Reality Bites With Show-All Billboards What’s Going On: A handful of billboards have popped up across the
San Francisco Bay Area, but they’re not sporting the advertisements billboards typically do. Instead they display distracted drivers caught in the act of using their cellphones behind the wheel. Graphic designer Brian Singer dreamed up the idea out of frustration after seeing dis- tracted drivers everywhere and wanting to do something about it. How It Can Affect You: Could this be a trend that sweeps the
country? “For every person I saw picking their nose, there would be like twenty people texting,” Singer told local TV station KPIX 5. Singer said the billboards were not intended to be a public campaign to shame people, but rather to create social pressure. Not surprisingly, Singer said he is getting interest across the country from law enforcement, nonprofits, and safety-conscious people.
BlackBerry is Pick of the Connected Car Crop
What’s Going On: BlackBerry may be tanking in the smartphone sector, but the company is solid with its place in the connected car. BlackBerry’s QNX operating system—the same one used to power Blackberry 10 phones—is the preferred technology for communications and entertainment in vehicles such as Ford, Porsche and BMW. It may be the company’s saving grace.
GameStop Shifts Gears
How It Can Affect You: The market for technology linking cars and smartphones—estimated to be worth $18 billion in 2012—is expected to soar almost three- fold by 2018, according to GSMA, a global association of wireless carriers. The connected-car market, pre- dicted to reach $53 billion in 2018, is also on the radar of Apple and Google—and more and more technol- ogy companies see the connected car as a go-to area of opportunity. Look for BlackBerry to go for a larger piece of the pie than it has now. QNX is approximately two percent of BlackBerry’s sales.
What’s Going On: There’s a new retail competitor on the block. GameStop, which has carved out a niche as a seller of video games, is more interested now in billing itself as a place that attracts gamers. The company shut down a handful of its stores last year and plans to close another two percent this year. Don’t expect to see any Going- Out-of-Business signs, though, as GameStop plans to spend $35 million to open 300 to 400 retail stores that will sell a variety of elec- tronics—not just those related to gaming. How It Can Affect You: Competition for the youth market and for
mainstream consumers in search of mobile devices like smartphones and accessories is more heated than ever. For instance, GameStop already has more than 200 stores in which phones are sold for AT&T and Apple, but the new format will have fitness gear and wearable computing devices for sale as well. µ
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