Supply chain services supplier Ingram Micro acquired Anovo, a Europe-based provider of repair services for smartphones and set-top boxes across Europe and Latin America, Ingram said Monday. Terms weren’t disclosed, but Ingram said it expects Anovo to contribute more than $300 million in annual service revenue.
Zero-rated offerings could help kick-start Internet adoption in some of the poorest parts of the world, the Progressive Policy Institute argued in a paper released Tuesday. Zero rating offers limited Internet access at lower rates and was one of the most sensitive issues before the FCC as it finalized net neutrality rules last week (see 1502250064). PPI cited the example of Africa, where fewer than 30 percent of its 1.1 billion population used the Internet in 2014. “The power of zero-rating to nourish an Internet ecosystem in poor and developing countries comes from its potential to increase connectivity by both people and businesses quickly and at low-cost,” PPI said. Free access to popular sites like Google, Facebook, Twitter and Wikipedia “encourages more people to sign up for data plans, and enables greater data freedom to explore local content,” the group said. The resulting increase in demand encourages local entrepreneurs “to create new online products and services -- for example, information on Ebola outbreaks, typhoon warnings, or even wait times at local stores and government offices.”
Labor unions are united in opposing Trade Promotion Authority, also known as fast track, over concerns that new trade deals will cut U.S. employment, said leaders of dozens of unions in a Monday letter to House and Senate members. “Fast-track is an undemocratic, unaccountable and completely unacceptable way to develop economic policies that affect us all,” said the letter, signed by the Communications Workers of America, AFL-CIO and others. “America needs a new version of trade negotiating authority that brings the process out from behind closed doors and prioritizes making life better for people, instead of just making life easier for corporations.” The AFL-CIO and other unions take to Capitol Hill Wednesday to lobby more than 120 lawmakers on TPA opposition, the AFL-CIO said in a separate release.
Mozilla will create Firefox OS devices with KDDI, LG U+, Telefónica and Verizon Wireless, Mozilla said in a news release Sunday. The companies will create Firefox OS phones for 2016, including flips, sliders and slates, it said. Firefox OS lets network operators and hardware manufacturers provide a "differentiated experience" and offers consumers a "more intuitive and easy-to-use experience," Mozilla said. The phones will include apps, cameras, email and Web browsing, LTE and VoLTE service and music players, it said.
Google will argue in the English High Court of Appeals Monday that British consumers shouldn’t be allowed to sue the company in the U.K., the Google Governance Campaign (GGC), which campaigns for "better" corporate behavior from Google in the U.K., said in a blog post Friday. The court ruled in favor of three members of the GGC in 2013 on charges that Google violated their privacy, it said. “British internet users believe the company should also be held to account in England to prevent Google having what they call an ‘open goal to abuse Britons' right to privacy.’" Google didn’t comment.
The number of apps downloaded to smartphones and tablets is expected to grow roughly 28 percent this year to over 235 billion, said a Juniper Research report. Fueling the projected rise is “phenomenal growth” in downloads in the Chinese market, which last year accounted for six in 10 downloads worldwide, said Juniper. Local digital storefronts have benefited from Google’s near exclusion from the China market, said Juniper, and search engine company Baidu has been the primary beneficiary. Baidu’s app store, which is effectively integrated into the search engine, has passed iTunes to become the second-largest app store globally in download volume, said Juniper. While five of the top seven app stores in download volume are China-based, China still lags the U.S. and Japan in app revenue, it said. Revenue per download is nine times higher in the U.S. and 14 times higher in Japan, said the researcher. Games are the most mature and lucrative app sector and offer “significant scope for growth” in both developed and developing markets, said Juniper, citing a migration from handheld game consoles to mobile devices and “continued social gaming growth.” Adoption and monetization of multimedia apps is likely to be fueled further by network operators bundling multimedia applications with customer subscriptions, it said. “Broadcasters are now offering distinct and bolt-on mobile packages, a trend which will gain further impetus as customers migrate to larger screen phablet devices,” said analyst Windsor Holden.
Apple will spend 1.7 billion euros ($1.93 billion) to build and operate two new data centers in Denmark and Ireland that will be 100 percent powered by renewable energy, the company said Monday. The facilities will run Apple’s online services, including the iTunes Store and the App Store, for customers across Europe, it said. “Apple will also work with local partners to develop additional renewable energy projects from wind or other sources to provide power in the future.” Both facilities are expected to begin operations in two years, Apple said.
