Hasta La Gadget!

Apple has a couple of new interesting glimpses into possible new future tech published by the USPTO today, including a patent application for an iPad Smart Cover with a built-in battery and induction charging, and a mobile camera design that offers true optical zoom, instead of the low-quality digital zoom we’re all used to in current devices.

The induction charging patent application (via AppleInsider) makes the Smart Cover about a thousand times more useful than it is in its current form. It adds an inductive charging coil to the Smart Cover, which can transmit to a receiving end within the iPad itself. The Smart Cover would also contain a battery within its segmented padded divisions, which would make it possible to charge up the iPad when the Smart Cover is covering the iPad’s screen and lined up properly via the existing built-in magnets, or when folded behind the iPad to prop it up for viewing.

The Smart Cover itself would need to be plugged in to charge, or alternatively could be fitted with solar panels to pick up extra juice from ambient light. But the big news for the larger ecosystem would be that the iPad itself would have to be outfitted with wireless charging equipment. So long as Apple stuck with an accepted standard like Qi for that tech, it would open the door for plenty of new opportunities from third-party accessory makers: you can basically taste the fresh batch of new Kickstarter projects.

In a second application published today (via UnwiredView), Apple describes a new type of digital camera for inclusion in mobile devices, which would enable optical zooming in a module that’s still small enough to fit inside of an iPhone 5′s case. Basically, the camera would bounce incoming light off of an internal mirror at a 90-degree angle, meaning it could use the entire width of the phone to build a lens and optical zoom element rather than just being limited by the thickness of the device’s body from front to back.

The patent also describes using a light splitter cube to break up incoming light into separate red, blue and green frequencies, which makes it possible to use camera sensors that are more color-accurate, and take in much more light in the same environment vs. sensors that have light-splitting features built in. Once again, this is made possible thanks to the added room for camera elements Apple would be able to use by changing the orientation of the camera components to lengthwise across the device via the mirror behind the lens on the back of the camera.

Both of these patents are significant, because they provide avenues Apple can explore to add truly new and useful features to the iPad and iPhone. Induction charging has been rumored as a possible feature of the iPhone 5, the iPhone 5S and the iPhone 6, but so far it hasn’t come to pass. Apple generally waits on wireless tech for it to prove its value with consumers before adding it to their products, however. The camera design modification, however, is something it could easily implement ahead of anyone else, since Apple tends to focus special attention on camera improvements in the iPhone, especially when making otherwise iterative improvements (as in the leap between the iPhone 4 and 4S, for instance).

Dramatic changes to product hardware would go a long way toward helping Apple address criticism that it’s ‘falling behind’ rivals like Samsung in the innovation department, and these in particular would be impressive by avoiding the specs race in favor of more interesting changes with real relevance to users. Still, Apple’s patents are never a good indicator of immediate product development strategies, so don’t hold your breath for these features in Apple’s next generation of devices.

I love hardware. That’s why I want you guys to bring some of the coolest hardware projects imaginable to Disrupt NY this year. That’s why I want you guys in our Hardware Alley and spots are almost full.

Hardware Alley is a one-day celebration of hardware startups both young and old. The goal has always been to show off amazing hardware that we have written about over the past few months, as well as a few surprises. Last Disrupt we featured the guys from Thermovape, Makerbot, and Lit Motors. This year we want to fill Disrupt NY with more amazing companies.

For more details on Disrupt head over here. We’re looking for new or even unlaunched products, as well as potential Kickstarter projects. Prototypes are fine as long as they’re amazing.

You can see the previous Hardware Alley participants here. You can sign up here. Bootstrappers can contact me directly at john@techcrunch.com if you need a break on price. Hope to see you in the alley… the Hardware Alley.

Our sponsors help make Disrupt happen. If you are interested in learning more about sponsorship opportunities, please contact our amazing sponsorship team here sponsors@techcrunch.com.

Amazon just announced that it would be dropping the price of the 8.9-inch version of its Kindle Fire HD. The tablet will now cost $269 for the Wi-Fi only version and $399 for the Wi-Fi and LTE version. The Kindle Fire HD 8.9″ is now available in the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Japan as well. Canada won’t get the device this time around.

The Kindle Fire HD was already available in Europe, but only the 7-inch version. With today’s news, Android tablets will become more widely available and could represent a bigger market share in Europe and Japan.

Amazon may have needed more time to ramp up production before releasing the Kindle Fire HD 8.9″ in other countries. Even though it is less popular than its cheaper brother, the tablet received a price cut as well. John Biggs found it a bit too big to use it comfortably.

Many Android tablet apps are still scaled-up smartphone apps. Developers need Android tablets to catch on in order to start considering it as a separate platform. IDC predicted that shipments of Android tablets may overtake those of the iPad in 2013. It could represent a turning point for mobile developers and startups.

While Amazon still hasn’t released its rumored smartphone, the company offers a wide range of tablets, from small form factors to bigger LTE tablets. Releasing an Android app in the Amazon Appstore is now an important step — Google Play isn’t enough if you want to target a large number of tablets.

As always, Amazon doesn’t release sales figures and it is difficult to predict whether the Kindle Fire product line is popular. If that is the case, it means that Google’s strategy with Android is not succeeding. Amazon forked Android to release its own tablet operating system, leaving behind many Google apps and services.

