Find out the week’s top mobile stories from around the world. Stories this week include… What You Missed From MWC 2023, The metaverse in the spotlight, Mobile Banking Trojans Surge, Doubling in Volume and much more…
What You Missed From MWC 2023
Gizmodo
There was no shortage of weird and exciting stuff at Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona this week, from Motorola’s rolling smartphone display to OnePlus’s pulsating liquid cooling technology.
The Android smartphone makers were in full of force at the international trade show. We learned of more folding devices coming to market and gawked at concepts that will likely never see the light of day. We also caught a glimpse at the current trends unfolding in the smartphone world, like better repairability and fast battery charging.
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Biden administration wants to hold companies liable for bad cybersecurity
Ars Technica
The Biden administration on Thursday pushed for new mandatory regulations and liabilities to be imposed on software makers and service providers in an attempt to shift the burden of defending US cyberspace away from small organizations and individuals.
“The most capable and best-positioned actors in cyberspace must be better stewards of the digital ecosystem,” administration officials wrote in a highly anticipated documenting an updated National Cybersecurity Strategy. “Today, end users bear too great a burden for mitigating cyber risks. Individuals, small businesses, state and local governments, and infrastructure operators have limited resources and competing priorities, yet these actors’ choices can have a significant impact on our national cybersecurity.”
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Mobile World Congress 2023: The metaverse in the spotlight despite industry’s doubts over its future
Euronews
South Korean company SK Telecom’s air taxi mockup was one of the eye-catching demonstrations at the 2023 Mobile World Congress (MWC), the world’s biggest telecom industry trade show.
Tech companies and wireless carriers at this week’s expo in Barcelona displayed advancements to connect people and businesses online, increasingly in new virtual reality worlds dubbed the metaverse.
Visitor Mark Varahona says he felt woozy after trying the flight experience but is still considering buying a virtual reality headset, the hardware needed to enter any immersive digital universe.
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Mobile Banking Trojans Surge, Doubling in Volume
Dark Reading
Nearly 200,000 new mobile banking Trojans emerged in 2022 — a 100% increase from the year before and the biggest acceleration of mobile malware development seen in the last six years.
That’s according to Kaspersky’s “Mobile Threats in 2022” report, which also detailed that the firm detected 1.6 million installers for mobile malware within its telemetry during the year. That’s actually a decline in threat activity (down from 3.5 million in 2021 and 5.7 million in 2020), even as malware creation surges ahead.
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Console Connect launches IoT connectivity solution that bypasses the internet
Mobile Marketing Magazine
Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) platform, Console Connect, has launched what it says is the world’s first private connectivity solution to help businesses dynamically and securely route traffic directly between devices and clouds globally, without traversing the public internet.
With IoT devices and traffic becoming increasingly vulnerable to network attacks, Edge SIM addresses the enterprise need for secure access between devices and clouds on a global scale, ensuring mobile traffic is not exposed to the public internet.
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Xbox head Phil Spencer talks AI, Activision Blizzard, and mobile games in new interview
Windows Central
Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer isn’t afraid to get in front of a camera or sit down for an interview, and he recently did just that with Charleyy Hodson of Xbox On. The interview runs for nearly 23 minutes, and sees the dynamic duo discuss the present and future of Xbox and video games in general. Xbox’s imminent plans, Call of Duty and the ongoing Activision Blizzard acquisition, mobile gaming, and AI in video games are all topics that were discussed.
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Mobile, measurement, and the pivot to privacy
Exchange Wire
As privacy regulations have tightened, the landscape of mobile advertising has faced significant overhaul. Alongside the deprecation of third-party cookies, the implementation of Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT) framework has created a fresh challenge for mobile advertisers.
Not only has the framework drastically reduced the number of mobile users advertisers can target, it has fundamentally shifted the power dynamic between advertisers and consumers. Now, consumers have more control than ever over how they are served targeted ads. Although this power shift is certainly a welcome one from consumers, and crucial for advertisers to gain informed consent to deliver personalised ads, it means that the mobile advertisers must adapt to privacy-centred practices to keep up. And with reports that Google is now beta-testing its Privacy Sandbox, an emulation of Apple’s ATT for Android devices, advertisers must keep pace or risk falling behind of progress.
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Top 3 reasons why marketing teams are increasingly investing in SMS and mobile
The Drum
We’re all keen to the fact that email is one of the most reliable channels marketers have in their arsenal – and we don’t see that changing anytime soon. Yet as of late, businesses have begun looking for new ways to reach customers where they are — and that’s where SMS comes in. While SMS may not be new, its effectiveness as a communication channel between brands and customers is a fairly recent development. Not only does SMS have open and click-through rates that rival email, but it’s increasingly become an impactful way to reach and connect with both legacy and new audiences within seconds.
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2022 mobile payment-powered spending 20 times higher than in 2019
MNA
Macau’s de facto central bank says last year as many as 260 million mobile payments had been made, with some MOP26 billion (US$3.2 billion) spent – a year-on-year increase of about 40 per cent compared to a year earlier.
The considerable hike was revealed by the Monetary Authority of Macao today.
The authorities said that the ever-growing use of the digital payment method had fully served its function of facilitating the city’s economic development.
The MOP26 billion generated in 2022 through mobile payments was even 20 times higher than it was in 2019, the monetary authorities stressed.
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Intriguing Benefits of Mobile Gaming
Telemedia Online
Even though many people see video games as a total waste of time, engaging in this type of entertainment has actual benefits that you should not ignore. Obviously, playing video games is a fun pastime that can make you feel good at the moment, but the activity has numerous other perks and there is plenty of evidence out there to support such claims. Taking the time to play games on your mobile device comes with a variety of positive aspects, so let’s take a look at the most significant ones:
Nothing boosts the mood better than the feeling of victory, and that is exactly what you experience when you go through a few big milestones in your favourite game. Whether you’ve finally figured out how to pass a difficult level, or you’ve just completed an entire game, the feeling of competence is something that stays with you for the remainder of the day.
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