As part of the fast-casual cafe chain’s reinvention process, Panera Bread will soon be replacing cashiers with kiosks for customer orders.

Panera is set to add the kiosks to all its locations nationwide.  The plan is to have the kiosks at 400 locations, or roughly 50% of the chain by the end of 2015.

The trend-setting dining chain is combining several technologies — from store kiosks to online and mobile ordering.   This movement will slice the number of cash registers at most stores when the changeover is complete in late 2016.

The fast-casual chain could be cooking up a major change in the way consumers order fast food . For decades, the $200 billion fast-food industry has relied on a system that often results in long lines at cash registers and at drive-thru windows. Others fast-food giants — from Domino’s to Pizza Hut to Chipotle — are experimenting, too. But Panera appears to be one of the most ambitious combinations of technologies geared at speeding-up service.

The new technology results in labor savings for Panera, allowing for more employees within the cafe itself. But what does this mean for the customer?

“The kiosk and other digital interfaces encourages true menu browsing — not only of ingredients, but also nutritionals — which has led to an increase in personalized orders,” Blaine Hurst, Panera ‎Chief Transformation & Growth Officer, told Business Insider. It also results in shorter lines and improved accuracy for orders.

Most stores will get four to eight kiosks. At the same time, an unspecified number of cash registers will be removed.

Customers also will be able to order from their mobile phones or laptops while in Panera. And they’ll be able to place “to go” orders via mobile or online up to five days in advance — and pick up the orders at a pre-set time.

Panera is onto something pretty clever with the system. One restaurant industry consultant says that faster service — particularly via mobile ordering — is the single most talked-about issue at industry conferences. “The cell phone is now your wallet,” says Dennis Lombardi, executive VP at WD Partners.

If a cell phone is a wallet, it must be charged!  Companies such as Veloxity rent and sell cell phone charging kiosks to restaurants chains like Panera. Charging systems will fit in nicely next to the register kiosks because of the technology advancements. When you update one part of your company you need yo update all of it to make it run smoothly. Adding charging stations are the next step for Panera.

Experiments with such in-store automation largely failed a generation ago… But a whole lot has changed in twenty-five years.

Xiaomi Corporation is charged up to sell as many as 2 million cell phones this Singles’ Day which is November 11th.

Singles’ Day or Guanggun Jie is a day for bachelors and bachelorettes and celebrated on November 11th in China.  The date is chosen for the connection between singles and the number ‘1’. This holiday became popular among young Chinese people.  In recognition of the day, young singles organize parties and Karaoke to meet new singles or try their fortunes. It has become the largest online shopping day in the world.

Xiaomi is at the ready for Singles’ Day sales.  Hugo Barra, Xiaomi’s vice president of global operations, told Bloomberg TV at the company’s Beijing headquarters Tuesday. “Of course we have to be ready for this. So we’ve prepared about 2 million smartphones so that we can sell them in one single day.”

The annual Singles’ Day promotion has become China’s single biggest shopping event, accounting for a major portion of revenue for the country’s merchants, similar to America’s Cyber Monday after Thanksgiving. Singles’ Day this year is expected to defy an economic slowdown and eclipse the record 57.1 billion yuan ($9 billion) spent in 24 hours in 2014.

Xiaomi is excited to see strong sales.  The company is one of the world’s most valuable technology startups with a $45 billion valuation as of last year, it rose up the ranks of the global smartphone market with an online sales model and low-priced, high-performance phones that challenged Samsung Electronics. Stiffer competition however pushed its shipments lower last quarter.

The powerful Beijing-based company, which just celebrated its fifth anniversary, has been called the Apple of China. Its CEO, Lei Jun, even dons black turtlenecks and blue jeans during some events, similar to what Steve Jobs often wore for Apple product launches.

So, this Wednesday 1.7 million delivery drivers and 400,000 vehicles will fill the streets in China and begin delivering 760m parcels expected to be ordered during a 24-hour online shopping spree that’s dubbed as the world’s greatest online shopping fiesta.

The United States should adopt this tradition from China. If it is a big hit in China it will be a big hit in the United States. According to Pri.org singles now out number married people in the US.

As millions of shoppers click their way to consumer happiness, cell phone charging kiosks are ready to keep devices charged.  Companies like Veloxity offer commercial phone charging kiosks to rent or purchase.

Good news for the meetings industry: Veloxity, AMEX and IMEX report corporate meetings and events are on the rise. Meetings are a great way to have people from all over the world together to discuss topics. Talking face to face is proven to be more beneficial than over the phone. Getting employees together puts faces to voices and builds relationships within a large company.

American Express polled 420 people for its 2016 Meetings and Events Forecast, and 85% of respondents said the number of corporate meetings should at least remain the same, but possibly increase next year.

At a press conference held on October 13 during the IMEX America 2015 in Las Vegas, Stephanie Harris, AMEX Meetings and Events’ global marketing director said the survey reflects “a real sense of healthy growth.”

It seems that the strengthening world economy and increase of corporate expansion all over the world is driving this trend. Businesses are adding to their staff to keep up with the demand of an improved economy, and this results in more training and internal meetings in many regions.

More meetings, more demand

Hotel capacity is expected to increase in many of the key areas for corporate meetings, but so will prices. Suppliers are predicting an average group rate increase of 2.9 percent. In addition, air fare is estimated to jump 2 percent next year. Airlines have said that they plan on adding more capacity and new routes. To help balance increasing costs, 28% of planners said they are trying to include group air prices and are even negotiating flat rates with airlines. The average worldwide lead time before an event is only four weeks, so planners need to be on top of things in order to get the dates, rates and space they want.

Meetings all over the map

North America has the largest group rate increase with 4.2% jump. The most popular spots for these events are Orlando, Chicago and Las Vegas. In Europe, the group rate is up 2.3%, and hot spots include London and Paris, followed by Amsterdam. South and Central America had a 1.5% increase in the group rate, but also the shortest lead time of only six weeks. Top destinations are Rio de Janeiro and the Riviera Maya/Cancun region of Mexico. Finally, Asia Pacific had the smallest group rate increase of only 1.4%. There has been a shift as smaller cities are gaining popularity compared to larger locations, but Singapore and Hong Kong still keep the top spots.

Top Trends

There are three trends that should influence meetings in 2016.

  1. Mobile apps and data analytics. Planners have a new ally – apps. They can use information from conversations within their app to fix issues that are currently happening, and analyze the data from surveys to make changes for the future.
  2. Compliance. Harris said, “Compliance can be your friend. Embrace it.” It’s important that planners develop policies on meeting management to handle personal information, records, expenses and payments in the proper way.
  3. Incentives. Getting people to attend is sometimes the biggest challenge, so incentives are up 22% in some cases. Also the nature of these incentives are changing as there’s a push to provide customized experiences that are tied to the destination.

At Veloxity, we too are seeing a demand for our cell phone charging kiosks at corporate events. Planners realize that keeping customers and guests happy is the key to a successful event, and this is one huge benefit they can provide. Contact us about renting or buying a cell phone charging station for your business.

