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

This week… acquisitions among gaming’s biggest players, phone news from Apple and Google, and new consumer privacy issues in the UK.

UK unveils powers to spy on Web use, raising privacy fears

Reuters

Britain unveiled plans on Wednesday for sweeping new surveillance powers, including the right to find out which websites people visit, measures ministers say are vital to keep the country safe but which critics denounce as an assault on freedoms.

Across the West, debate about how to protect privacy while helping agencies operate in the digital age has raged since former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden leaked details of mass surveillance by British and U.S. spies in 2013.

Experts say part of the new British bill goes beyond the powers available to security services in the United States.

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Two in five people in Brazil would rather give up electricity and water than their device, according to a recent survey

eMarketer

Smartphones make life better and easier by providing users with instant access to the wealth of information on the internet at their fingertips, anytime, anyplace. Or do they? In Brazil, as in so many markets around the world, many users seem unable to put their devices down.

September 2015 research from Expertise and Opinion Box found that 70.0% of smartphone users in Brazil used their devices more than they should. More than half said it made them nervous and anxious when their battery was draining.

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Activision Blizzard acquires Candy Crush maker King Digital Entertainment for $5.9 billion

TechCrunch

Well here’s a blockbuster acquisition for you. Gaming mothership Activision Blizzard has entered into an agreement to acquire King.com, maker of the wildly popular game Candy Crush and probably other games that I have nor ever will play. Mobile. Games. It’s all of the hot things.

Oh, and King says it had 474 million monthly active users in the third quarter this year. So there’s that. King went public in 2014.

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A new Android One phone will launch in India soon

The Verge

Android One was supposed to give phone manufacturers an easy way to create good, low-cost Android phones, but after its unveiling last year, the program basically went nowhere. Now, The Wall Street Journal says that Google is taking another shot at it, reworking the requirements for phone makers to get them on board. The results will be a new Android One phone from Lava in the next few months — the first new Android One device in India since its initial run — and Google is certainly hoping that additional phones will follow.

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Apple to launch a smaller iPhone that “resembles an upgraded 5S, says analyst

Business Insider

Apple could launch an all-metal, 4-inch iPhone alongside the iPhone 7, according to KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.

The phone would “resemble an upgraded iPhone 5S” with an A9 processor (the same as in the iPhone 6S) but no 3D Touch, the headline feature of the latest handsets. This would help differentiate the lineup, according to Kuo.

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Facebook now makes 78% of its ad revenue on mobile

Venture Beat

It wasn’t that many years ago that Facebook had its aha moment — when it realized that mobile was the way forward for advertising.

Flash forward to today, and mobile advertising makes up 78 percent of the social network’s total advertising revenue. Advertising makes up almost all of Facebook’s income.

Facebook reported $3.4 billion in mobile advertising revenue, while total advertising (desktop included) came to $4.3 billion.

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Asia leads the world in tech investment growth

Tech in Asia

Follow the money and it’ll lead you to Asia. It’s where all the action is happening.

Asia and the Pacific saw US$8.59 billion worth of tech investment deals in the third quarter, a whopping 188 percent growth from US$2.98 billion the same quarter of 2014, Right Click Capital’s Internet DealBook shows. Those deals included all funding stages – seed to late-stage – as well as acquisitions.

The region certainly bucks the trend worldwide. Although deals in other parts of the world were still being done, the numbers are just gloomy

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US mobile ad revenues to hit $62 billion by 2020

Mobile Marketing Magazine

Mobile ad revenues in the US will grow to $62bn (£40bn) by 2020, according to a BIA/Kelsey report, growing from $23bn this year at a CAGR of 21.9 per cent.

This figure includes search, display, SMS, video and native social ads on smartphone alone – BIA/Kelsey doesn’t consider tablets to be a true mobile device when it comes to advertising.

Native social, like newsfeed ads on Facebook, is the single fastest growing mobile ad format, and will pull market share from both search and display in the coming years.

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India approaching 1 billion mobile subscribers

RCR Wireless News

According to a report by Peter Evans, senior analyst Asia at BuddeComm, the world’s second largest country had 970 million subscribers as of March 2015.

Currently 77% of India’s population has access to mobile technology. That number is expected to reach 100% by 2020. In 2014, mobile technology brought in approximately $115 billion in value-added and made up 5.5% of India’s overall gross domestic product. The rollout of “4G” networks and technologies is a driving force behind the expected growth. Evans says the entrance of Reliance Jio, a new operator in the country, increased competition in an already hotly competitive market.

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MEF