From a global perspective, consumers between the ages of 18 and 27 represent the largest segment of Opera Mini browser users, although 26 percent of users in the U.S. are 38 or older.

Total Opera Mini users worldwide topped 62.3 million in July 2010, a 4.8 percent month-over-month increase and a 114.3 percent leap compared to a year ago. Mini users viewed over 29.6 billion pages last month, generating over 445 million MB of data. Page-view growth in the U.S. increased 120.2 percent year-over-year, with page views per unique user now averaging 283. Google remains the most visited mobile website among U.S. subscribers, followed by Facebook, Yahoo, Wikipedia and YouTube.

RIMs position in this vendor ranking is unique as RIM does not offer lower-priced feature phones and has risen to the No. 4 spot solely through the sale of smartphones which only account for 20 percent of the overall market. In this space RIM has delivered a portfolio of smartphones, supported by the famed Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES) and the BlackBerry Messenger Service (BBM). The combination of BBM and Qwerty Keypads have become a real hit in the youth and emerging markets where the free (between other BB users) and secure texting service offers the cost conscious all the ‘CrackBerry’ they can handle. RIM has released its latest OS (6) with the hopes of delivering improved browsing, media and touchscreen capabilities that will drive future growth. Analysis: ABI’s Michael Morgan

Apple rang in its best quarter ever in Q4 with 8.7 million iPhones. The iPhone continues its role as a global smartphone ambassador with successful arrivals in South Korea, China, new carriers in Western Europe and a growing cult following in Japan. Speculation as to how Apple will top the 3GS with the next iPhone iteration has already begun with Steve Jobs promising consumers a home run. ABI believes some pro-sumers may have trouble deciding whether to spend their money on the iPad or the new iPhone, but either way Apple will continue to own much of the mobile devices market mindshare. Analysis: ABI’s Michael Morgan

HTC and its Droid Incredible and Evo 4G smartphones. HTC and Motorola together accounted for over 50 percent of all Android smartphones sold in Q2. A year ago, HTC stated it would focus on improving its brand recognition in the U.S., and today it has delivered a 400 percent increase in brand recognition with plans to replicate the process in China. With ownership of its own production facilities, custom ‘Sense’ UI and a solid range of high- and mid-range smartphones it can be expected that HTC will become a regular in the top ten handset vendors list. Analysis: ABI’s Michael Morgan

While smartphones and in-vehicle solutions have traditionally represented the vanguard of the navigation segment, a major new player has entered the picture: Apple’s iPad. Bringing together location-specific technologies as well as multimedia content, games, social media tools and Web services that all leverage the tablet’s 9.7-inch touchscreen and always-on connectivity to full effect, the iPad does everything that traditional navigation units do and much more, delivering a immersive and integrated user experience.

Consumer enthusiasm for the iPad has been overwhelming: Apple has already sold more than 3 million units since the iPad hit retail in April 2010, and research firm iSuppli anticipates sales will exceed the 7 million mark by the end of the year. As of late July, Apple’s App Store boasts more than 11,000 applications optimized expressly for the iPad, and an increasing number of those apps focus on navigation–some are premium and others are free, and some offer universal solutions while others focus on niche-specific demands – Among those in the “store” the LOCiMOBILE free and paid GPS TRACKING apps have been downloaded by more than 600,000 in over 84 countries. The apps also run on the Blackberry, Android and Samsung’s bada platform.

 

Samsung, the world’s second largest mobile phone manufacturer, launched its own open mobile platform, Samsung bada, in December 2009. Samsung’s mobile 235 million unit ecosystem enables developers to create applications for millions of new bada platform mobile phones. Samsung chose the name “bada”—which means “ocean” in Korean—to convey the limitless variety of potential applications that can be created with bada.

GTX Corp’s announcement follows on an 89% increase in its previous quarter’s revenues in addition to a number of software and hardware deals, including the launch of its consumer social networking portal www.gpstrackingapps.com. The company also posted its GPS Tracking app for the iPad and is launching a GPS camera app this month to its suite of LOCiMOBILE GPS apps.

GTX Corp and Aetrex Worldwide announce the arrival of the first GPS tracking device and online tracking portal to locate wandering and eloping victims of the disease before they sucumb to exposure.

By GINA KOLATA for the NYT

Researchers report that a spinal fluid test can be 100 percent accurate in identifying patients with significant memory loss who are on their way to developing Alzheimer’s disease.