Adele’s new “Hello” Video has dialed up a cell phone technology flip out.

She’s back!  Adele is back with her first single in three years. “Hello,” a soaring new ballad that serves a sample of the British singer’s highly anticipated third album, “25,” debuted in the early hours of October 23rd.

But while fans were understandably excited about hearing Adele’s first new song in three years, one detail about the video left them puzzled – the flip phone that appears at the start.  Sepia-toned tears, rain, wind-swept hair and high notes — complete with a flip-phone.

Adele’s new video has a lot of obsolete technology, which totally depicts its theme of connecting with the past.

Today, there certainly is a stigma attached to using a flip phone. However, celebrities such as Rihanna, Anna Wintour and Kate Beckinsale have all been photographed recently using one. Some people might prefer a flip phone since it is lightweight and smaller sized when compared to a smartphone.  And then there’s the avoidance of pocket-dialing too.

In the video, Adele’s boyfriend has a flip-phone too. He is seen carrying a Motorola V235, a flip phone that was popular in 2005-2006. That scene is a flashback, of course. If this is, in fact, a flashback to 2005, Adele would have been just 17.

The song, and the video, are about the past—mulling over the past, delving into a past relationship, and trying to resurrect it. The singer is emotionally trapped in the past, trying to call her ex over and over again, and wandering out into a psychological landscape of flashbacks and overgrown, abandoned buildings to illustrate what’s going on in her head. Director Xavier Dolan uses a sepia filter and progressively older communication technology to make a point.

“It drives me crazy,” he half-laughed. “I could see the GIFs on Twitter. I’m like,  ‘guys, get over it. It doesn’t matter.’ But the real explanation is that I never like filming modern phones or cars. They’re so implanted in our lives that when you see them in movies you’re reminded you’re in reality,” says Xavier Dolan, Adele’s Director.

He added, “If you see an iPhone or a Toyota in a movie, they’re anti-narrative, they take you out of the story. If I put an iPhone or a modern car in a movie it feels like I’m making a commercial.”

The phone booth, he said, was more resonant for him “It says she is stranded in nature, which has regained its rights. It’s an element of the past. It’s much more important,” he added sarcastically, “than the flip-flop and trying to identify whether it’s Samsung or an AE9 or whatever.”

“There hasn’t been much of a break,” he said. “But then I realized I don’t need a break. I’m not a slave at a factory in the Third World. It’s not a job; it’s a passion. Adele wants to make a video so I’m going to do it.” In other words, sometimes life just comes calling.

The irony however, is that the placement of the phone actually takes viewers out of the moment of the song and video, by causing users to wonder why in the world Adele would be using such a thing. Now, thanks to the flip phone, much of the focus on her latest release is not on the artist, the music, or the video, but on the device.

Technically speaking, it’s been a long and arduous journey to get from the back-breaking, heavy shoulder-strapped behemoths to the paper-thin cell phones of today.  But one thing remains static – the need for cell phone charging.  Companies such as Veloxity offer phone charging kiosks to rent or buy nationwide. Our charging stations offer multiple different charging cables that we hope will satisfy your phone.. maybe one will even fit a flip phone haha!

Back to the Future Day is today. Fans are tallying up the 1989 film’s predictions of life in the year 2015.  What didn’t the creators think about?  Cell phones or cell phone charging!

Bob Gale had a lot of futuristic ideas for ‘Back to the Future Part II’.  He nailed it with a ton of things.  But he missed some things too.

We made it guys.  Today marks the day Doc Brown and Marty McFly traveled to in Back to the Future II.  It’s an iconic holiday that honors the trilogy’s legacy.

The film featured hoverboards, self-tying laces, dog-walking drones and flying cars, not to mention Biff Jnr’s bizarre metal helmet.  But how many of the futuristic predictions made in the classic sci-fi film have come true, and how many did it get wrong or miss?

Back to the Future is chock full of futuristic ideas but there was one that screenwriter Bob Gale was not able to imagine back in 1989: cell phones.

To Gale, cell phones are like the Swiss army knives of today, just a singular device that can function as a computer, a camera, a recording device, a calculator and even as a flashlight. “We didn’t think that,” he said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, talking about the kind of future that he and Robert Zemeckis dreamed up for Marty McFly, who, according to Back to the Future Part II, will be arriving on Oct. 21.

Many of the ideas Gale and Zemeckis came up with for the movie were the result of the two just goofing around. However, some of the inventions that were just in their heads back then are actually seeing reality today, if not in the not-too-distant future.

“We weren’t seriously thinking about how that technology would work, but wow,” he said, referring to drones being capable of taking news pictures. Gale added that drones may not be walking dogs yet but that’s bound to happen sooner or later.

Here’s a list of the films hits and misses:

HITS

MISSES

What did we miss?  Contact Veloxity anytime. We offer cell phone charging kiosks and are big fans of movies, technology and history.

With 77% (2017) of American adults now owning a smartphone (according to Pew Research) up from 64% in 2015, it’s time to dial-up cell phone etiquette.  Here’s a cell phone etiquette report courtesy of Veloxity, a charging kiosk provider.

The relationship between today’s cell phone users and their devices is like an obsessive-compulsive and unhealthy relationship. With so many people constantly using them, there’s a growing demand for cell phone etiquette to avoid being disrespectful or even worse, fisticuffs.

Smartphones and cell phones have become a mainstay in the lives of everyone these days and this has introduced new challenges about how users and non-users alike approach basic social norms and etiquette. People are sorting through new rules of civility in an environment where once-private conversations can easily be overheard in public places and where social gatherings can be disrupted by people having their heads down on digital screens instead of in-person interactions.  It’s a startling fact that college students are more likely to have their cell phones on them than their wallets.

Cell phone overuse is often a subject used by comedians in their social bits.  Jerry Seinfeld has added a line to his schtick. “There is no security for you in this life anymore unless when you’re walking down the street, you can feel a hard rectangle in your pants,” Seinfeld said on The Tonight Show in 2014.

The New York Times published an opinion piece about what smartphones are doing to us and how they are apparently damaging our capacity for empathy. “Our phones are not accessories, but psychologically potent devices that change not just what we do but who we are,” MIT Prof. Sherry Turkle wrote.

So, when is it appropriate and inappropriate to answer a call, check a text message or use social media?  Well, when cell phone users reach for their phones after every alert, it comes off as rude and uninvolved. It is a blatant disconnect from those nearby.

With increasing reason to live vicariously through a mobile device, the physical world loses becomes less real.  Some 92% of U.S. adults now have a cell phone of some kind, and 90% of those cell owners say that their phone is frequently with them. Some 31% of cell owners say they never turn their phone off and 45% say they rarely turn it off.  This “always-connected” scenario has changed traditional standards about when it is okay for people to shift their attention away from their physical conversations and interactions with others.

According to a Pew Research report, different kinds of public and social settings warrant different sensitivities about civil behavior. For instance, fully 77% of all adults think it is generally OK for people to use their cellphones while walking down the street and 75% believe it is OK for others to use phones on public transit. But only 38% think it is generally OK for others to use cellphones at restaurants and just 5% think it is generally OK to use a cellphone at a meeting.

