Each week the MEF team curates mobile stories from around the world. Essential news you may have missed, the latest market insight & data nuggets, the Global Mobile News Round-up offers an instant international mobile content and commerce snapshot.
 Global News Stories
Periscope, Twitter’s answer to Meerkat-style live streaming, is now available
The Verge
Live-streaming apps are the thirstiest of all media. A Facebook post wants a like, a tweet begs for favs, and a snap means little without a response. But for sheer drop-everything, look-at-me arrogance, nothing beats the push notification that says “LIVE NOW.” I’m doing literally anything, the notification says. Watch now, or you’ll miss out forever.
The surprise emergence of Meerkat as a social phenomenon this year has been accompanied by a frequent complaint: the links are usually dead by the time you click them. All that thirst, and it’s totally unslaked. But even as the app began to be discovered by celebrities and other high-profile users, Twitter employees began shouting that a better solution was on the horizon: Periscope, an app the company acquired in January for a reported $100 million. Periscope, they said, was more than a way to stream yourself live: it’s also a way to play those streams back.
Google Working on Project to Let You Receive and Pay Bills Directly Inside Gmail
re/code
Google’s mission to organize the world’s information is now targeting your physical mailbox.
The company is currently working on a project that will allow Gmail users to more easily receive bills in their email inbox instead of their mailbox. Called Pony Express, the service also is designed to let people pay their bills within Gmail, rather than having to go to a telecom or utility company’s website to complete a payment.
Mobile money market to be worth $78 billion by 2019 – report
Telecoms.com
The global mobile money market will be worth $78 billion by 2019, according to research by MarketsandMarkets. The report, titled Mobile Money Market- Global Forecast to 2019, claimed the market will grow at an annual compound growth rate (CAGR) of 44.6% from last year’s total of $12.34 billion.
The research firm reckons the Middle East and Africa region is the biggest market for mobile money services. In Africa in particular there are large numbers of people who have no access to traditional banking services, and the mobile payments market is growing fast along mobile phone adoption.  But the report said it expects increased traction for mobile money services also in the APAC and North American regions within the next five years.
Philippines moves up to become 3rd largest smartphone market in Southeast Asia
Tech in Asia
In a milestone for smartphone growth in the Philippines, the nation is now the third largest market for smartphones in Southeast Asia. Jerome Dominguez, market analyst at IDC in the Philippines, tells Tech in Asia that the Philippines overtook Vietnam in 2014, which now drops to fourth. Indonesia is first, while Thailand is second.
This is thanks to the growing adoption of smartphones by consumers. According to IDC, a total of 26.8 million mobile phones were shipped to the Philippines in 2014. The ratio of smartphones increased to 47 percent in 2014, up from 24 percent in 2013.
Wearables are the next smartphones, says Telstra
The Age
If you ever had any doubt about the significance of the latest buzz phrase in tech – the “internet of things” – here’s some food for thought.
In as little as five years, internet-enabled devices such as smart wearables and appliances will be chewing up more data on Telstra’s mobile and broadband networks than people using the web will, according to Telstra’s chief technology officer, Vish Nandlall.
“Wearables are really the next smartphone,” he told Fairfax Media, describing the next five to 10 years as a “Cambrian explosion” in connected devices.
“I think the curve starts to bend around probably 2020 leading into 2025.
Health and fitness wearables spending grows, but standards and privacy worries remain
Zdnet
Two of the biggest able sectors, fitness and healthcare, will grow by 600 percent to $2bn in 2019, according to Juniper Research.
Wearables threaten to disrupt a wide range of markets and a variety of companies are trying to get a foothold in what should be a lucrative area.
The Juniper report, Smart Wireless Devices, argues that connected healthcare devices and the data they generate will offer substantial benefits to both doctors and users of wearable devices, but also warns that “deployments will initially be constrained by inconsistent regulation, alongside continued privacy concerns surrounding the sharing and security of personal data”.
Here is everything Facebook just announced
Business Insider
At today’s Facebook F8 event in San Francisco, Mark Zuckerberg and other folks on the team announced a bunch of new features, most of which were leaked ahead of time.
This is a conference for developers, so the announcements were pretty geeky, but the biggest deal was probably the ability for people to build apps that integrate directly into Facebook Messenger.
General Election 2015: UK Vote App Could Be The Key To Getting Young People To Vote
Huffington Post
With the UK general election just around the corner, it seems as though young people couldn’t care less. Many are not registered to vote, many are unaware of how to vote, and many simply just don’t want to.
This, however, could be about to change, thanks to the development of a new App which aims to keep voters up to date with the latest UK polls and political campaign news.
The App, called Vote UK, is developed by Wide Angle Software, and can be dowloaded free of charge on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.
The Global Mobile Education Market is Expected to Reach US$97.3 Billion by 2020
AfricanBrains.net
The global mobile education market reached worth over US$43 billion in 2014. The market is projected to grow at a CAGR of 14% during 2014 and 2020. Africa will exhibit the highest growth rate in the world in mobile education uptake. The African mobile education market is projected to grow at a CAGR of 52% during the forecast period. North America will remain the largest market by revenue during the forecast period, while Asia will remain the second largest market.
Bellingham, WA, March 20, 2015 –(PR.com)– The factors affecting uptake of mobile learning differ from region to region, but there are some global trends that are prime factor for the uptake of mobile education or mobile learning such as the growing consumer demand for mobile education, and increasing tablet adoption due to availability of affordable range of tablets.
A primer on mHealth app regulations
mHealth News
Described as “the convergence of the digital and genetics revolutions with health and healthcare,” digital health captured over $4 billion in venture capital investment in 2014. A key component of this emerging field is consumer engagement. And given the rate of smartphone adoption, it’s no surprise that healthcare organizations are significantly investing in consumer-facing mobile applications.
If current trends continue, 65 percent of transactions between healthcare organizations and consumers will be mobile within the next few years. And we can expect to see apps become more sophisticated, evolving from health and fitness trackers to everything from gaming platforms that encourage patients to adhere to their prescriptions to photoplethysmography apps (heart rate monitors) or apps for diagnosing an interesting looking rash.
Global News Round-up –Â These articles are not written by MEF and do not represent any views of individuals, members or the organisation.
