Vodafone Three deal to create UK’s largest mobile firm

BBC

A deal to create the UK’s biggest mobile phone operator has been struck by Vodafone and the owner of Three UK.
The firms plan to merge their UK-based operations, giving them around 27 million customers and making it the biggest mobile network in the UK.
The deal is yet to be approved by regulators, which will look at whether it will push up customer prices.

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Using digital identity to fight financial crime

The Paypers

Financial crime is a very complex topic. Criminals are clever, devious, and unpredictable. Whatever controls organisations put in place, criminals will find the weak spot and seek to exploit it for their own nefarious gain.

Identity sits at the heart of many crimes – criminals pretending to be someone else (‘impersonation’), creating fictitious identities (‘synthetic identity’), finding ways to assume the identity of normally law-abiding citizens (‘identity theft’) – as well as coercing naive or vulnerable people (‘mules’) to use their legitimate identities to unwittingly facilitate criminal activity.

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Global Cellular IoT Connections to Cross 6 Billion in 2030

Counterpoint

Global cellular IoT connections grew strongly at 29% YoY to reach 2.7 billion in 2022, according to Counterpoint’s latest Global Cellular IoT Connections Tracker report. They are expected to grow at a CAGR of 10.8% to reach an installed base of over 6 billion by 2030. China held more than two-thirds of total cellular IoT connections in 2022, followed by Europe and North America.

Amid the challenges faced by various industries, such as inflation, macroeconomic headwinds and supply chain constraints, the cellular IoT market has experienced remarkable growth fuelled by the digital transformation initiatives undertaken by various industry applications like smart meters, automobiles and asset tracking in particular. Cellular IoT connectivity has played a significant role in enhancing productivity, streamlining operations, minimizing downtime, automating processes and generating cost savings for industries. The COVID-19 outbreak unexpectedly proved beneficial for enterprise IoT players, accelerating their digital transformation efforts.

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Where Apple’s Vision Pro Leaves Meta

CMS Wire

The mood within Meta was defiant, if a bit uneasy. After spending years screaming — howling — that mixed reality was the next great computing platform, the company watched as Apple, its chief antagonist, entered the fray with a leading device last week. Apple’s big push into the space was validating for Meta, a signal it wasn’t that crazy for being so bullish on the metaverse, but it instantly changed its role.

Instead of being the only major player with a mixed reality consumer device, Meta will now settle into a position akin to Android’s on mobile. In this case, Meta started first, with plenty of developer relationships in hand. But unlike Android, it doesn’t offer an operating system to all device manufacturers, something that may have to change.

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AT&T starts using Google’s Jibe platform for RCS messages

Engadget

AT&T has supported RCS messaging on Android phones since 2021. But if you ask some of the carrier’s customers, the experience hasn’t always been great, with interoperability between different devices sometimes not working as expected. That’s about to change. Over the weekend, Hiroshi Lockheimer, Google’s senior vice president of Android, tweeted (via Android Police) that AT&T is migrating its RCS backend to Google’s own Jibe platform. Per Lockheimer, the change means AT&T customers will get the latest RCS features “instantly.” It should also resolve any lingering interoperability issues between AT&T phones and devices on different networks.

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Meta leaks reveal Twitter competitor, AI push

Mobile World Live

Media reports emanating from a staff meeting at Meta Platforms revealed the company plans to release a competitor to Twitter in the form of a standalone app based on Instagram, and outlined AI systems it is currently working on.

Publications including The Verge and The Wall Street Journal claimed Meta Platforms planned to release what chief product officer Chris Cox described as its response to Twitter.

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Mobile Payments and the Future of Cashless Transactions in Emerging Markets

Telemedia Online

Mobile payments have emerged as a transformative force in the financial landscape, revolutionizing the way individuals and businesses conduct transactions. In emerging markets, where access to traditional banking services is limited, mobile payments offer unprecedented opportunities for financial inclusion.

This article explores the role of mobile payments in the future of cashless transactions in emerging markets, highlighting their impact on economic growth, convenience, and the potential for transforming the lending landscape.

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EU moves towards a law to govern the use of AI

Mobile Marketing Magazine

The European Parliament has taken the first steps towards passing a law governing the use of artificial intelligence (AI). The law would ensure that AI developed and used in Europe is fully in line with EU rights and values, including human oversight, safety, privacy, transparency, non-discrimination and social and environmental wellbeing. 499 MEPs voted in favour of adopting the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Act, with 28 against and 93 abstentions.

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Mobile game ads are weird, misleading — and effective

Katc

If you’ve been anywhere online without an adblocker recently, you’ve probably seen ads like this. They’re shocking, often racy, and generally frustrating — and they have very little to do with the actual games they’re supposed to be advertising.

Mobile games, designed specifically for phones and tablets, are a massive part of the video game industry — played by over 2 billion (yes, billion) people worldwide. But that huge global market is propelled by misleading and provocative ad campaigns, which seem more focused on drawing a reaction than actually convincing people to play their game.

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