Mobile devices play a complex role in modern social interactions — many Americans view them as harmful and distracting to group dynamics, even as they can’t resist the temptation themselves. Cell phones in high schools have caused a large distraction that is hard to control. Almost every high school student in the US has a cellphone, and I would guess that almost all of those cellphones are smartphones. The need to stay connected during the school day is a serious problem because students are more focused on updating Twitter and Instagram rather than learning the fundamentals they will need in life.

Cell phones do serve a function much in the same way that cars, bicycles and public transportation serve a function. We rely on these means of transportation to get to work, leisure, school, and other events; we rely on cell phones to maintain social relationships. We bemoan our dependence on our transportation methods and may feel bereft when they are not reliable.

On a similar note, cell phones are part of daily life.  We rely and them every day.  Common sense and courtesy are the cornerstones of cell phone etiquette.

At Veloxity, we applaud cell phone etiquette and offer cell phone charging kiosks for businesses to purchase or rent.

The porous structure of portabella mushrooms could be the key to power up cell phone and electric vehicle batteries.

Yup, portabella mushrooms might stop cell phone batteries from degrading over time.  Go figure.

Researchers at the University of California,  Bourns College of Engineering, announced that they have made a more sustainable, less expensive and possibly tastier way to power the Lithium-ion batteries that power cell phones, electric cars and other devices.  They are betting on portobello mushrooms.

These days, most rechargeable Lithium-ion batteries contain synthetic graphite, which is costly and damaging to the environment. In order to prepare graphite for use in electronics, it must be treated with harsh chemicals (like hydrofluoric acid) that create tons of hazardous waste. So, the industry was already on the lookout for a replacement, and a tasty candidate would be something plant-based and bountiful.

The savvy UC, Riverside engineers who created the gizmo thought Portobellos would be a good fit because they are low-density and have just the right amount of potassium salt, both key ingredients for a good battery with a long life (also, a so-so sandwich). In fact, they theorized that this battery would get stronger and stronger and have a longer capacity the more it was used.

“With battery materials like this, future cell phones may see an increase in run time after many uses, rather than a decrease,” said Brennan Campbell, a UC, Riverside graduate student in the Materials Science and Engineering program.

That’s partly because the inside of a Portobello mushroom skin is made up of tiny ribbon-like structures that, when heated, open up into a network of channels to store energy, which is exactly what you look for in battery electrodes.

The findings were published in a paper titled “Bio-Derived, Binderless, Hierarchically Porous Carbon Anodes for Li-ion Batteries,” in the journal Nature Scientific Reports.

The number of electric vehicles and mobile devices is expected to surge over the coming decade, which would place considerable strain on our environment and resources as far as battery technology exists today.

The move to shrooms not only has the potential to reduce the economic and environmental cost of battery production, but may also result in batteries whose capacity increases over time. Anytime we can use a natural substance to power electronics we are moving in the right direction.

The awesome development could affect multiple industries, reports Discovery, which notes that biological materials might allow us to bring down costs and expend less energy in manufacturing, while synthetic graphite demands specific preparation and purification processes that are not only more costly but less environmentally friendly.

It is expected that nearly 900,000 tons of natural raw graphite would be needed for anode fabrication for nearly six million electric vehicles forecast to be built by 2020.  And cell phone users will wait a decade to experience the portobello mushroom power on the phones.  In the meantime, battery charging remains a powerful topic.  Companies like Veloxity and other cell phone charging solution providers offer cell phone charging kiosks for businesses to rent or purchase.

Read more: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3254813/Will-mobile-phones-soon-powered-MUSHROOMS-Portobellos-used-create-cheap-eco-friendly-battery.html#ixzz3nbcHVGjL

Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on FacebookWactivation of blind pores within the carbon architectures as the cell charges and discharges over time,” says Brennan Campbell, a graduate student at UC Riverside.

The big cell phone carriers invested millions of dollars to help keep the flock of folks connected while Pope Francis visited in Philadelphia this past month.

Excitement and cell phone demand was at an all time for Pope Francis’ two-day visit to Philadelphia  upwards of 1.5 million people use their phones for the Pope in Philly

The 1.5 million or so people crowded into Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia to see Pope Francis wanted to use their cell phones. These lucky people texted, took pictures, selfies or videos and posted like crazy to Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat. It’s 2015 and seeing the Pope in person is something people wanted to share with friends and family.

But, with so many doing all of this at the same time, there was a huge strain for cellular and WiFi networks. AT&T and Verizon Wireless spent a combined $47 million in Philadelphia to increase capacity on their networks.

Prior to the event, representatives for two of the region’s major wireless carriers — Verizon and AT&T — said that multi-million dollar upgrades made to their systems in anticipation of the pope’s visit Philadelphia should be able to handle the surge in use.

“It’s definitely going to be one of the biggest (events) we’ve ever tackled,” Verizon Spokesman John O’Malley said. “We’re confident the network will be up to the challenge.”

“Those lucky enough to attend are going to be holding their phones or holding their tablets wanting to capture and share these moments with friends and family and we want to make sure they can do that,” said AT&T Spokeswoman Brandy Bell-Truskey. “Nonetheless, this is a challenge, but it’s a challenge we are meeting head-on and giving everything we’ve got.”

AT&T invested $23 million in upgrading service in the Center City area, Bell-Truskey said. Verizon spent $24 million, according to O’Malley.  These efforts were done to help quadruple their service, both companies say.

Along with some permanent upgrades, temporary measures were put in place by both Verizon and AT&T, their spokespeople say, to boost wireless capacity.

Cells on wheels, known as COWs — mobile vehicles outfitted with antennas — were on the streets along the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Independence Mall and even at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Wynnewood where Pope Francis stayed during his visit.

Distributed antenna systems, known as a DAS, was installed along the parkway among other areas, mainly on lampposts, and spread coverage out among the crowds.

Verizon also boosted its indoor service at the Pennsylvania Convention Center on Arch Street, where about 18,000 people are took part in the World Meeting of Families is underway, Verizon also boosted its indoor service.  Rooftop antennas were also added in Center City.

Xfinity had hotspots throughout the area, and a representative from Comcast said the company is bolstered existing hotspots and added new ones in the papal areas. Xfinity is also offered limited usage of this WiFi for non-subscribers.

Verizon network engineers studied wireless usage on its systems at other large gatherings such as presidential inaugurations, Super Bowls and New Year’s Eve at Times Square to figure out what demands at future events such as the pope’s visit of Philadelphia would be.

No matter how much money the major carriers and other providers invested, people still experienced dead cell phones.  Why?  There wasn’t a place to charge cell phone batteries.  Companies like Veloxity sell and rent cell phone charging kiosks with secure lockers for everything from a local trade show to a Papal visit.

Since the late 1970s wages have stayed pretty stagnant, but one thing has changed in a major way: cell phone technology.

Your paycheck might not be much bigger, but there’s a cell phone packed with technology in your pocket. Let’s see if that helps make up for slow growth.

