Find out the week’s top mobile stories from around the world.
This week.. Facebook Nears $650 Million Settlement Over Biometric Privacy, Google plans big Chrome update to reduce mobile data, Mobile Ad Tech Companies Try To Adapt To Likely Loss Of Apple’s IDFA and much more.
Facebook Nears $650 Million Settlement Over Biometric Privacy
Media Post
The judge overseeing a privacy lawsuit against Facebook over “faceprints” signaled Thursday he’s inclined to approve a settlement requiring the company to pay a record-breaking $650 million. Facebook previously agreed to shell out $550 million to resolve claims that it violated an Illinois privacy law by compiling a database of people’s facial templates. That amount would have allowed Illinois residents whose facial templates were stored by Facebook to receive between $150 and $300 each.
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Google is planning a big Chrome update to help you use less mobile data
TechRadar
Google is about to give Android users greater control over the files they download using Chrome. At the moment download options are very limited, meaning that many people turn to dedicated download managers – but soon this will no longer be necessary.
Currently available as an experimental feature, Download Later will give you new download scheduling option. As well as giving you the option of specifying a date and time to download a file, the feature also lets you save your data allowances by opting to download a file when you’re connected to Wi-Fi.
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Mobile Ad Tech Companies Try To Adapt To Likely Loss Of Apple’s IDFA
Ad Exchanger
Companies that rely on Apple’s proprietary ad ID are seeking solutions for a post-IDFA world.
Although Apple didn’t actually kill it, the IDFA will become opt-in for consumers starting with iOS 14 in September. Without user permission, IDFA tracking will be zeroed out, just like when Limit Ad Tracking is enabled. Some are predicting opt-in rates as low as 5%.
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Deep Dive: How The COVID-19 Pandemic Is Shifting Latin America’s Open Banking Plans
PYMNTS
Open banking has been picking up steam in Latin America for more than two years. Regulators in Mexico passed a law governing FinTechs in March 2018, just two months after PSD2 went into effect in the European Union, and others in the region have since followed suit. Brazilian lawmakers have been developing open banking plans since 2019, for example, outlining rough guidelines to be enacted late this year.
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Nintendo Isn’t Finished Making Mobile Games After All
Screen Rant
Despite what has seemed to be a movement away from mobile games, Nintendo has said that its isn’t quite finished with the mobile app scene yet. In their annual report for 2020, Nintendo states that it is still prepared to devote time and resources to the smartphone platform for the foreseeable future.
In the company’s business overview section of the annual report, Nintendo sets out their long-term business strategy which focuses on the expansion of their IP beyond its core video game console work.
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Alipay parent unveils AntChain as new blockchain brand
Mobile Payments Today
Ant Group, the parent firm of mobile wallet Alipay, has unveiled a new brand identity for its blockchain-based technology called AntChain. The brand will also include the group’s artificial intelligence, IoT and secure computation technologies.
AntChain is used in a number of payments-related use cases, including processing health insurance claims, cross-border money transfers, charitable payments and global shipping.
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BT Accelerates the Next Phase of UK’s First Live 5G Private Network for Industry 4.0 and Smart Manufacturing
IoT Business
BT today announced that it is working with the Worcestershire 5G Testbed (W5G) as its lead technology partner to accelerate its vision of smart manufacturing delivered through the UK’s first live 5G factory installation.
Building on its role in the development of the W5G Testbed over the last two years, BT is providing its expertise across 5G Private Networks, wearable devices, IoT, data analytics and mobile edge computing. The combination of these technologies will make intelligent, dynamic and fully automated manufacturing processes a reality.
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Amazon launches Alexa Conversations in beta, lets developers deep-link skills to mobile apps
VentureBeat
Today during Alexa Live, a virtual event for Alexa vendors and developer partners, Amazon unveiled tools and resources designed to enable new Alexa voice app experiences. Among others, the company rolled out deep neural networks aimed at making Alexa natural language understanding more accurate for custom apps, as well as an API that allows the use of web technologies to build gaming apps for select Alexa devices. Amazon also launched Alexa Conversations in beta, a deep learning-based way to help developers create more natural-feeling apps with fewer lines of code. And it debuted a new service in preview — Alexa for Apps — that lets Alexa apps trigger actions like searches within smartphone apps.
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Why Mobile Sports Betting Is Growing Despite Regulatory Hurdles
Tech Story
Sports wagering across the globe is undoubtedly growing, despite the unwillingness of some countries to enable sporting activities wagering to flourish in their jurisdictions. Substantial progress has been made, nonetheless, even if it could take years before this field is around the world accepted.
Still, while the issue of international acceptance continues, the field has been booming online. Earlier today, the Camelot Group, the driver of the National Lotto in the UK, reported ₤ 1 billion (regarding $1.3 billion) in digital sales across the initial fifty percent of 2019. This is the very first time in its decade-long history that it will be hitting this threshold.
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