Find out the week’s top mobile stories from around the world.
This week.. iOS 14’s big privacy change gets postponed, India bans 118 more Chinese mobile apps, mobile phone location data tallies with Covid-19 infection rates and much more…
Facebook complains, Apple responds: iOS 14’s big privacy change gets postponed
Ars Technica
Apple has postponed full enforcement of a feature of its upcoming iOS 14 software for iPhones that would require app developers to request users’ permission to track them across apps for advertising purposes. This announcement comes in the wake of a public complaint from Facebook that the privacy policy could negatively impact the ad market in Apple’s ecosystem.
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India bans 118 more Chinese mobile apps including PUBG Mobile over privacy concerns
Financial Express
The government of India has banned 118 more Chinese apps including PUBG Mobile and PUBG Mobile Lite over privacy concerns, news agency ANI has reported. The 118 Chinese apps have been banned for allegedly engaging in activities which are prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of state and public order.
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With its exponentially faster speeds, 5G opens up a world of marketing opportunities
Tech In Asia
“What is 5G?” This has become one of the most commonly asked questions in consumer tech today as the new-generation network quickly expands in deployment and adoption.
In a nutshell, 5G is the fifth-generation technology standard for cellular/telecom infrastructures. It offers 10x the improvement over its 4G predecessor in areas such as peak speed, latency, and connectivity.
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Mobile phone location data tallies with Covid-19 infection rates, study finds
E&T
Researchers have tied a decline in workplace mobile phone activity with a significantly lower rate of Covid-19 infections, putting some statistical clout behind the effectiveness of stay-at-home orders.
The team from the University of Pennsylvania believe the patterns they saw in publicly available mobile phone location data could be used to better estimate growth rates for Covid-19 in the future and inform decision making about when it is appropriate to instigate localised shutdowns.
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We’re entering the AI twilight zone between narrow and general AI
Venture Beat
With recent advances, the tech industry is leaving the confines of narrow artificial intelligence (AI) and entering a twilight zone, an ill-defined area between narrow and general AI.
To date, all the capabilities attributed to machine learning and AI have been in the category of narrow AI. No matter how sophisticated – from insurance rating to fraud detection to manufacturing quality control and aerial dogfights or even aiding with nuclear fission research – each algorithm has only been able to meet a single purpose. This means a couple of things: 1) an algorithm designed to do one thing (say, identify objects) cannot be used for anything else
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US operators and vendors gather to plot course for 6G mobile
Capacity Media
AT&T and Verizon as well as major vendors and the US regulator are to hold one of the industry’s first big conferences to map the way to the sixth generation of mobile.
The 6G symposium is being organised by mobile technology research and development company InterDigital.
Doug Castor, senior director at the R&D organisation, said: “A collaborative, yet competitive, ecosystem of diverse innovation is crucial for driving future wireless technologies like 6G. The goal of the symposium is to spark a discussion that features key players in the space and begin the process of defining a clear vision for 6G.”
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11 Myths About Cellular IoT Design
Electronic Design
Internet of Things (IoT) implementations typically utilize low-power wireless technologies like Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and LoRa for connectivity, enabling wireless devices like sensors to remain in the field for extended periods of time on a single battery charge. The low operational costs of those wireless technologies have also made them ideal for IoT, where the sheer number of devices involved in deployments make data-transfer costs important to manage.
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Facebook Watch Tops 1.25 Billion Monthly Viewers, Continuing to Ramp Up Challenge to YouTube
Variety
Facebook Watch, the social giant’s two-year-old video streaming platform, has become a massive destination — now attracting over 1.25 billion users each month, the company claims.
The growth of Facebook’s aggregate global video audience, which is tuning in to live events, original shows, sports, news, music videos and user-generated content, is an indicator that it’s becoming an increasingly credible rival to YouTube, which says it has north of 2 billion logged-in visitors per month.
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Consoles, Mobile, and PCs Have Merged: The Gaming Singularity Is Here
PC Mag
Nothing screams dystopia more than two massive corporations conscripting their massive audiences into a petty legal war. No viewer should care which studio controls which Marvel movie rights. No consumer should take a side in the ongoing war between Apple and Epic Games over Fortnite direct payments. And yet here we are, sighing while Epic adds Marvel characters to Fortnite to rub iOS players’ noses in what they are missing due to Apple’s stubbornness. #FreeFortnite.
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