According to the Economic Policy Institute, wages for everyone except for the top 10 percent of society have only grown 15 percent since 1979. Obviously that’s next to nothing, but the value of smartphones is tremendous and could make up for this disparity.

Mike Naples, a partner at the tech investment firm Floodgate champions this theory, “The frames of reference are wrong. I mean, just look at all the products you used to buy separately that are now collapsed into your smartphone for free.”

Smartphones cost about $200 to buy, and maybe $100 a month for local and long-distance calls, a data plan and voicemail. In 1979, a landline phone cost $325 for local calls. That’s $1,068 in 2015 dollars, and about the same as you’d pay in a year for your wireless plan. Long distance calls could be made for extremely high per-minute rates, and international calls cost $1.34 a minute ($4.40 in 2015 dollars). Today, you can not only call, but also video chat with someone on another continent through Skype for basically nothing.

In 1979, an answering machine would cost around $125 ($410 adjusted in 2015 dollars). It’s free now even though most people opt to send a follow up text instead. Not to mention cell phones are much more convenient because you can call a person wherever they are – not just in their home. Your bang for your buck is much better today even if your weekly check hasn’t changed much.

That’s just for the basic service. The value gets even better when adding in apps. Smartphones have free calculators, but in 1979 one would cost you $80 ($263 today). Cellphones also have address books, flashlights and calendars. In 1979, all of those things would’ve been fairly cheap, but they’re free today and have the added convenience of being accessible all in one place.

Another app to add is music. In 1979, the Sony Walkman cost $150 ($493 today) and each album was $9 ($30 today), but now you can pay $9 a month for premium access to Spotify which has basically unlimited amounts of music.

Smartphones today are equipped with cameras that take excellent photos. In 1979 a Kodak camera cost $28 ($92 today), and that’s not even counting the cost of film or getting the photos developed.

Time is also money, and while it’s hard to quantify the monetary difference turn-by-turn GPS makes compared to flipping through a map book and getting lost, it’s easy to see that things are now much more convenient. Add to that apps like google, Facebook, YouTube, Zillow, Snapchat, e-books and podcasts and it’s clear that we have the advantage today.

Cell phones and the software that comes with them lower the costs for a lot of our daily activities and needs, so overall life is better for less money. However, given how much we’re on our phones now, it’s crucial to keep them fully charged. Veloxity cell phone charging kiosks with lockers can help, so Contact Veloxity about renting or buying a cell phone charging kiosk for your for business or event. Charging kiosks can help you save time by allowing you to charge your phone while on the go.

Federal law enforcement officials will be routinely required to get a search warrant before using secretive and intrusive cellphone tracking technology under a new Justice Department policy.

In a ruling on September 3, the Justice Department announced a new policy that will require warrants for federal law enforcement agencies to conduct cell phone tracking surveillance. It’s a move that will protect citizens and keep big brother at bay.

The new policy is one of the first efforts to limit the use of secretive cell phone tracking technology. Cell-site simulators – known as Stingrays – are suitcase sized devices that gather cellphone data from a general area by mimicking a cell tower and identifying subscriber numbers. Police then use this data to track the location of a phone even if the user hasn’t sent a text or made a call.

Now, a warrant would be required to conduct surveillance except for “exceptional circumstances” and matters of national security. Also, law enforcement agencies will need to delete any of the data that’s collected when they have the information they need.

When discussing the new policy, Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates said, “The policy is really designed to address our practices, and to really try to promote transparency and consistency and accountability – all while being mindful of the public’s privacy interest.”

The Justice Department uses this equipment to find suspects, but it doesn’t collect the content of messages or phones. It’s obvious that this technology can be useful, but privacy groups are also understandably concerned since this practice collects the info of innocent bystanders in the same location as a suspect.

The American Civil Liberties Union admitted the policy was a good first step, but said that it fell short as well since it only covers federal agencies and not local police departments. It’s also concerned about the “exceptional circumstances” loophole.

ACLU lawyer Nathan Freed Wessler released a statement that said, “After decades of secrecy in which the government hid this surveillance technology from courts, defense lawyers, and the American public, we are happy to see that the Justice Department is now willing to openly discuss its policies.”

There’s a fine line between protecting the public and invading their privacy, so it’s good to see that guidelines are starting to be developed. This is especially necessary as smartphones are becoming more complex and hold sensitive information about users. Today cell phone apps are connected to our bank accounts, dating profiles, work accounts and our private emails. Having someone snoop on that information can give a lot of people anxiety. Requiring a warrant to search and track cell phones will put a lot of people at ease.

Since smartphones are constantly in use, it’s easy to see that tracking them can be helpful to the authorities. The fact that they’re always on also means that battery life can cause issues.

Cell phone charging kiosk providers such as Veloxity offer charging kiosks with secure lockers for any business. The charging kiosks can help keep customers around and their phones fully charged.

Apple fans and iPhone users are justifiably upset because Apple didn’t improve iPhone 6S battery life. With other aspects of the smartphone improving you would think that improving the battery would be high up on the list for Apple innovators. As apps become a staple in our phones the amount of battery they use comes at a cost.

The new iPhone 6s specs reveal that the battery life of the iPhone 6S is identical to its predecessor. (The iPhone 6S Plus also has the same battery life as 2014’s 6 Plus).  The battery life of the iPhone 6S continues to be relatively lame.  And this combined with other issues that have left Apple fans disappointed. It has even led to some people choosing Android phones, especially the Samsung Galaxy Note 5, over the new Apple iPhone. The Plus model of the phone is slightly better than the smaller version, but still is no improvement on its previous model.

People want an improved battery life.

Prior to Apple’s iPhone 6S and 6S Plus September 9 launch event, CNET was one of several sites that surveyed readers about what improvement they most wanted to see in the next iPhone.  And the prevailing winner — in some cases by a fat margin — was improved battery life.

Did Apple screw up?

Apple ‘own video flyby of the guts of the iPhone 6S confirms that Apple has equipped the iPhone 6S with a 1,715mAh battery — a lower capacity than the 1,810mAh version found on last year’s iPhone 6. (The “mAh” acronym stands for milliampere-hour, which is a measurement of a battery’s power capacity; the higher the number, the better.) And the the 6S Plus? The same MacRumors story that spotted the 6S battery capacity speculates that battery capacity on the bigger phone will dip down to 2,750mAh from 2,910mAh — but that isn’t confirmed yet.

So what happened?

Maybe space is the culprit.  But Apple isn’t saying why phone has a lower capacity battery. but the most likely answer is space. In order to keep the new models as thin as their predecessors while adding the new pressure-sensing 3D Touch feature.

Now what?

Some publications recommend users not to upgrade to the new iPhone 6S or the 6S Plus. This advice is mainly targeted to those who are out of a contract now or coming to the end of their contract. If their old device is still working perfectly, there is no need to upgrade to a new phone and spend extra unnecessary money. Those offering this advice do not believe the new phone is any better than its predecessors, including the 5S.  Those who really want the new phone are being advised to wait. The phone will be costly at first, but list most things, it will get less expensive, over time. This will also give Apple fans a chance to see what it is like for other users, and how the battery life affects them.

