Meta’s growth comes to screeching halt as company projects first revenue drop

Guardian

For the first time in nearly a decade, Meta’s explosive growth has come to a halt, as the Facebook parent company forecast its first decline in revenue since it went public.

Meta, in its second-quarter earnings report on Wednesday, said it expects third-quarter revenue of between $26bn and $28.5bn – lower than the $30.52bn analysts predicted.

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Meta to keep facing Apple privacy pinch, TikTok heat for now

Reuters

Stiff competition from TikTok and Apple Inc’s (AAPL.O) privacy changes will remain a cause for concern for Facebook-owner Meta Platforms Inc (META.O) in the near term, Wall Street analysts said.

At least 16 brokerages cut their price targets on Meta after the company reported its first-ever quarterly revenue drop on Wednesday, highlighting challenges faced by U.S. companies from a stronger dollar and worries of an impending recession.

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Billing and Charging Evolution (BCE): Bringing Out the Full Value of the 5G IoT Roaming

The Fast Mode

The complexity of mobile communications has increased exponentially as the digital generations have advanced. Beginning as infrastructure and ecosystem that managed only voice and simple messaging in the first days of GSM, today’s networks present a very different picture. With the bandwidth, speed and latency of 5G networks, the sophistication, flexibility and power of digital communications have entered a new era. Everywhere you look, there are predictions of billions of connections, endless new business cases, and transformational approaches to communications and processes.

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Brazil sees spike in sales of 5G-enabled smartphones

ZDNet

Brazilian retailers have seen a sharp increase in sales of 5G-enabled smartphones, according to new data from consulting firm GfK.

Between January and May, over 1.8 million smartphones compatible with the 5th-generation mobile technology were sold, which equates to 12,5% of all smartphones sold during the period. This is a 230% boost in relation to the same period in 2021.

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TikTok begins pilot testing HTML5 mini-games with a handful of partners

Tech Crunch

TikTok wants to determine its users’ appetite for mobile gaming with the launch of “mini-games” that can be played inside the social video app and discovered through creators’ videos. TechCrunch learned and has now confirmed TikTok’s new gaming pilot quietly launched just weeks ago with a variety of new partners, including game developers Vodoo, Nitro Games, FRVR, Aim Lab and Lotem.

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30 billion IoT devices by 2027 … and why 1 in 12 will rely on satellite connectivity

Cape Business News

Dr Dawie de Wet (Pr. Eng. M.Sc. Eng.) – Group CEO of Q-KON and Chief Engineer for Twoobii, a southern African supported satellite broadband service.

THE Ericsson 2021 Mobility Report forecasts that by 2027 there will be over 30 billion Internet of Things (IoT) connected devices in use globally. Previously, Ericsson forecast 20bn devices for 2023, and the actual number in 2021 was 14.4bn, showing that their growth projections are broadly accurate. Between 2021 and 2027, connected IoT devices are expected to increase at a CAGR of 13%, driven by new use cases and increased affordability, plus usual bell curve models of innovation adoption.

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Surprise! The metaverse is going to suck for privacy

The Register

More thought – or at least some thought – needs to be given to privacy protection in the promised metaverse of connected 3D virtual-reality worlds, experts have concluded.

In a paper distributed via ArXiv, titled “Exploring the Unprecedented Privacy Risks of the Metaverse,” boffins at UC Berkeley in the US and the Technical University of Munich in Germany play-tested an “escape room” virtual reality (VR) game to better understand just how much data a potential attacker could access.

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A mobile-led risk-based approach is crucial to achieving financial inclusion in Africa (By Sandy Rheeder)

African Business

Fintechs that are innovating, operating and growing throughout Africa have moved on from the broad academic concept of financial inclusion to the practical onboarding and walking hand in hand with underserved people along a financial journey.

The first port of call is understanding that serving the underserved is not just about technology. It’s about the human element of dealing with people that are not part of the mainstream financial system; it’s about reaching them and engaging with them where they are and when they need you. Repeat use of a product or service happens when you create products that serve real customer needs.

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If indie games are underreported, mobile games must be invisible | Opinion

Games Industry Biz

If you’re a regular Twitter user and keep up to date with gaming news on the platform, you’ll be very aware of the gaming Twitter discourse that happens at least once a month.

At the end of May, indie game coverage (or the lack thereof) was the subject of discourse. The replies from those sharing their thoughts paint a pretty complicated picture, from nuances around the SEO value of indie game coverage to some indie studios lacking the PR resources to get their times out there.

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