Apparently data rates of 7Gbps are attainable over short distances, and Imec, working with Panasonic, says they can provide that kind of speed  while keeping power consumption down.  What does his mean for you, dear reader? Well, that you could send vast quantities of information, or large files, at speeds much higher than we’re currently used to.

“Imec says that one of the areas which has been blocking uptake so far has been the amount of power required for using spectrum in mobile devices,” the story says. “The research lab says that its CMOS-based transceiver is aimed at requiring less energy for use with the IEEE802.11ad standard.”

Obviously it will be awhile before all of this gets sorted out, but it could speed up our lives quite a bit it sounds like, and they’re already moving pretty fast! In the meantime, maybe we should enjoy our “dumb phones,” first generation iPhones or used cell phones of varying brands…

A report by a firm called GfK found that half of all smart phone and tablet users do this, most of them in order to feel like they have more “control” over the buying process. (Not shocking, really). The ones who are really into it, the report covered in Mediapost says, “are leveraging their device at every key stage of the purchase process, from research to peer recommendations, value-seeking to the purchase itself.” Most of those folks are also making wide use of various social networks, not just Facebook.  On sites like Pinterest, people can follow each other’s shopping or product profiles, seeing recent items bought and reviewed and trending. On niche sites like Houzze.com, people looking for design elements for their homes or yards can browse items and see what designers are using, what items are trending highly and which have fallen out of favor. This makes for less browsing in store and more preparation before heading out to shop. It also means more people are finding a better price online and thus leaving the place they’re currently shopping in – yet another incentive for retailers to ensure their prices are competitive.

People who don’t yet have smart phones may see this as one reason to finally buy one. But if they’re such heal hounds, they might want to browse – online, of course! – the wares of companies that buy used cell phones and fix them for resale. These outfits typically sell lightly used cell phones for around half the price of a brand new version at a carrier shop such as Sprint. That way, they can get a deal on a device through which to get more deals!

If, like some of our friends, you happen to be a Sprint client and you dig the service but are not too keen on the devices the company offers you, remember that you can always turn to independent businesses that sell refurbished used cell phones. You can still use Sprint’s network if you so choose, but you have a much wider selection of devices to choose from and can spend somewhere in the neighborhood of half the money than you would at Sprint’s retailers. And hey, since the big carrier continues to rake in money from its service and from contracts like the one we just mentioned, you don’t have to feel badly about it (not that you would…).

The path to a successful mobile payment solution in the U.S. has been long, windy, and full of potholes.  The carcasses of failed mobile payments companies litter the curb like roadkill.  Predicting the future of mobile payments has been difficult at best, or a fool’s errand at worst.

He continues:

Apple will include Near Field Communication (NFC) in the next iPhone, embed a digital wallet as part of iOS, and enable Tap to Pay.  3^rd party developers will create innovative, value-added “spokes“ to plug into the mobile wallet “hub.”  This will be the watershed event that prompts merchants, motivated by a mix of fear and greed, to upgrade their point-of-sale terminals to support NFC, and as a consequence even competing mobile wallet platforms will benefit.

Tap-to-Pay On Plastic

Before jumping into the discussion of mobile payments, first consider the abject failure of tap-to-pay on plastic.  Whether branded as MasterCard’sPaypass or Visa’s payWave, the payment networks make a simple promise: “make everyday purchases without having to swipe the magnetic strip on your card.”

There are two big problems here.  Fatal problems, actually.

First, the value proposition is very weak.  Do consumers care about shaving a few seconds off the time it takes to swipe a card?  Is tapping really 10X better than swiping?  The user experience of swiping plastic has been refined over the course of fifty years.  It’s really quite good.

Tap-to-pay with plastic was a technology solution in search of a problem.

Second, like most innovations in payment technology, the tap-to-pay technology suffers a chicken-and-egg problem.  Without widespread adoption by consumers, merchants have little reason to support the new technology.  Without acceptance at a high proportion of merchants, consumers have little incentive to even try the technology.

Well, in that case, it looks like it’s going to be a while before there’s a magic tap-to-pay app. Doesn’t bother us a bit.

But 13 percent say they plan to choose an electronic gift, such as tablets, digital cameras or a cell phone. If your mother is like ours, she might be somewhat interested in a smart phone but hesitant to dive into the brave new world of virtual keyboards and apps. In that case, giving the gift of technology – and some tutorials to introduce her to it – could get you a super high score of good-child-points this year.

And here’s the thing –since mom isn’t super phone savvy and probably doesn’t care about having the latest version of Angry Birds or Siri on her device, you don’t have to spring for the most expensive new phone on the market. You could make a solid from a wide selection of lightly used cell phones and still take her on a technological leap without breaking the bank. In fact, you could get a great device gift for around the price of this year’s average gift – or just a little bit more.

