Edition), some of which have two different sizes. That's more than a little intimidating!

The one certainty at this point is that the starting $349 will get you an Apple Watch Sport. The UK's Sunday Times quoted that price for the 38mm Sport in a preview piece where it got rare early access for a photo shoot, and it only makes sense that a watch made from aluminum and glass would cost less than one built with stainless steel and sapphire. It's not certain if you'll pay more for a 42mm Sport, although that seems likely when you're getting a higher-resolution display (390 x 312 versus 340 x 272) on top of the larger case.

iFruit Music Service

Apple’s streaming music service, which will be a totally overhauled version of Beats but with iTunes branding and tighter integration with Apple’s own devices and software, will make its official debut in June, likely at WWDC. A source with knowledge of the company’s current plans tells TechCrunch June 8 is the target launch date, at least for an official unveiling. 9to5Mac’s Mark Gurman has reported that it will premiere at Apple’s annual developer conference event, which many suspect will fall between June 8 and June 12 this year, though no official dates have yet been set.

Apple’s streaming music offering aims to bring in some of the Beats-style personalization and recommendation features of that current streaming service but will likely be mostly new on the software side, and without Beats branding, as we first reported back in September. Apple still apparently plans to offer the service across platforms, however, including on the web and on Android, 9to5Mac reports, and development on the Android side of things is one of the reasons it’s launching in June and not this March as earlier reports maintained.

A cross-platform offering makes a lot of sense for Apple for a few reasons: First, with music it has a long history of reaching out to competing platforms, starting with iTunes for Windows. Also, it recently made iWork available to all users regardless of hardware preference via iCloud on the web. Services are still essentially a part of Apple’s business that it uses to generate more hardware sales, and things like a streaming music offering or cloud-based productivity software are services it can use to reach out to customers beyond its ecosystem, especially if there are additional benefits to be gained in the form of exclusive add-on functionality when those services are used with Apple devices.

Smartphone Sales

We had an inkling that the fourth quarter smartphone sales crown was close: Last month, Strategy Analytics suggested it was a dead heat between Apple and Samsung. On Tuesday, research firm Gartner stepped in and declared Apple the winner with 74.8 million iPhone sales compared to an estimated 73 million for Samsung.

For the year, Gartner says 1.24 billion smartphones ended up in consumers hands. And while both Apple and Samsung sold more phones in 2014 than in the prior year, neither actually outpaced the overall market. We know that because Gartner’s data says both lost market share in 2014:So who were the winners for the year?

Lenovo and Huawei both made gains in overall market share around the world, with the former surely aided from its purchase of Motorola. With Lenovo now selling Motorola smartphones in China for the first time in years — with a compelling blend of both hardware and software — I’d expect 2015 to look rosy for Lenovo as well. Of course, the company is competing with another China-based manufacturer in Xiaomi, which was actually fifth overall in the final three months of 2014. Xiaomi’s quarterly smartphone sales rose to 18.6 million, compared to 5.6 million in the 2013 holiday season.

But the real winners were those namely companies lumped together in the “others” category.

According to Gartner’s data, this group moved from 38 percent smartphone market share in 2013 to 43.3 percent last year. This speaks to the many Google hardware partners who are offering low-cost hardware with Android software in various parts of the world; a trend that’s likely to continue for the foreseeable future.

Motorola Business Model

The business plan for Motorola under Lenovo is simple: More of the same.

The company has engineered a pretty remarkable turnaround over the last couple of years, focusing on just a handful of phone models mostly aimed at the low end of the market. Just this week it introduced a second-generation Moto E that offers a decent set of features for under $150.

And being bought hasn’t changed the outlook for Motorola, said President Rick Osterloh.

Motorola, he said, isn’t really looking too far afield for future products, focusing most of its experimentation around things for the wrist, things for the ear and software features it can bring to its phones. Tablets and other devices, he said, are probably best left to other parts of Lenovo.

“We’re definitely not interested in going in a million different directions,” Osterloh said in an interview at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

As for wearables, Osterloh said that the company does have models planned beyond last year’s Moto 360 watch.

IKEA

IKEA, the world's largest furniture maker, said on Sunday that it would begin selling tables, work desks, nightstands and other pieces of furniture capable of wirelessly charging your smartphone when placed in contact. The new line of furniture will hit stores on April 15 in North America and Europe, with plans to expand to other regions.

It's a rare move forward in technology for IKEA, known best for its massive showroom stores, affordable assemble-it-yourself furniture and its Swedish meatballs. For consumers with compatible smartphones and cases, it's an added convenience and extra incentive to go with IKEA.

"We're making life easier, more convenient," said Bjorn Block, a range manager of the business area lighting division at IKEA

It's an even bigger deal for the Wireless Power Consortium, which gains a powerful ally with IKEA embracing its Qi technology. The WPC is seen as the party left out of the mix when the other two major groups in wireless charging, the Alliance for Wireless Power, backed by Samsung and Qualcomm, agreed to merge with the Power Matters Alliance, championed by Duracell Powermat.