Find a charging kiosk

You know cell phone battery life doesn’t last forever. Sure, the smart thing to do is to always have your charger handy or an electrical outlet nearby. But life doesn’t always go according to plan. So if your charger’s at home and you want a safe and secure charging solution, look for cell phone charging kiosk.  Veloxity rents and sells cell phone charging kiosks with lockers.

Another iconic tech wonder in NYC. Pay phone technology in New York City is going solar. What’s next? Could it be public cell phone charging stations?

In an attempt to rejuvenate pay phones’ popularity, New York City is adding solar panels to out-of-order pay phones.

New York City has more than 11,000 pay phones still in operation. However, that number is less than half the figure from nearly a century ago – 25,000 in 1925. In an effort to resuscitate the pay phone, the NYC Department of Information Technology is teaming with Renewable Edge and CityBridge, adding solar panels to off-grid phones.

Renewable Edge‘s Solar Kit system does away with the old city-utility grid power, replacing it with a solar-powered battery. In another instance of the wired becoming the wireless, the battery also fires up a router that connects the phone to cellular towers, rather than traditional phone lines. Charge controllers are installed as well, to prevent the batteries from over or under-charging.

Rick Contrata, President of Renewable Edge stated, “In addition to the positive environmental impacts and proof that the application of solar power supply systems are beneficial in urban areas, this achievement helps to return the safety and convenience of a significant number of now operable payphones to many areas of New York City”.

To date, over 1,000 Solar Kit systems are in operation in pre-existing pay-phone booths across New York City. Perhaps pay phones will once again be a player in NYC’s tech scene after all.

If the city wants to turn their phone booths into one-stop communications destinations, maybe they should pair the pay phones with Veloxity public cell phone charging stations in New York City. 95.8% of people in NYC own cell phones. That means that they need to charge their ell phones for them to use. Consumers who don’t own smartphones use the pay phone, people with cell phones use the Veloxity cell phone charging kiosks with lockers. Everyone wins!

public phone charging stations new york city

public phone charging station new york city

Thanks to Google’s Android One initiative, a $50 smartphone might really be possible.

Low cost isn’t one of the features normally associated with smartphones, but since Google promised to release a phone that costs only $50, that could change.

When carriers like T-Mobile and Verizon decided to get rid of phone subsidies, it seemed like smartphones were about to get a lot more expensive for users. Then Google saved the day and announced that it’s revamping the Android One program which will eventually release a phone that costs $50. That’s still a pretty penny, but very cheap for a phone considering all of the complex technology involved. If you think that sounds too good to be true, you’re not the only one.

Wayne Lam, the principal telecoms analyst for IHS says, “If you had asked me this a year ago, I would have said that it was impossible.” Lam then put his money where his mouth is and tried to build a phone on a budget of half a hundred.

To start out, he prices the display at $8. That’s normally the most expensive component for a smartphone, so keeping cost low is key here. Lam suggests a 4- to 4.5 inch screen that is the same from Sony’s Xperia M from 2013.

As for the design of the phone, that would be free. Manufacturers now just need to worrying about building phones because companies like Google produce blueprints for what cheap phones should contain. In fact, many low cost phones and premium models are based on the same reference design.

While the display is usually the most expensive component, the chip is the most important. It’s the brains to the displays brawn and is responsible for everything you need to run a phone. Lam would use a chip from a second or third tier manufacturer that would still be able to run all of the normal functions of a smartphone for the total of $10.

Since smartphones can do so much, they need a lot of memory. Lam thinks a phone could be built with 1GB or Ram and 4GB of storage for $10. To give users the option of adding more storage space, the phone,like a lot of other low-end smartphones, would have a microSD card slot.

We’ve covered the display, the design, the chip and the storage space. Next up is the battery and camera, which Lam estimates he could add for $5. That includes a 5-megapixel primary camera and a 2-megapixel forward-facing unit for all of your snapshots.

Lam believes that for this phone to be successful, the materials can’t cost more than $42. That leaves $8 for sensors, audio equipment, antennas and housing to hold it all together. Also, we’re not including costs for packaging, marketing, paying employees and shipping. It’s reported that Google subsidized Android One with a cool $1 billion to cover these extras.

Whoever is the first to manufacture a $50 phone can waive goodbye to profits even before they finish producing it because more expensive phones still don’t bring in the dough. The only way to be successful with a cheap cellphone is to make it accessible to a wider, emerging audience, such as India, and create brand loyalty with these new consumers.

Although buying an a less expensive smartphone may seem like a good idea, it lacks the quality that the more expensive phone offer. Storage is a big thing consumers look for in a smartphone. The 50$ Android One only offers 1 GB of storage without an upgrade.

With more people having access to smartphones, chargers will be in demand to fend off dead batteries. A cell phone charging kiosk with lockers from Veloxity can charge up to 8 phones at once. Talk to us about buying or renting one for you business.

Google’s Project Ara is quite possibly “the next big thing” for smartphones and mobile technology.

The codename Project Ara is an effort to build highly modular smartphone ecosystem by developing open hardware platforms. In simpler words, Project Ara’s goal is to create a phone which you can take apart and build, similar to building Legos.

The “endoskeleton (endo)” functions as the data backbone and structural frame of the device. The endo can then be populated with “modules”. Modules are the building blocks which make up the majority of the phones features and capabilities. The modules can be easily inserted and removed, swapped, replaced as per the owner’s preference.

For example, if a device owner requires a larger battery instead of a camera, they can easily add an extra battery module in place of the camera module. Project Ara also opens the door to customizing a device. Modules also come with user-replaceable covers or shells. These shells allow the user to change the color or design of their phone to their own specifications.

Because Project Ara is only a developmental effort, there is no official market launch date. For the same reason, pricing is also currently unknown. However, a limited market pilot is expected in late 2015.

Project Ara shows us a glimpse of what we can expect from future devices. Instead of choosing a device as a package, we will be able to mix and match certain modules to make the perfect phone for each user. Veloxity hopes to one day to fast charge an Ara phone in our cell phone charging kiosks

Custom built smartphones would pair nicely with veloxity’s custom wrapped charging kiosks. These kiosks can be wrapped in whatever advertisement or graphics you would like.  https://veloxity.us  

Cell phone addiction a pretty powerful habit.  It’s something we all know about, but no one aside from cell phone companies seems to be talking about.

Last week Motorola released an infographic that stated facts like 60% of people globally have slept holding their phones and 57% have used their devices in the bathroom. Ericsson also joined the conversation and published a report that claimed 90% of the world’s population over the age 6 will have a mobile phone by 2020. Hold the phone – that could be almost 8 billion people.

The interesting part about this cell phone addiction business is that it seems like consumers rarely mention their Apple or Android habit. It’s a widely accepted fact that as a society people spend too much time on their phones, but is it a problem?

Brian X. Chen who’s the consumer technology expert at the New York Times recently wrote a book about being constantly connected called “Always On.” He thinks that as consumers have less and less anxiety over overusing smartphones, companies feel comfortable talking about it more and more. In fact, they’ll even use it to advertise their products.

