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Consumer Behavior Information Technology Trend Watching

Consumer Behavior in Brazil: Use of smartphones and tablets higher than world average

Brazilians spend more time using mobile phones, smartphones, tablets and e-readers than the world average, according to IBOPE survey and Worldwide Independent Network of Market Research (WIN), released recently. In Brazil, the average daily time use of mobiles is 59 minutes ahead of the average period of 42 minutes recorded in the world. With smartphones, […]

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Consumer Behavior Trend Watching

Consumer Behavior in Brazil: Crisis boosts advancement of aviation

Brazil is experiencing one of its best moments in the aviation industry, and today the country with the second largest fleet of jets, behind only the United States and the third most produced aircraft of this type. Ahead of Embraer (a Brazilian local manufacturer), are only the American Cessna and Canadian Bombardier. The good performance is due in large part to the international crisis started in 2008, which created a favorable environment for the purchase of these aircraft in other countries, and the growth of emerging […]

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Information Technology Trend Watching

Internet in Brazil: banking transactions on smartphones grow more than four times in 2012

Banking transactions via smartphone grew 333% in 2012, according to the 2013 edition of Banking Technology Research, released recently by the Brazilian Federation of Banks Febraban. Mobile banking is the fastest growing channel in the year […]

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Consumer Behavior Information Technology Trend Watching

Mobile Devices in Brazil: Government reduces taxes on smartphones

A decree signed by President Dilma Rousseff and published on Tuesday (9) reduces to zero the PIS and COFINS on the sale of so-called smartphones, cell phones with internet access, costing up to R$ 1,500 (around US $ 760.00) and are produced in Brazil. Together, the two taxes had a rate of 9.25% […]

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China Information Technology Trend Watching

Watch Michael Anti’s “Behind the Great Firewall of China” Talk at TED

Michael Anti (aka Jing Zhao) has been blogging from China for 12 years. Despite the control the central government has over the Internet — “All the servers are in Beijing” (also known as “The Great Firewall of China”) — he says that hundreds of millions of microbloggers are in fact creating the first national public sphere in the country’s history, and shifting the balance of power in unexpected ways […]

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Information Technology Trend Watching

Internet in Brazil: Women represent 53% of Internet users

A survey released recently by consulting firm e-bit, shows that in Brazil, 53% of Internet users are women […]

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Design Readings

Watch “Connecting”, a documentary about User Experience and Interaction Design

The 18 minute “Connecting” documentary (by Basset & Partners) is an exploration of the future of Interaction Design and User Experience from some of the industry’s thought leaders, including some of my heroes like Liz Danzico, Blaise Agüerra y Arcas,Jennifer Bove, Jonas Löwgren and Robert Fabricant […]

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Design Readings

Watch Andrew Blum’s “What is the Internet, really?” talk at TED

When a squirrel chewed through a cable and knocked him offline, journalist Andrew Blum started wondering what the Internet was really made of. So he set out to go see it — the underwater cables, secret switches and other physical bits that make up the net […]

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Innovation Readings

Watch Clay Shirky’s “How the Internet will one day transform government” talk at TED

The open-source world has learned to deal with a flood of new, oftentimes divergent, ideas using hosting services like GitHub — so why can’t governments? In this rousing talk Clay Shirky shows how democracies can take a lesson from the Internet, to be not just transparent but also to draw on the knowledge of all their citizens […]

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China Information Technology Trend Watching

Information Technology in China: Smart City plans for Shanghai

Can you imagine such a “smart city” life? It can become a possibility in Shanghai as early as 2015. Presently, the system to build a smart city is having a trial operation in suburban Minhang District and gradually it will cover the whole city, Shanghai city officials revealed recently […]