Find out the week’s top mobile stories from around the world.
This week.. Tim Cook calls on FTC to let consumers track and delete their personal data, Google Fi gets support for RCS Chat, Cisco targets mobile enterprise apps with geolocation technology and much more.
Tim Cook calls on FTC to let consumers track and delete their personal data
The Verge
Apple CEO Tim Cook has called on the US government to introduce new tools to help users control the online data collected about their lives. Writing in an op-ed for Time magazine, Cook said consumers should have the power to “delete their data on demand, freely, easily and online, once and for all.”
In the column Cook inveighed against what he called the “shadow economy” of data brokers: companies that collect and sell personal data generated by digital tracking.
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FCC’s answer to scandal of AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile US selling people’s location data: Burying its head in the ground
The Register
America’s comms watchdog, the FCC, is under fire for refusing to brief Congressional staffers on what exactly it is doing about cellular networks selling citizens’ location data to dodgy characters.
Earlier this month, the fact that mobile operators continue to sell access to their users’ real-time whereabouts to unscrupulous third parties – despite promising to stop last year – again became a topic of controversy, with senators calling for new privacy legislation.
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Google Fi is getting support for the next-gen messaging standard, RCS Chat
Digital Trends
Google Fi users are about to get much better texting. Google announced that it’s rolling out RCS Chat to the Google Fi network, meaning users will get higher resolution images and videos, read receipts, typing indicators, and more.
Chat, which was largely developed by Google, has been rolling out in a limited way to Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile customers. Considering Google had such a big hand in its development, it’s a little strange to see the standard come to Fi after many other carriers.
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Cisco targets mobile enterprise apps with geolocation technology
Network World
Cisco is rolling out a cloud-based geolocation package it expects will help customers grow mobile location services and integrate data from those services into enterprise analytics and business applications.
The package, called DNA Spaces, is comprised of Cisco’s Connected Mobile Experience (CMX) wireless suite and enterprise geolocation technology purchased from July Systems. Cisco CMX is a software engine that uses location and other intelligence gleaned from Cisco wireless infrastructure to generate analytics data and help deliver services to customers on their mobile devices.
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Crypto in Africa: South Africa gets new crypto mobile app and manifesto
Coingeek
The year has been quite active for the crypto community in Africa. Even with the current crypto prices, many believe blockchain and its technologies will be the much-needed lift to the economic position of their countries and the entire continent. More start-ups continue to emerge, and politicians are taking up these new technologies.
Political authorities in South Africa are embracing blockchain technologies. Reportedly, the president of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa has revealed the African National Congress (ANC) manifesto in preparation for the coming elections.
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Brazil’s Banking Giant Bradesco Plans Artificial Intelligence Leap
Forbes
Brazil’s second-largest private bank Bradesco will ramp up its efforts around artificial intelligence (AI) to boost sales, improve customer experience and reduce operating costs in 2019.
The bank, which has a portfolio of over 71 million customers, has been working on a platform dubbed Bradesco Artificial Intelligence (BIA) over the last four years.
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As shoppers go more mobile in 2019, Amazon, eBay and Argos could be the retail winners
Tamebay
Some 30 million UK shoppers are set to use their mobiles to shop in 2019, spending £25 billion, up 66% on 2018 – and they are going to be turning to Amazon, eBay and Argos to do it.
So suggests research by price comparison and switching service uSwitch.com, which finds that not only are shoppers increasingly picking up their mobiles to shop, but that the most popular websites for doing so are Amazon (89%), eBay (63%) and Argos (41%), because they are one-stop-shops and are easy to use.
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US, Canada mobile gaming brought in $9.37 billion in 2018
GamesIndustry.biz
The mobile gaming industry saw continued strength in 2018 in the US and Canada. 60% of Americans and Canadians play mobile games, and their spending brought the industry $9.37 billion in revenue last year.
EEDAR, in collaboration with Sensor Tower, has published the full version of the Deconstructing Mobile and Tablet Gaming 2019 report, offering further insight beyond the highlights shared earlier this week.
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Mobile Money Interoperability ended the year with 2.2m transactions
Ghana Web
Cross-network mobile money transfers were done about 2.2 million times between May and December 2018, according to figures released by the Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement Systems (GhIPSS).
This shows a continuous increase in patronage of the service. Before the introduction of mobile money interoperability in May last year, such cross-network transfers were done through the ‘token’ system.
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Study: Social video ads are key as mobile dominates millennial, Gen Z viewing
Mobile Marketer
Wibbitz’s survey is the latest research to confirm that smartphones are more important than TV for video consumption among millennials (born 1981 to 1996) and Gen Z (born 1997 to 2010), with mobile video time outpacing time spent viewing TV or reading articles.
The survey follows other studies that show how smartphones have become the dominant channel to watch online video. Mobile’s share of online “video starts” crossed 50% for the first time last year, with mobile forecast to make up 72% of spending growth on online video advertising.