Chen also says that there are definitely times when constant chit chatting, texting and web browsing is considered rude, like in the middle of dinner, so people should be aware of etiquette and set up ways to limit use. He created special alerts when he gets an email from an important person, so he’s not checking his phone with every “ding”. Airplane mode is also a great way to practice phone politeness.

Back in 2012, MIT published a study about the rapid adoption of smartphones, and Chen believes that since they’re so prevalent, that actually has helped ease people’s anxiety about getting too much screen time. It seems that with any new technology, there are fears about how it might change human behavior, but when it becomes widely adopted people forget about the problems and focus more on the convenience and benefits. With all the convenience and benefits there comes the negative affects of over using cell phones. Some negative affects of over using smartphones are disrupted sleep, bacteria, attention span and social effects. To see more negative affects and explantations flow this link https://www.naturallivingideas.com/16-seriously-damaging-side-effects-of-your-smartphone-addiction/

In a series of polls about smartphone use released in July, Gallup found that about half of smartphone users check their phones several times an hour or more frequently; 81% of people said they keep their phones near them “almost all the time during waking hours” and 63% do so even when they’re sleeping. The condition is especially severe among the young, one-in-five of whom cop to “checking their phone every few minutes.”

Consumers who are constantly on their phones mean that they need ways to keep them charged when out and about. You can buy or rent a commercial phone charging kiosk for your business or event to keep guests and customers happy.

In the late 1990’s, mobile phones could only do a small fraction of the things that their modern counterparts are capable of. Thanks today’s technology, there are many futuristic smartphone features that could change the way you use your phone in the near future.

Here’s a glimpse at eight futuristic smartphone features:

  1. Virtual Reality

We already keep our noses in our phones and ignore what’s going on in life as it is now. That could only get worse if virtual reality becomes a reality for smartphones. Recently manufacturers have been working on 4k displays which seems odd because the human eye can barely perceive 2k resolution. 4k makes a lot more sense when viewed through the lens of this development which demands a non-pixelated experience.

  1. Graphene Batteries

It’s no wonder that graphene is called a “wonder material” because it’s flexible, transparent and 200 times stronger than steel. It also makes a great conductor for heat and electricity, so it’s not difficult to see how this material would take smartphones to the next level. We recently wrote about how Samsung is using graphene to help extend battery life. And other possible breakthroughs could be using graphene to make phones that are wafer-thin, transparent, flexible and almost indestructible.

  1. Liquid Buttons

It wasn’t long ago that phones had physical keyboards and anything without buttons seemed out of touch. Then the opposite was true. With this development from Tactus Technology, the trend could be flipping again. The technology is called microfluidics and works when small amounts of liquid fill invisible pockets on the phone screen whenever the touchscreen keyboard is brought up.

  1. Medical Apps to fight diseases

Now this is just what the doctor ordered. Scientists have developed an app called Athelas which works with a cheap PCR attachment that can track malaria and cancerous cells in your blood. A dye is used to track pathogens in the blood and then a diagnosis can be made within a couple of hours. From there it’s automatically uploaded to an online database so scientists can study how diseases move.

  1. Seamless Voice Interaction

Voice control isn’t all talk. Apple has improved its technology and Siri can now give reminders of things based on past emails, the time of day and other factors. Android also lets users control music play. This is just the beginning. Voice-assisted AI algorithms are progressing at an impressive rate and soon should be able to use your pattern of movement and searches to suggest things before you even think about them.

  1. Game-pad shoulder sensors

Smartphones aren’t all fun and games. The next technological development could be sensors along the side of the phone. Samsung already has a patent in place for a phone with 6 sensors. Combine that with a curved touchscreen and you have the perfect recipe for a gaming phone. The sensors could also be used for photography and to control GPS navigation.

  1. SIM card free phones

Since the 90s the only developments with SIM cards have been making them smaller. Now Apple and Samsung are trying to get rid of the physical versions and replace SIMs as we know them with an electronic version. This could give users the ability to switch been network providers in a matter of seconds. AT&T is shaking in its boots.

  1. Pressure sensitive screens

Last but not least is the ability of touch screens to sense pressure. After years of trying, Apple finally put its finger on the solution and has been working on Force touch which distinguishes a light tap from a firm press. This will just give users more ways to have control over the cellphones and has obvious benefits for the gaming community.

It’s clear that smartphones will soon be getting even smarter. With all these features, you’ll need a phone battery that can keep up and hold a charge. Until battery technology has a major breakthrough, Veloxity commercial smartphone charging stations with secure lockers are a great way for guests at events and venues to keep their phones powered up. The cell phone charging stations are available to purchase or rent.

Twitter has something new that helps advertisers reach users during live events.

It’s a play to get Twitter in front of a lot more eyeballs.  And that’s great news for advertisers. Twitter just released a new tool that now makes it easier to reach users during live events.

Twitter and live big events go together like peanut butter and jelly. People flock to the social media site to give their thoughts – and see others are saying – during major occasions like the Super Bowl, the Grammys, Mother’s Day, presidential elections or big breaking news stories. Previously, advertisers had to do all the work themselves, from manually choosing the right keywords to picking which handles and geographies to target. But now thanks to the little blue bird, marketers will really be able to spread their wings with a newer, easier process.

Everyone has an opinion and Twitter makes it incredibly easy to share yours in 140 characters or less. Using event targeting it makes it easy to have conversations with people interested in the same thing as you. It also helps business target people that might be interested in their product.

In a post to Twitter’s blog, Senior Product Manager, Dinkar Jain, explains, “With event targeting, you can activate around live moments, quickly and easily. We’ll help you discover and plan for these moments, learn more about the participating audiences through valuable insights, and with one click, create a campaign that delivers the right message to just the right users as the event unfolds.”

The event targeting tool is made up of three features. The first is a calendar that lists major global events in the U.S., UK, France, Brazil and Japan. The second part of the tool is event insights that gives a bird’s eye view of the information about each particular event based on the previous year’s data. The third feature is event activation. After choosing an event and deciding which segment of the audience the advertiser would like to target, they can create a campaign with one click.

MEC, a global agency, SocialCode, a technology and insights company and Mindshare UK have all taken part in the beta testing for this tool. Mindshare reported that for one of their clients the average engagement rate improved from 73 to 100%. The early bird really does get the worm.

Despite some recent hiccups, Twitter still takes center stage when people want to talk about large live events, so it makes sense for the company to highlight those events for advertisers.

To be able to tweet during live events, smartphones need to be charged. Veloxity cell phone charging stations offer safe and secure charging during live events.  These commercial cell phone charging kiosk with lockers are available to buy or rent.

The destruction of Tom Brady‘s Samsung cell phone has now inflated Deflategate.

Trashing his cell phone wouldn’t have been enough to immediately get rid of Tom Brady’s text messages, however the window of time he waited to disclose to the NFL he destroyed the phone would have been enough time for all traces of his communication to disappear.  And so now Deflategate is more inflated.

