Cash is still king across most of Latin America. A lack of trust in banks and a low rate of financial inclusion, largely stemming from the region’s history of economic volatility and uncertainty, mean that 85 percent of transactions are still cash-based. The tide is beginning to turn, however. Acknowledging the potential of mobile as…
Apple Watch May Spot Heart Problem but More Research Needed
A huge study suggests the Apple Watch can detect a worrisome irregular heartbeat at least sometimes — but experts say more work is needed to tell if using wearable technology to screen for heart problems really helps. More than 419,000 Apple Watch users signed up for the unusual study, making it the largest ever to…
Facebook’s Vision of Future? Looks Like Chinese App WeChat
LONDON (AP) — Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is taking the social media company in a new direction by focusing on messaging. Chinese tech giant Tencent got there years ago with its app WeChat. Zuckerberg outlined his vision to give people ways to communicate privately, by stitching together Facebook’s various services so users can contact each…
iPhone Sales are Falling, and Apple’s App Fees Might Be Next
Last year, every time someone paid $11 for Netflix through an iPhone app, Apple pocketed as much as $3.30. Multiply that by every charge made through iPhone apps and you can see why Netflix and other companies are fed up about what they consider Apple’s unfair market power. Late last year, Netflix rebelled against Apple’s…
Congress Needs to Raise the Curtain on Data Use with Straightforward Privacy Rules
Whether you can’t remember a world without internet or you are still trying to navigate the benefits of a connected world, you need to know what happens behind the scenes when you access your favorite internet on-ramp. So if you use or have ever used mobile games, search engines, social media platforms, news, sports, or…
Tuesdays with Roger: Tapping into the Visual Cloud
On this week’s episode of Tuesdays with Roger, Recon Analytics’ Roger Entner and Intel’s Lynn Comp, VP and GM of Visual Cloud Network Platforms, discuss new opportunities and applications around the visual cloud and edge computing. Follow Roger on Twitter at @RogerEntner for more insights throughout the week, and stay up to date on the latest industry…
MobiledgeX Powers Up Public Mobile Edge Network with Deutsche Telekom
MobiledgeX is powering the world’s first public mobile edge network with the edge computing company’s founder Deutsche Telekom in Germany. MobiledgeX’s Edge-Cloud R1.0, released Tuesday, connects mobile users to application cloud containers built by aggregating existing operator network resources, the company said. With the solution, developers globally now have access to deploy application backend close…
Berlin to Get Single Travel App for Public, Private Services
Travelers in Berlin will soon be able to use a single app to switch seamlessly between public transport, rental bikes, car-sharing and taxis without signing up for each service individually, officials said Monday. Lithuanian startup Trafi said Berlin will be the first major European capital to get a transport app that handles billing for all…
14-year-old’s FaceTime Bug Discovery Could Rattle Apple
At the heart of Apple’s shocking FaceTime bug, which allowed just about anyone to turn an iPhone into a live microphone, stands a 14-year-old boy who stumbled upon the eavesdropping flaw more than a week before Apple took action. “The thing that surprised me the most was that this glitch happened in the first place,”…
Apple Busts Facebook for Distributing Data-sucking App
Apple says Facebook can no longer distribute an app that paid users, including teenagers, to extensively track their phone and web use. The tech blog TechCrunch reports that Facebook paid about $20 a month. While Facebook says this was done with permission, the company has a history of defining “permission” loosely and obscuring what data…