Find out the week’s top mobile stories from around the world. Stories this week include… Google’s ChatGPT rival launches in Europe and Brazil, Why the Early Success of Threads May Crash Into Reality, ban on sales of cellular location data could break important privacy precedent in US and much more…
Bard: Google’s ChatGPT rival launches in Europe and Brazil
BBC
Google’s parent company Alphabet is rolling out its artificial intelligence chatbot Bard in Europe and Brazil.
It is the product’s biggest expansion since its March launch in the US and the UK and heats up the rivalry with Microsoft’s ChatGPT.
Both are examples of generative AI that can respond to questions in a human-like way.
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Why the Early Success of Threads May Crash Into Reality
New York Times
A big tech company with billions of users introduces a new social network. Leveraging the popularity and scale of its existing products, the company intends to make the new social platform a success. In doing so, it also plans to squash a leading competitor’s app.
If this sounds like Instagram’s new Threads app and its push against its rival Twitter, think again. The year was 2011 and Google had just rolled out a social network called Google+, which was aimed as its “Facebook killer.” Google thrust the new site in front of many of its users who relied on its search and other products, expanding Google+ to more than 90 million users within the first year.
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Ban on sales of cellular location data could break important privacy precedent in US
Apple Insider
Buying and selling mobile phone location data is rampant, and it has spawned a billion-dollar industry, but legislatures in Massachusetts are looking for a near-total ban on the practice.
Selling location data harvested from personal devices like iPhones happens in various ways, but it’s mainly done through third-party apps. In 2022, for example, a self-described “family-safety platform” called Life360 stopped selling precise location data after it was discovered they sold that information to brokers.
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Musk aims to get a grip on reality using AI
Mobile World Live
Eccentric billionaire Elon Musk became the latest player to press into the increasingly crowded AI space with the formation of start-up xAI, a move revealed hours before Google announced a major expansion of its Bard chatbot.
Musk unveiled the formation of xAI on Twitter yesterday with little detail on what the company will focus on.
The only clue given was to state it would seek to “understand reality”.
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What Does Prime Day’s Record Sales Mean For Retail In 2023?
Forbes
Early numbers show that Amazon’s two-day Prime Day extravaganza was a record-setting success. But what does that mean for the rest of retail as it struggles through economic challenges?
According to Adobe Analytics data, customers spent $6.4 billion on the first day of Prime Day—nearly 6% more than last year. That single day represents the biggest e-commerce day so far in 2023. Aside from overall records, Prime Day also brought significant increases to recent spending on appliances, toys, and apparel. That boost could be good news, especially as consumer spending has declined in recent months and consumers remain cautious.
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How an MNO becomes a leader in hyperscale IoT connectivity
Vanilla Plus
We can all agree that the Internet of Things (IoT) is a tremendous opportunity for mobile network operators (MNOs). For many, IoT is also a necessity to achieve return-on-investment (ROI) on the future and current spending on 5G.
However, the IoT business is very different from selling smartphone subscriptions. Mobile operators are local by nature, while IoT product manufacturers are global. Traditional subscriber services are built for a few streamlined customer types, with policies that rarely need to be changed.
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Unleashing The Power Of Women In The Billion Dollar Mobile Gaming Sector
Forbes
The mobile games market continues to grow at speed. Figures from Statista indicate that revenue in this sector is projected to reach US$286 billion by 2023. The data firm also indicates that the number of users is expected to reach 2.3 billion by 2027.
This is an industry with everything to play for. And this is the year for female players not just to level up but perhaps even reach the top score. Whilst many will perceive the archetypal gamer to be a younger male, this hyper-growth sector demonstrates the most radical gender rebalancing of any global industry.
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Germany kicks off EU digital ID, authentication and trust trial
Mobile Europe
Plus mobile contract and SIM ID pilots to go ahead in Germany, Austria, France, Poland, Greece, the Netherlands and Ukraine. After recently adopting electronic identification, authentication and trust services (eIDAS) regulation Germany’s three main mobile operators are to participate in field trials.
Deutsche Telekom (DT), O2 Telefónica and VodafoneDeutschland will run trials to “further develop digital-ID functions and standardise them across the European Union [EU]…to provide citizens with a secure digital identity,” according to this press release, issued by DT.
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Apps VS Mobile Games: Who came out on top in H1 2023
Pocket Gamer
The first half of 2023 has given reason to be optimistic about consumer spending on mobile, to the relief of many after the 12 percent fall in consumer spending last year.
The decline disproportionately affected the top games’ performances, with many titles having made $10 million less or worse compared to 2021. In fact, 2022 was the first year since mobile gaming began wherein consumer spend growth fell.
The latest Data.ai report shows a change.
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