Although there has been increasing evidence of the value of this and other tests in finding signs of Alzheimer’s, the study, which will appear Tuesday in the Archives of Neurology, shows how accurate they can be. The new result is one of a number of remarkable recent findings about Alzheimer’s.

After decades when nothing much seemed to be happening, when this progressive brain disease seemed untreatable and when its diagnosis could be confirmed only at autopsy, the field has suddenly woken up.

Alzheimer’s, medical experts now agree, starts a decade or more before people have symptoms. And by the time there are symptoms, it may be too late to save the brain. So the hope is to find good ways to identify people who are getting the disease, and use those people as subjects in studies to see how long it takes for symptoms to occur and in studies of drugs that may slow or stop the disease.

Researchers are finding simple and accurate ways to detect Alzheimer’s long before there are definite symptoms. In addition to spinal fluid tests they also have new PET scans of the brain that show the telltale amyloid plaques that are a unique feature of the disease. And they are testing hundreds of new drugs that, they hope, might change the course of the relentless brain cell death that robs people of their memories and abilities to think and reason.

The Aetrex GPS-enabled shoes provide caregivers a safe, unobtrusive means to easily find those afflicted with Alzheimer’s that might wander or elope and become lost. GTX Corp’s eighteen patents and patents pending for the GPS tracking technology cover a GPS transceiver module that is placed within the shoe, a module that transmits the wearer’s location coordinates to a central monitoring station, proprietary software, cellular connectivity, the GTX Corp middleware platform and secure viewing portal.  Aetrex will initially offer the shoe through their e-commerce websites www.foot.com and the www.gpsshoe.com site along with a select group of assisted living facilities.

GPS Tracking brings people together, locating family, friends and co-workers. It offers privacy, lets users share and upload pictures to Facebook and Twitter. It’s the most direct location-based check-with app. GPS Tracking is cross-platform compatible with LOCiMOBILE’s GPS Tracking apps installed on Apple iPhone® and iPod Touch® devices. One click and subscribers can find each other anywhere.

• The Internet is used by more than 80 percent of Americans.
• Americans spend an average of 19 hours per week online.
• Text messaging has more than doubled in just two years:
  Mobile users average 38 messages per day, compared to 16 in 2007.
• LOCiMOBILE passed the 500K sub mark in 84 countries for GPS Tracking
• Twitter exceeds 800 million search queries per day
• More than 70 percent of mobile users credit their phone with helping them to maintain their social relationships, up from 64 percent in ‘08.
• About 18 million Americans are active users of mobile banking services
• With an estimated 800K mobile customers, Citi ranks fifth in mobile banking and is the 11^th most popular App Store finance application.
• Verizon indicated that 35% of its retail postpaid customers had smartphones or multimedia.
• Smartphone growth remains 40% YoY and should grow in excess of 20% CAGR for the next five years.
• Wireless data represents ~34% of total ARPU (average revenue per user)
• While messaging continues to grow, AT&T showed much better growth than Verizon.
• AT&T: 53.2% of their 67 million postpaid subs have integrated devices, up from 36.3% a year ago, with a record 3.2 million iPhones sold in the quarter.

Curiously with that growth, the voice minutes used by consumers has stagnated, even though more households each year – 2 million a day globally – are disconnecting their landlines in favor of cellphones.

Instead of talking on their cellphones, people using the data applications found on iPhone, BlackBerry, Samsung, Microsoft, Android and other smart-phones to browse the Internet, listen to music, watch television, play games, send e-mail and text messages.

The number of text messages sent per user increased by nearly 50 percent nationwide last year, according to the CTIA, the wireless industry association. And for the first time in our history, the amount of data in text, e-mail messages, streaming video, music and other services on mobile devices surpassed the amount of voice data used in cell phone calls.

By example, the multi-platform LOCiMOBILE personal location people finding apps; GPS Tracking and Tracking have surpassed 500,000 users in more than 84 countries in just a few months. The velocity of the apps distribution made possible by; the introduction of third party applications and their adoption by consumers which has driven device sales, application downloads, wireless subscriptions and an explosive investment in wireless technologies.

10 years ago, only 720 million people in the world had mobile phone service. Today, there are more subscribers than that in China alone. The number of mobile broadband subscriptions is anticipated to reach 3.4 billion by 2015, with a total number of connected mobile devices around the world to climb to 50 billion by 2020.