Power player Tom Brady destroyed his Samsung cell phone that he used for nearly a handful of months before handing it over to independent investigator Ted Wells with more than 10,000 text messages.  He didn’t disclose this information until four months after investigators requested “electronic information” from the quarterback according to a ruling from the NFL upholding his four-game suspension for his role in Deflategate.

The team from Brady’s camp coughed up a letter from the quarterback’s cell phone carrier that confirmed the text messages sent or received from the destroyed cell phone could not be retrieved.

“He did so even though he was aware that investigators had requested access to text messages and other electronic information that had been stored on the phone,” according to the ruling.  Brady also testified at the hearing that it was his practice to destroy (or give his assistant to destroy) SIM cards and his cell phone when he gets a new cell phone.

NFL officials said Brady was aware they had requested access to his smartphone as part of their investigation. The phone was destroyed on or before March 6, according to officials, but its destruction was not disclosed until June 18.

Of course Brady denies crushing his phone in an effort to hide it from the NFL. He says that he replaced his broken Samsung phone with an iPhone after his legal team told him that investigators would not be given the phone itself.

The destroyed cell phone has been dubbed the smoking gun that crushed the Patriots superstar.  It’s all over the news.  The New Times asked their readers:  “How does one effectively destroy a cell phone and its contents?” In less than 24 hours they got more than 2,500 responses.  Here’s one hot one:  Take It to the Kitchen (Or Barbecue) – Bake it in the oven at 500 degrees, for an hour.

Hey, Mister Brady all NFL players and game goers, Veloxity has a smart way to keep your cell phones safe, charged up and ready for legit action.

Veloxity can’t recover destroyed cell phones, but our secure cell phone charging stations help keep them safe in the first place.

So, New England Patriots, want to rent a few of our charging stations this season? Our secure lockers will keep Tom’s phone safe.

 

To keep up with all the breaking news about deflate gate, make sure your phone stays charged while you’re on the go. Using a Veloxity charging station your phone will never let you down.

Stagefright is a recently detected bug that is able to execute remote code on an Android phone with no more information required than a phone number.

Joshua Drake from Zimperium Mobile Security discovered six + one critical vulnerabilities in the native media playback engine. He dubbed the weaknesses ‘Mother of all Android Vulnerabilities’. Drake said that the vulnerabilities can be exploited by sending a single multimedia text message to an unpatched Android smartphone. He says that they are all “remote code execution” bugs, allowing malicious hackers to infiltrate devices and infiltrate private data.

Apparently, all that the potential hacker needs to do is to send out the exploits to the would be mobile phone numbers. From there, they could send an exploit packaged in a Stagefright multimedia message (MMS), which would let them write code to the device and steal data from sections of the phone that can be reached with Stagefright’s permissions. Once the vulnerability is exploited, the hackers can access almost anything including recording of audio and video, snooping on photos stored in SD cards. Even the a Bluetooth radio can also be hacked via Stagefright.

The bug is really a silent killer. Once it has been delivered, the hacker can delete the message before the user had been alerted about it, making the attacks totally discreet and silent.

Some phones have already been patched. Blackphone tweeted that it had fixed the bug “weeks ago” because researchers held back from going public for three months. Android phones below version 2.2 are not affected.

Zimperium zLabs has not publically disclosed all the information hackers would need to exploit the Stagefright flaw. His full research will be shown at Black Hat USA and DEF CON 23 August.

At Veloxity, we understand that cell phone security is crucial for peace of mind. Our commercial cell phone charging stations have safe and secure lockers that can only be accessed via a keypad or credit card. Event goers have a lot to worry about and to prepare for so we want to make sure you don’t have to worry about your phone battery. Using our secure charging kiosk you won’t have to stress about a low battery.

The Untold music festival in Transylvania is letting people pay for tickets in a new way – with their blood. It’s a move that fans can really sink their teeth into, but is also much more than a cheap publicity stunt that has vampires licking their chops.

Only 1.7% of the country’s population donates blood, the second lowest rate in all of Europe. That’s caused a blood shortage that can’t be blamed on Dracula preying on the locals. Fans can get free, one-day passes to the 4-day electronic music festival by going to a mobile donation unit in the capital city of Bucharest. Or to the blood transfusion center in Cluj-Napoca, the largest Transylvanian city. Organizers are also giving fans 30% off tickets if they are willing to part with a pint at any one of Romania’s 42 blood centers before July 24th according to the Guardian.

The lineup for the first-time festival includes some big name DJs like Avicii, Armin van Buuren, and David Guetta, so at least people won’t have to worry about their ears bleeding after already making a donation.

Romania’s tourism industry isn’t shy about taking advantage of the area’s connection with the famous Count Dracula. Untold spokeswoman Stefana Giurgiu said, “We were talking about how to incorporate Dracula into our festival and after seeing the numbers and how behind Romania was in blood donations we had this idea.”

45 people had already signed up by lunch time on the first day. No word yet on if garlic will be allowed into the festival to protect concertgoers’ necks, but it seems like this idea will be a success.

Music festivals, conferences and other big events are ideal locations for Veloxity’s mobile charging stations, which provide a way for cell phones to stay powered up.  Especially with outdoor venues finding an outlet to plug your phone into would be like finding a needle in a hay stack! It’s a convenient service that will delight attendees.

Drones are raising heads and concerns about their role at trade shows and events.  Safety, legal and privacy issues have the event professionals wondering if drones at events are a fly-by-night fad or a must-have these days.

Flying drones keep popping up in the meetings and events industry, allowing planners to create wow-factor experiential videos and virtual site visits. But while the new technology is undoubtedly awesome, its legalities are still murky.

The future of drones for the event industry is truly up in the air. But, “drones are taking off,” says to Richard Reid, vice president of digital services at Freeman, the top meetings management company, .

Brands in other countries have started taking advantage of drones even before they caught on in the United States. Camisaria Colombo, a Brazilian clothing store, attached mannequins to drones and flew them outside office building windows. There is also a florist in Italy that used drones to drop roses between strangers on Valentine’s Day.

Bud Light is saying cheers to drones.  Andy Dunhan, director of client service at Mosaic, which did work for the Whatever, USA campaign, describes how they took advantage of this new technology, “Drones can be used in a few different facets, and we’re still learning new options. Obviously the low-hanging fruit is to be able to capture a point of view and content that is not readily available in most places. But as we start expanding beer drone technology that’s interfacing with apps, a consumer can actually order a beer and have it delivered to them.”

Drones do come with some concerns. Just ask the FAA! David Haas, director of digital solutions at event agency FreemanXP gave a warning about drone usage, “If they go out of control, most of them have four spinning blades. When you think about drone technology at an event, you have to be careful.” Singer Enrique Iglesias was involved in a recent accident and suffered serious lacerations to his hand after handling a drone on stage at a concert.

According to conventionindustry.org, 205 million people in the United States attend “the 1.8M conventions, conferences, congresses, trade shows and exhibitions, incentive events and corporate/business meetings” each year. Then there’s the nearly 6 billion people in the world having a cell phone.

While the future of drones at events is cloudy, it’s clear that people will be bringing their cell phones to events for a long time.  Help keep event goers fully charged with a mobile charging station from a commercial charging station provider such as https://veloxity.us.

