Each week the MEF team curates mobile stories from around the world. Essential news, the latest market insight & data nuggets, the Global News Round-up offers an instant international mobile content and commerce snapshot.
Global News Stories
Amazon Announces The $199 Fire Phone, The First Smartphone With Head-Tracking Technology
TechCrunch
Meet the Fire Phone, Amazon’s first venture into smartphones. Jeff Bezos calls it the phone built for the Amazon Prime customer. At first blush, it looks like any other smartphone currently on the market, but it has a secret: the ability to track a user’s head. This is done through four corner-mounted, front-facing infrared cameras and produces wild 3D effects. But it’s not traditional 3D in the sense that images pop out of the screen. The head-tracking tech adds depth to the phone. It’s like looking down a street. But into your phone’s screen.
It’s Time To Admit The Amount Of Information Google Gathers About Us Is Terrifying
Business Insider
Google is finding more and more ways to integrate itself into nearly every aspect of our lives.
Google has the largest search engine in the world, biggest video platform (YouTube), biggest web browser (Chrome), most-used email service (Gmail,) and the largest mobile operating system (Android). What that all means is that Google essentially knows everything about us — be that what we search for, what ads we click on, what we write about, what we watch, and what apps we like.
WebMD Steps Into the mHealth Market with Healthy Target
MMM
Health website WebMD has entered the increasingly-crowded market for mHealth data aggregators, revealing today an expansion for its app that collects data from activity trackers, wireless scales and other biometric-measuring wearables and provides tailored content for users.The program, called Healthy Target, is integrated into the company’s existing app for iPhone, and is designed to provide assistance to individuals managing chronic conditions such as Type 2 diabetes and obesity, as well as those looking to achieve fitness goals or live healthier lifestyles. The program includes functions for goal setting, tracking habit intensity and also provides users with inspirational tips and motivation.
Mobile gaming ditches ‘spray and pray’ approach
Fierce Mobile
The mobile gaming industry is moving away from the “spray and pray” approach and is instead offering lifetime value to gamers in order to generate revenues. Fueled by this new strategy, market revenues are forecast by Juniper Research to increase from $20 billion this year to $29 billion in 2016. Instead of trying to acquire as many casual players as possible, developers are increasing the mobile games’ lifetime value to users by analyzing, engaging and monetizing them. To do this, they are employing mobile analytics.
Making the most of ‘mobile moments’ to transform the customer experience
Econsultancy
There has been a ‘mobile mind shift’ in customers. Customers now expect to get what they want in their immediate context and moments of need. Increasingly, when they need something, anything, they turn to their mobile device and ask for help: “Do I need to wear a coat today?”, “Who won the French Open?”, “Is my prescription ready?” The mobile is becoming the customer’s problem-solver, and a shift of this magnitude has dramatically transformed customer expectations.
iOS Users Are A Much Bigger Revenue Opportunity For Mobile Payments Companies Than Android Users
Business Insider
Americans who make payments using their iOS devices in stores spend nearly double that spent by Android users making the same type of payments, according to a survey from The Yankee Group, compiled by BI Intelligence.
Read More…(report)
Privacy and security experts: mHealth requires a new approach
mhealth news
The proliferation of mobile devices in healthcare, from smartphones and tablets to the clinical devices themselves, is forcing healthcare executives to take a new approach to privacy and security. Gone is the “security cop” approach, in which staff and employees are simply told what they can and can’t use and do. Instead, we’re seeing a “business enablement” approach, in which privacy and security concerns are woven into the workflow. The reasoning behind this, says Jim Doggett, Kaiser Permanente’s senior vice president, chief security officer and chief technology risk officer, is that cybercrime is an industry now, and the old method of “do it my way or else” won’t work any more. With new ways of delivering healthcare must come new ways of protecting it.
Xiaomi comes to India! Should local players be worried?
E27
Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi has its eyes set on India. After entering Singapore this January and creating a lot of intrigue and interest in the market there, the next step in its global expansion plan is India. And it is not surprising, to say the least! After all, India is soon going to snatch the title of the world’s second largest smartphone market after China. According to industry studies, India’s smartphone-owning population is expected to more than double in 2014, reaching from 156 million to 364 million people from a population of 1.2 billion.
Global News Round-up – These articles are not written by MEF and do not represent any views of individuals, members or the organisation.