Despite years of chewing the digital cud — not to mention a global financial downturn — there’s no sign of the U.S. or European ecommerce cash-cows ailing, according to two new forecasts from Forrester. In the U.S. Forrester is projecting online retail sales will reach $370 billion by 2017, up from $231 billion in 2013 — a 10% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over the next five years.

The ecommerce growth rate in Europe is expected to be fractionally higher over the same period, although the overall market is obviously smaller. Europe’s online retail sales are projected to hit €191 billion ($247.1 billion) by 2017, according to Forrester, up from €128 billion ($165.6 billion) in 2013 – a 10.5% CAGR.

In the U.S. Forrester notes that online retail will continue to outpace the growth of physical retail stores — something the category has done since its inception, so no change there. The analyst notes two “notable changes” have helped prop up ecommerce growth in recent years: firstly the rise of smartphones and tablets, which is says are boosting the amount of time consumers spend online and generating more buying opportunities.

Forrester’s report notes:

Consumers are more likely to use their phones not only to research purchases — both to learn about products and store options — but also to find the best price for a given item. But it’s not just phones that drive retail web traffic; virtually all retailers report that traffic to their sites from tablets spikes during evening prime-time hours, when consumers are in a leisure state of mind. This also suggests incremental web sessions and conversions, because web retail traditionally spikes not in the evening, but during business hours.

And secondly, Forrester notes that traditional retailers have invested heavily in their web divisions — including by offering hybrid online/offline capabilities such as in-store pickup for online purchases — which it says is also helping to grow ecommerce.

U.S. ecommerce growth is not coming from newbies, according to Forrester, which said it expects only four million people to shop online for the first time in 2013. But rather growth is down to existing web shoppers spending more of their time and money online — and spending it on a variety of goods. Forrester notes that online loyalty programmes such as Amazon Prime and ShopRunner are “one driver”, but the wider driver here is web shoppers getting more accused to spending their cash digitally, and therefore becoming more comfortable buying “high-touch, high-consideration goods like furniture or appliances online”.

The report also notes that ecommerce is also helping to boost the U.S. jobs market — with Forrester and Shop.org estimating that more than 400,000 individuals are currently employed by ecommerce companies in the U.S., projected to reach 500,000+ by 2017. And of course more people in employment means more disposable income that can be spent buying goods online (so arguably that could be another factor fuelling online retail).

European Ecommerce

In its European forecast, Forrester includes a breakdown by country of online retail spend — noting there is considerable variation in the landscape across key markets in Europe. Despite this, it’s projecting CAGRs from 2012 to 2017 of between 9% at the low end, for the Netherlands, jumping up to 18% and 16% for Spain and Italy respectively, the fastest growing European markets over the forecast period:

The ecommerce growth disparity between European countries is generally down to a divide between more mature markets in Northern Europe, where Forrester says online shopping is “the norm”, vs markets in the south where ecommerce has yet to become a mainstream activity — but is projected to grow to become one by 2017.

In more mature Northern European markets, such as the U.K. and Sweden, Forrester forecasts that ecommerce growth will continue to outstrip physical retail growth but will slow, as the markets enter what it calls a “new phase of competitive expansion”. In this phase online retailers will need to optimise and innovate, by creating more personalised shopping experiences across “new touchpoints”, in order to stay ahead of the competition.

The report notes:

Mobile presents an opportunity to reach out to shoppers in new ways, influencing the decision to buy at a critical moment. eBusiness execs must support their online strategies with a mobile strategy that considers mobile as more than just another transactional touchpoint. Instead, they must use features like barcode scanning and augmented reality to capture and analyze offline activity in order to more accurately personalize future online interactions and drive web sales.

European markets currently display considerable variation when it comes to “multiple touchpoints” for online shopping, according to the report — with increasingly sophisticated and complex behaviours in some but not all Northern markets. For example, Forrester notes that Germany has “notably lower” mobile shopping adoption than elsewhere in Europe, and few “multichannel customer offers”.

Though we still haven’t gotten a peek of the LTE-capable Galaxy Note 8.0, it would appear that the 3G version is currently making its way through the Federal Communications Commission for final approval before retail availability.

The Galaxy Note 8.0 was announced back at MWC, and Samsung mentioned that the tablet would be available in the second quarter of this year. The WiFi-enabled version already passed through the FCC a couple of months ago.

Unfortunately, we still don’t have word from Samsung or carrier partners on retail availability, but seeing as the FCC is a crucial part of the certification process, we’re at least a step closer to the GalNote 8.0.

In terms of specs, the smaller Galaxy Note tablet is meant to compete directly with the iPad mini, sporting an Exynos 4 Quad processor clocked at 1.6GHz, Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean, and TouchWiz of course.

You’ll also see an 8-inch 1280×800 TFT LCD display, 2GB of RAM, and support for 3G, as well as an S-Pen stylus. However, it would appear that the 3G version doesn’t come with a 32GB option, although you can always make up for the lost storage with the expandable microSD card slot.

We went hands-on with the Galaxy Note 8.0 back in February, and though we find the portrait orientation slightly odd, we’re mostly pleased with the performance we’ve seen out of the tablet.