A theatergoer on Broadway tried to plug his cell phone into a prop outlet onstage.

Don’t be this guy. While we can all identify with the near-desperate sense of urgency that accompanies a low smartphone battery, one Broadway patron took things to a new level. The man crawled out of the audience and plugged his phone into what he thought was a power outlet, but was really just a non-functional prop.

While a dead mobile device may seem like an emergency these days, common sense has to come into play at some point. The social media team for the play “Hand to God” made light of the situation on Facebook, but there’s little doubt that the play’s cast and crew took offense to the incident.

Witnesses said the man’s attempt failed, as the outlet was a non-functioning part of the show’s set, and workers quickly arrived to unplug the phone and make a bold announcement about not using the set for charging.

“Well, where can I charge it?” the man was quoted as saying by the blog Broadway Adjacent.

After all, theater attendees are supposed to turn their devices off when they walk into a theater in the first place. The act of plugging a phone in onstage is really a double-whammy of awful etiquette. When did we get so attached to our devices, and how can we keep people from doing foolish things like this?

One simple solution would be to install Veloxity mobile charging stations in theater lobbies. Having a https://veloxity.us charging kiosks in your theater lobby will be a big hit you are not supposed to have your phone in the theater anyways you might as well have a fully charged phone when the play finishes. If you don’t think you can last the whole play without your phone you’re in luck! Longer plays are often broken down into acts with 10 minute intermissions. This allows charging kiosk users to grab their phone and even plug it in for the rest of the play if you held onto your dying phone throughout the first act or two. If patrons walk into the show with fully charged devices, perhaps their sense of theater etiquette will be restored.

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Tech giant Samsung is claiming they’ve developed a new technology that doubles the battery life of cell phones.

A team of researchers and scientists from Samsung’s Advanced Institute of Technology division developed a material that coats crystal graphene on a “silicon surface”, making battery life last longer by twofold. The material is a coating on silicon surface with high-crystalline graphene. Batteries that take advantage of this breakthrough will have 1.5 – 1.8 times more energy than current lithium-ion batteries.

The team reported that growing a graphene layer over the surface of the silicon eradicates problems related to silicon volume changes when phones and charges and discharged that weakens the material’s energy density and lifecycle. Essentially, the silicon will slide between layers of graphene to create a carbide-free coating that can raise the energy density of the full cell when combined with a commercial lithium cobalt oxide cathode.

There are many different groups working on battery life problems these days, and it’s an incredibly complicated area of science. To be able to improve on lithium-ion, new materials not only need to be longer lasting — they also need to be able to withstand thousands of recharge cycles, remain stable and not burst into flames when they’re being used, and be inexpensive enough to be commercially viable.

The technology breakthrough really is huge advancement is battery technology. In summary, new batteries are stable and durable as well as larger in capacity, because the outer layer of graphene adds protection.

It’s not just smartphones that could benefit either — everything from solar energy plants to Tesla’s electric cars are in line to benefit if Samsung’s team of scientists can make this work.

Dyson, a UK-based manufacturer of bag-free vacuum cleaners and other smart products, is said to be backing development of a solid state battery capable of holding twice the energy of current Li-Ion batteries.

While technologists are hard at work, you can avoid dead battery anxiety by looking for a commercial cell phone charging station from a company such as Veloxity.us while at a trade show, hotel, casino or college campus.

Once a year, Apple hits the headlines during their Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) with updates about new products and developments. The 2015 conference has made a big splash as Apple unveils a new operating system (the OS X El Capitan), a new music streaming platform, improvements in CarPlay, and much more. Here are the top things to know:

Apple’s Streaming Platform for Music and Radio

One of the biggest announcements this year was Apple’s development of a music streaming service and a 24/7 radio station. The music platform is expected to be priced at $9.99 per month and will come in direct competition with Spotify and Soundcloud. Apple’s global radio station will broadcast non-stop beats to hundreds of cities around the world. Before you commit to the monthly fee for the music platform, consider that Apple will offer a 90 day free trial for all users. The service will be available on June 30th on the iOS and OS X but won’t hit Apple TV or android devices until later this year.

Apple’s Mac OS X 10.11 “El Capitan”

This latest version of Apple’s desktop operating system is set to improve built-in apps and user experience. There will be many new ways to manage windows and apps with simple swipes. Apple also plans to keep gamers happy by including the Metal API which will significantly improve graphics performance. The developer version of the OS X is available for select beta testers as of June 8th. The public will get to try their hands on the operating system sometime in July.

Apple’s Revamp of CarPlay

Apple’s CarPlay allows for devices such as the iPhone or iPad to seamlessly integrate with car’s build-in displays. The application was officially introduced in 2013’s WWDC and has been getting a lot of buzz in the auto industry. The platform already features satellite navigation, music control, and iMessage responses. At the conference, Apple announced plans to introduce a wireless integration of the system and allow automakers to develop their own apps. According to Apple executives, major automakers have already committed to delivering CarPlay in their newest models before 2016.

WWDC 15 Takeaway

Apple introduced a handful of very impressive features and improvements in their product line that wowed fanboys across the world. However, there was one component that didn’t get much attention during the conference – battery life. Consumers dread low or dead battery and it’s surprising that Apple doesn’t seem to have plans in the foreseeable future to significantly improve the battery technology of their mobile devices. Until then, Veloxity cell phone charging stations will continue to power up devices at events and venues across the world.

 

 

 

A strong Instagram presence can help event planners with promotion.

Instagram has become the top choice for online photo and video sharing. It’s easy, fast and totally in the palm of your hand.  Plus, it’s a great way to create buzz, laughs and maybe even some embarrassment (well not really) at events. Instagram also allows you direct message other accounts to build relationships. While looking at the activity tab on the app you can see what your followers are  liking and maybe something will catch your eye. You can also use your location on Instagram, if you click on a location, maps opens up and you can see exactly where something is.

If used correctly, Instagram can be a powerful tool for event planners. Engaging attendees in every possible way always helps to boost ROI, and following a few simple guidelines can ensure successful social-media integration.

Seeing as Instagram is a photo-sharing app, the obvious first step is to capture photos that are relevant, timely and have a bit of a wow-factor.  Take pictures of impressive booths, popular (or not so well-known) attendees, the event facilities – a well thought-out visual presence can go a long way.

Equally important is the act of creating hashtags for your event. Using these hashtags encourages attendees to share their own pictures and videos, leading to increased interactivity. It’s also a simple, effective solution for maintaining your visual content in one easy-to-find location.  A hashtag goes a long way and stays with the event for life.

Interacting with attendees’ posts makes them feel like they’re making vital contributions to the event. Any conference will go more smoothly when attendees are reminded that their opinions hold value.

The photo-sharing phenomena of Instagram can be much bigger than the tiny screen of a mobile smartphone.  There are a ton of web apps (aka websites) that can show photos from Instagram in an auto-advanced slide-show fashion:

With the demand for mobile data use constantly escalating, another must-have for any event or conference is a Veloxity cell phone charging kiosk. After all, no one can participate in your social-media presence if their device’s battery dies.