How The Threat Of Fraud On Messaging Is Challenging CPaaS

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During Mobile World Congress 2016 we asked MEF members for their insights into the most exciting developments on show in Barcelona.

With a myriad of new handsets, technologies, VR headsets and connected devices to choose from, hear about some of the highlights and big themes from the showfloor.

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The inaugural MEF Global Forum 2013 took place last week in San Francisco. Over 350 senior execs attended during the three day event which delivered a unique showcase and platform for  international mobile content & commerce. In the coming weeks we will share some of the sessions, interviews and opinion pieces from #MEFGF13, but for now here’s a quick snapshot of the highlights and a selection of photos from across the three days.

MEF Global Forum has been 12 months in the making after the move to Silicon Valley was announced by MEF NA Chair Ron Czerny last December at MEF Americas in Miami. The goal was to take an established platform for knowledge sharing and business networking between North and Latin America and create a broader, global platform to showcase international mobile content & commerce and connect the global community in the heart of Silicon Valley. Five events took place across three days with over 70 speakers, an incubator tour, drinks at Mozilla’s downtown offices plus the small matter of the 10th Anniversary of the Meffys awards. No one can argue that Silicon Valley is the centre of technology and indeed mobile innovation. #MEFGF13’s Innovation Day, supported by Silicon Valley Bank, was held in Redwood City at new tech-accelerator nestGSV (complete with obligatory pool table, water feature and slide to the ground floor…) It was the ideal setting for 250 delegates to learn about the latest technology and innovations coming from the Valley. They got to experience the hottest trends first hand, hearing from diverse early stage start-ups, learning where carriers are investing their dollars today and were inspired by success stories from established mobile pioneers in the Valley such as Evernote, Shazam and Waze. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUutOQH6bLc&w=500&align=right&rel=0] However, what made last week’s event unique in San Francisco’s crowded event calendar was the international platform established by #MEFGF13. Delegates representing over 25 countries attended the show and the international speaker-line-up and Meffys finalists representing all regions (re)confirmed to all that mobile success and innovation happens across our global content and commerce community. We will be releasing all content sessions from the two-day conference program for members unable to attend as well as running a series of follow-up features here on the blog. For now watch an exclusive interview with CEO of Evernote, Phil Libin before he took to the stage to engage in a fireside chat with MEF’s very own Rimma Perelmuter. And check out a selection of photos below for some of the highlights from #MEFGF13 The goal when planning MEF Global Forum was to offer an inside-out and outside-in perspective on today’s mobile landscape. Expanding both geographically and vertically, MEF aimed to reflect this and connect those driving the evolution. Feedback from the event has been fantastic and we look forward to establishing MEF Global Forum as an annual must-attend event in the Valley. We would like to thank all of our speakers, founding partners, sponsors, media partners and attendees in making this inaugural event possible.

The event was supported by Barclays, Boku, Binbit, Kaspersky Lab, KPMG, Mooreland Partners, Movile, Mozilla, Nazara Technologies, OnMobile, Playphone, RealNetworks, Samsung, Silicon Valley Bank, TIMWE, vserv.mobi and William Capital Group.

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Amazon Echo started out as a great way to order recipe ingredients. But it might just herald the start of a post-smartphone world. Tim Green wonders whether the next new digital thing might begin in the kitchen...

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[icon color="Accent-Color" size="small" image="fa-quote-left"]   Amazon - intentionally or otherwise - created the first significant comms device in a decade that doesn’t rely on the phone in some way.

Yes, the rise of voice activation has got people wondering whether this UI can have the same impact as touch and swipe. And there’s one device that is leading the charge: the Amazon Echo. With little fanfare, Echo is tearing up the US market (it’s unavailable anywhere else). People absolutely love it. It’s fair to say, hardly anyone saw this coming. When Amazon first unveiled Echo in late 2014, the most common response was ‘why?’. For the uninitiated here’s what Echo was/is. It’s a voice-controlled cylindrical speaker you (usually) locate in your kitchen. Its voice assistant is called Alexa, so you can ask Alexa factual questions (how big is the earth?) or ask her to play music or set alarms or set up shopping lists. To answer all these questions, Alexa/Echo goes to the cloud and its default destination is Amazon services. So, if you want to buy something, you’ll do it from Amazon. And if you ask Echo to play AC/DC, it will cue up something it found on Prime (assuming you are a member). However, Echo also links to a range of third party services, which you can set up via a web dashboard and monitor via the Echo app. That means you can play songs from Spotify, order pizzas from Dominos and summon cabs from Uber. And it’s adding all the time. In the last few days, it’s enabled flight times. So the interesting thing is that Amazon may well have built Echo as a punt to see if it could get people to order more Amazon stuff. But it’s ended up (possibly) opening the door on a new post-smartphone world. Think about it. How do you currently listen to music, order pizzas and summon Ubers? Through the smartphone app. Battle may rage over which platform controls your choices, but whether iOS, Android, WinPho or even WhatsApp or Facebook, the phone is always the underlying platform. Echo overturns this. The analyst Ben Thompson explained on the podcast Exponent how this came to be. He reasoned that the mobile app has become all-powerful because the phone is always with you. But where is that not necessarily the case? In the home - where it’s usually charging up somewhere. Amazon - intentionally or otherwise - created the first significant comms device in a decade that doesn’t rely on the phone in some way. Of course, Amazon arrived at the Echo via a few missteps. It’s not as if the company always planned to sidestep the mobile: exhibit A - the lamentable Fire phone. But, as Thompson goes on to say, sometimes it takes an outsider to see past the status quo. So just as Microsoft couldn’t clearly see a world beyond the PC, maybe Apple and Google struggle to envision an ecosystem product that is not smartphone-centric. Amazon was able to envision Echo because it doesn’t have a mobile foundation to protect.

Tim Green

Features Editor

MEF Minute

  

It will be fascinating to see what happens next with Echo. Aside from adding more third party services, the obvious move is adding third party hardware. This is just getting started. Last summer the firm created Amazon Voice Services to let developers build Alexa into their own devices. A few weeks back, the first product launched - Triby, a portable Bluetooth speaker you stick on the fridge. But more are coming. For example, one of the debut launch partners for AVS was Scout, which specialises in home security systems. So one can see how Echo could - stealthily - become the hub for the smart home. What a prize. Something Google thought it could claim with Nest, Apple with HomeKit and Samsung with SmartThings. Just goes to show what’s possible when you create a really easy way to play AC/DC.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]