How’d they get those numbers? Branding Brand took the merchants listed in the 2011 edition of the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide and used their 2010 unique monthly visitors as the basis for them.

“There are more devices out there than ever before, more usage of data plans, and more content that is mobile-friendly that makes mobile a relevant experience,” says Chris Mason, co-founder and CEO of Branding Brand. “There is also a usability trend: Consumers are getting more confident and used to the idea of researching products and making purchases on a mobile device.”

Mason also told the site that people are increasingly becoming “digital omnivores,” or consumers who have desktop computers, tablets and smart phones and are used to being connected to the Internet constantly.

These consumers are so intolerant of wasting time (why sit on the bus idle if you can knock off that “buy mother-in-law’s Mother’s Day gift item off your list?) and so unaccustomed to spending much time offline, that they’re happy to navigate shopping sites on the move on their mobile devices.  Add to that the fact that smart phones are becoming larger, thinner and with much wider screens, and this trend is set to explode, no matter what kind of devices people are shopping on – used cell phones, refurbished cell phones, Droids, Windows phones or iPhones.

According to the Pew researchers, the factors playing into the discrepancy included poverty, but the most common response, 31 percent, was that they simply weren't interested. Many were seniors who hadn't grown up with Internet access and felt they either wouldn't benefit or wouldn’t be able to learn how to use it. That’s the exception, certainly, as 62 percent of all American adults use cable, DSL, or some other way of getting online. Many of these same folks are likely to not have cell phones, either, and people who sell used cell phones would be smart to target them as an audience for refurbished devices sold for lower rates.

Other interesting tidbits from the Pew study: the data “showed that cell phone ownership in the US was increasingly being concentrated in the hands of Apple and Google. The iPhone had caught up to the BlackBerry at about 10 percent of respondents, although Android was now up to 15 percent. Just two percent said they used a Windows Phone, or as much as HP's defunct webOS and PalmOS put together.”

No surprise, then, that Smartphones (along with HDTVs )are the top consumer electronics products that U.S. households plan to purchase over the next 12 months. That’s according to a new study from the Consumer Electronics Association. More than one in five U.S. households – 22 percent– said they plan to purchase a device in the next year, with HDTVs following at 17 percent and digital cameras at 15 percent. Of course, smart phones are also eating into digital camera sales, since it’s so much more convenient to just take pictures on your phone (when’s the last time you actually brought a camera with you somewhere?). Along with phones, of course, mobile computing will continue to be a popular, with tablet computers and notebook/laptop computers expected to be purchased by 14% of U.S. households.

With so many people in the market for new phones, few realize that used cell phones are a viable option for replacing a lost device or updating an outdated one. Many dealers carry lightly used phones that work just as well as pricey new ones. You can get an iPhone 4, for instance, for around $300, instead of the $650 retail price. As long as it works just as well, why wouldn’t you opt for spending half the amount of money?

Thirteen percent of time spent gaming worldwide last year was on a mobile device, the report found. And the total time people spend playing on mobile devices per day?  Some 130 million hours. Among the most engrossing of these games, apparently, were Dragonvale, Smurfs’ Village, and Zynga Poker.

While we’ll do our best to refrain from making snide remarks about the rapidly-rising portion of life that human beings spend inactive, sitting with their eyes glued to screens in pursuit of nonexistent pigs or monkeys or evil men (obesity epidemic, anyone), we can’t help but notice that 69-percent figure. After all, we care about all things cellular, stupid pigs or not, and with the portion of gamers playing on smart phones already at 69 percent and rising, that points to a huge number of devices.

And, as the number of people around the world with personal cell phones continues to increase – along with the number of gamers – the more apps, games and newfangled devices will be manufactured and sold. Whether people are buying and using new iPhones, new Androids or lightly used cell phones, that’s a massive and rapidly-growing collection of devices. Cha-ching.

Meanwhile, we’re on the verge of the release of iPhone 5. While no one really knows (well, okay, the workers at the beleaguered Foxconn factories in China know, but they’re not talking) which fancy new features the coming iPhone will have, we do know the screen will be at least 4 inches wide and that surely, Apple has some sort of new Siri-esque invention likely to stir consumers into a buying frenzy.

As that happens, waves of people will likely dump their current devices for the new one. Hopefully, many of them will opt to recycle them at dealers that buy and refurbish used cell phones for resale. So many 4S phones soon to be left behind for their sexy young cousins are perfectly usable and functional, and many consumers would prefer to spend just $300 on a iPhone 4 that works well as opposed to dropping nearly $700 on the new version. Plus, recycling phones is much better for the environment.