Global mobile news round-up February 17

Find out the week’s top mobile stories from around the world.

This week.. Blackberry sues Nokia over patents, downloads are ‘obsolete’, Facebook plans to bring the global community closer and much more.

BlackBerry sues Nokia over patents as its phone business shuts down

Ars Technica

As it says goodbye to the smartphone business, BlackBerry is pushing ahead with an attempt to wring some cash from its patents.

The new salvo is a 96-page complaint (PDF) against Nokia, which accuses the Finnish telecom company of infringing 11 BlackBerry patents related to LTE- and UMTS/UTRAN-compliant products and services. The related products include Nokia’s Flexi line of base stations and its Liquid Radio software.

The patents include number 8,494,090, “Detecting the number of transmit antennas in a base station,” and No. 8,254,246, “Scattered pilot pattern and channel estimation system for MIMO-OFDM systems.”

Ottawa firm aims to bring mobile-first tech to first responders

IT World Canada

On an average Fall day, Ottawa Professional Firefighter’s Association Captain Vic Dillabaugh found himself racing towards the University of Ottawa alongside 10 other members of a hazardous materials team, responding to an ammonia leak caused by intentional vandalism.

It was just a drill, but Dillabaugh and his team treat the situation every bit as seriously as if it were really taking place. The scenario placed one person down in the Minto Sports Plex, where the leak was taking place. Rescuing that victim became the top priority of the drill.

But the top priority of doing the drill itself is to test a new technology developed by Ottawa-based Advance Property eXposure Inc. (APX), delivering vital information about the building and the situation to first responders via smartphones and tablets.

Mark Zuckerberg Shares Facebook’s Plan to Bring the Global Community Together

Time

Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg wants to bring people closer together.

In a nearly 6,000-word letter published to his Facebook page on Thursday, Zuckerberg laid out his vision for the kind of world he thinks Facebook can help create. The free-wielding note included few specifics, but offered a number of broad, ambitious goals for how the tech giant can contribute to a better understanding of everything from terrorism to fake news.

“Today we are close to taking our next step. Our greatest opportunities are now global — like spreading prosperity and freedom, promoting peace and understanding, lifting people out of poverty, and accelerating science,” Zuckerberg wrote. “Our greatest challenges also need global responses — like ending terrorism, fighting climate change, and preventing pandemics. Progress now requires humanity coming together not just as cities or nations, but also as a global community.”

Lenovo targets profitable mobile division by year-end after third-quarter earnings drop

Reuters

The mobile division of China’s Lenovo Group Ltd is “on track” to return to profit by December at the earliest helped by strong growth in overseas markets, its chairman said on Thursday after the firm posted a 67 percent drop in quarterly earnings.

Yang Yuanqing also dismissed the possibility of selling the struggling division to focus on the personal computer (PC) market where Lenovo is the world’s biggest maker by shipments, as widely proposed by analysts and company watchers.

“No, that is not my plan,” Yang said in an interview. “Mobile should be our core business as well.”

‘Downloads are obsolete’ and other mobile-engagement trends

Campaign

A high number of app downloads does not paint a picture of a successful mobile campaign. And a lower number of high-value conversions is better than a huge number of leads that do not convert.

If marketers have not already changed their priorities to adjust to the above truths, they should do so now, according to a new ‘trendspotting’ report from Light Reaction, a performance advertising business that is part of WPP’s Xaxis.

Speaking to Campaign Asia-Pacific, Auke Boersma, APAC managing director for Light Reaction, said marketer should not be focused solely on new app installs, nor on acquiring cheaper new users.

Location-based video ads key mobile trend in 2016

Research Live

The growth of location-based mobile video ads was the top US mobile ad trend in 2016, according to a report from Positive Mobile.

The report revealed that the proportion of ads served with location-based targeting rose from 5% in Q2 2016 to 17% in Q4. This trend is in line with recent research from BIA/ Kelsey, which predicts that spending on locally-targeted video will increase from $5bn in 2016 to $37.6bn in 2021.

Other findings include: political ads peaked in Q4, driven by location-targeted congressional campaign ads (this category decreased from Q1 to Q2 as those presidential candidates using mobile video dropped out of the race); travel ads peaked in Q2 and Q4 in the run up to winter and summer holidays; home improvement (in the retail category) peaked in Q2 (spring); and in Q4 2016 CPG dropped and retail held steady while toys, cosmetics/ beauty, technology and telecommunications grew.

Money via mobile: The M-Pesa revolution

BBC

When 53 police officers in Afghanistan checked their phones in 2009, they felt sure there had been some mistake. They knew they were part of a pilot project to see if public sector salaries could be paid via a new mobile money service called M-Paisa.

But had they somehow overlooked the detail that their participation brought a pay rise?

Or had someone mistyped the amount to send them? The message said their salary was significantly larger than usual. In fact, the amount was what they should have been getting all along. But previously, they received their salaries in cash, passed down from the ministry via their superior officers.

Somewhere along the line, about 30% of their pay had been skimmed off.

47% of mobile users still only call and text

Telecomasia

Despite the great strides being made to bring mobility services to the global population, recent research indicates that nearly half of mobile users worldwide still only use their devices to make calls and send SMS.

The consumer research from GSMA Intelligence, covering 56 markets collectively representing 80% of the world’s population, found that 47% of adult mobile phone owners only make calls and send texts.

But this segment is expected to shrink to 29% by 2030 as users across the developing world benefit from advances in mobile innovation, affordability and availability.

IPv6 Enables Global Mobile IoT Innovation and Proliferation

Cisco Blog

Digitization and automation is now a familiar feature in many homes. Mobile connectivity is not just for phones anymore. Today, we have lots of things that generate data or environments that we want to control (locally or remotely).

And our access point for control is not limited to our smartphones – televisions, tablets, smartwatches, health monitors and even kitchen appliances can all serve as “digital control points.” Ubiquitous connectivity and control are fundamental elements of the Internet of Things (IoT) value proposition.

The challenge of delivering seamless user experiences through communications between all of our devices and things that we want to control is becoming more broad and complex.

HONG KONG: new guidance on privacy protections for IoT

lexology

Those involved in the IoT industry in Asia should take note that data protection compliance can no longer be ignored in favour of rapid technological and market opportunities. Even though many data protection laws – including in Hong Kong – were drafted in the days of filing cabinets, cutting edge technologies in today’s digital world must operate within the existing compliance frameworks.

Hong Kong’s Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data (“PCPD“) is the latest privacy authority – and one of the first in the Asia Pacific region – to study and make recommendations on privacy protections amid rapid developments in the Internet of Things (“IoT“). A local study last year by the PCPD highlighted IoT device manufacturers and associated app designers in the local market were not adequately notifying device users of data privacy and security rights and measures.

Mobile Pushes 2016 Online Holiday Spending Above $80 Billion

Comscore

The final numbers are in, and comScore determined that $80.2 billion was spent online during the November-December 2016 holiday season, up 17 percent year-over-year, and right in line with comScore’s early season prediction of 16-19 percent growth.

While comScore previously released its holiday sales estimates from desktop computers, today it revealed for the first time that mobile commerce grew 44 percent from a season ago, with $17.1 billion spent via smartphones and tablets.

M-commerce accounted for a 21-percent share of the season’s total digital sales, up from 17 percent in 2015, as more people become comfortable making their holiday purchases on mobile devices.