Panasonic in the U.K. will be the first manufacturer to launch TVs with the Freeview Play connected TV service, the company said Monday. Freeview, the U.K.’s subscription-free digital TV service, is being rebranded as Freeview Play “in preparation for a new product launch that will introduce a mass market connected TV offer,” said a recent announcement from DTV Services, the consortium of Arqiva, BBC, Channel 4, ITV and Sky that runs the service (see 1502120036). Panasonic will make Freeview Play available in its new 2015 lineup of Viera TVs, the company said.
U.K. spy agency GCHQ was able to hack into the internal networks of Gemalto, “the largest manufacturer of SIM cards in the world, stealing encryption keys used to protect the privacy of cellphone communications” on carriers including “AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, Sprint and some 450 wireless network providers around the world,” The Intercept reported Thursday. “In other words, for millions or even billions of users around the world, global cellular communications are about as secure from GCHQ and NSA as an FM radio broadcast,” wrote Electronic Frontier Foundation activist Nadia Kayyali in a blog post Thursday. Normally calls, texts and other communications made on a mobile phone are encrypted as they travel from a mobile device to a carrier’s tower, Kayyali wrote. Only those who had the encryption key, known as "Ki," would be able to decrypt that communication. GCHQ and the NSA “obtained the master keys -- literally and figuratively -- to unlock millions, if not billions, of the world’s mobile devices” while leaving no trace on the network or on an individual users’ device, Kayyali said. “This is an unprecedented mass attack on the privacy of citizens worldwide,” said Center for Democracy & Technology Senior Counsel Greg Nojeim in a statement Friday. “There is certainly value in targeted surveillance of cell phone communications,” Nojeim said, but “this coordinated subversion of the trusted technical security infrastructure of cell phones means the U.S. and British governments now have easy access to our mobile communications.” Standards "for intelligence surveillance are weak worldwide,” Nojeim said, urging a global response “to the threats of government surveillance” and that government surveillance standards be substantially raised. Due to a ruling by the Investigatory Powers Tribunal Feb. 6, which said intelligence sharing between GCHQ and the NSA was unlawful before December 2014, Americans may file a request at the Privacy International website to learn if the NSA provided GCHQ with information about them. Risk of a privacy violation after filing a request is relatively low, Kayyali wrote in another blog post on Friday. “The payoff is that the more people who sign on and learn that they’ve been affected by GCHQ and NSA spying, the clearer it becomes that reform to surveillance is urgently needed.” "It is longstanding policy that we do not comment on intelligence matters," said a GCHQ spokesperson. "All of GCHQ's work is carried out in accordance with a strict legal and policy framework, which ensures that our activities are authorised, necessary and proportionate, and that there is rigorous oversight, including from the Secretary of State, the Interception and Intelligence Services Commissioners and the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee. All our operational processes rigorously support this position. In addition, the UK's interception regime is entirely compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights." A spokeswoman for Sprint said the company had no comment. AT&T, NSA, T-Mobile and Verizon didn't comment by our deadline.
The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security will now consider approval for U.S. telecom exports to Sudan on a case-by-case basis, rather than keeping in place the agency’s previous policy of denial for such exports, it said in a final rule in Wednesday's Federal Register. BIS also will expand the consumer communications devices (CDD) license exception for U.S. telecom exports to the Sudanese private sector, it said. The CCD license exception, authorized in 2009 but restricted to exports to Cuba, covers shipments to Sudan starting Wednesday. Most of the items covered under the CCD don’t require licenses for export to most countries, BIS said in the final rule. BIS published this rule alongside a concurrent Treasury Department rule. Treasury's decision on the export of hardware and software “incident to personal communications” to Sudan comes "after years of campaigning from Sudanese and international activists," Electronic Frontier Foundation Director-International Freedom of Expression Jillian York wrote on EFF's blog Wednesday. "The sanctions restrict the export of everything from MOOCs [massive open online courses] to mobile phones, harming innovation, access to information, and development. For a country like Sudan, where the number of Internet users has grown from around 400,000 to more than 8 million in less than a decade, the forthcoming influx of technology can mean a world of difference for average consumers."