Retailers must understand consumer use-cases and cater to these needs. At the end of the day, making someone’s life easier or better will drive business.

Mashable:  Mobile Shopping’s Early Adopters: New Moms 

“Shoppers in the United States still do most of their online shopping by laptop or desktop, according to a May report by the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers. Only about 15% of online shopping is done on mobile devices. But that number is expected to increase dramatically as two other changes take place: Overall time spent online continues to grow, and time spent browsing on mobile overtakes time spent browsing on desktops and laptops.”

“‘Moms send us stories all the time of nursing her baby at 3 a.m., realizing she’s almost out of diapers or some other essential, placing an order with us through our app, and having the package show up at her door later that day,” said Michal Geller, a senior vice president of marketing and business development for Diapers.com, one entity in the baby-industrial complex — the diaper market alone is expected to reach $52 billion globally by 2017.”Same-day delivery is a game-changer for busy moms.'”

While semiconductor research has taken a back seat to Snapchat in news coverage of late, IBM’s 7-nanometer chips will have more industry impact and staying power. We gotta love companies that continue to invest in research.

VentureBeat:  After 10 Breakthroughs and #3B in research, IBM Announces Tiny 7-Nanometer Chips

“In semiconductor chip research, IBM has been racking up the breakthroughs for decades. And now it says that work is paying off with the creation of the first 7-nanometer chips. This means that the miniaturized electronics are so small that transistors on the chips are only 7 billionth of a meter in length. That’s 1,400 times smaller than a human hair.”

“IBM said researchers feared that 7-nanometer chips would be out of reach due to fundamental barriers of technology. But IBM said it used new semiconductor processes and techniques pioneered by IBM Research. It capitalized on past innovations such as silicon germanium (SiGe), channel transistors, and Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) lithography integration at multiple levels. Those innovations helped IBM cut 50 percent of the chip size compared to the best 10-nanometer technology currently available.”

“Once the chips proliferate in the market, we’ll see faster, cheaper, and better electronics products out in the marketplace, from faster computers to smarter “Internet of things” devices, or everyday objects that are smart and connected.”

This data breach is a stark warning to all government agencies and to businesses that store consumer data: Ignoring the risks do not make them go away.

Mashable:  What the Massive Government Breach Means for Your Personal Data

“One in 14 Americans may have just lost tons of their personal information — everything from their Social Security Number and birthdates to notes on their finances, relationships and even sexual proclivities — to hackers in a massive cyber breach, a federal agency said Thursday.

Hackers have made off with confidential data belonging to 22 million people who work, formerly worked or have applied to work for the federal government, costing a top agency official her joband exposing troves of sensitive data stored by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), which serves as a sort of human resources for federal workers.”

“In addition to basic personal data and information from the three security clearance forms, OPM said the stolen data also included “findings from interviews conducted by background investigators” and 1.1 million records that contained individuals’ fingerprints.

Eng added that an investigator’s “findings” will be unique to each applicant and some candidates, depending on the agency and job they’re applying to, may have thicker files than others. That’s because in addition to a standard, initial interview, some agencies will conduct additional interviews (and even lie-detector tests) with applicants and their associates, including family members and employers.”

Innovate or die. HBO and Apple are launching their own versions of new consumer-focused content delivery models, streaming video and news services. You don’t have to do it first, you just have to do it better.

Gigaom:  All You Need to Know About HBO’s new HBO Now Streaming Service

“HBO Now is almost here: HBO officially announced plans to launch its online-only streaming service dubbed HBO Now during Apple’s spring event Monday, and promptly managed to confuse everyone with an exclusive that isn’t quite exclusive and a price that’s not set in stone.”

“This isn’t a direct-to-consumer service, which is the biggest difference to Netflix. HBO still wants others to handle the billing and customer relationships, and has no intention to ask you for your credit card any time soon.”

Mashable:  Hands-On with Apple News: Will it Kill Flipboard?

“On its surface, it’s not demonstrably different from Flipboard, Pulse or any of the other various news aggregations apps that have appeared over the last five years. … The difference, of course, is that this news app is always on your homescreen. This news app is from Apple.

Whether that matters or not remains to be seen. And although News is hardly an original concept, that doesn’t negate its need to exist. Users increasingly want to get access to what is happening on mobile devices and if a default app can do that in an attractive, easy to use way, hey why not.”

“At its best, these sections present a really beautiful, magazine-esque way to browse a news source. Part iPhone or iPad app, part mobile-optimized design, this view gives news organizations the opportunity to make really great phone and tablet content views that aren’t just replications of their mobile web efforts.

The open question will be whether or not news outlets will want to take the time to make their articles better formatted for this option.“

The noteworthy part of this move is not that it happened, but that it didn’t happen earlier. Twitter has a lot of ground to make up in expansion markets.

VentureBeat: Twitter Eyes Latin American Market from New Miami Office

““Miami is now a reference point in tech and a natural bridge with Latin America,” Marco Botero,Twitter Miami head of sales, told EFE in an interview in Spanish. “Our mission in Miami is to help those companies that want to grow the value of their brand in Latin America to connect with the consumers in the region, to take their message using the tools provided by our platform.””

“It’s was about time for Twitter to seriously target South and Central America. Earlier this year, comScore did a study suggesting that “57 percent of Latin American smartphone users are on Twitter.” That is almost double the estimated 27 to 30 percent usage in the U.S.”

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