Machine-to-machine (M2M) communication is offering mobile networks an unrivalled opportunity to dramatically increase their connection figures. At the moment, over 100 million M2M-enabled devices - from vending machines to smoke alarms - are providing information automatically, with mobile networks carrying the majority of this traffic

Jürgen Hase, Vice President of the M2M Competence Center at Deutsche Telekom and Chairman of the M2M Alliance, offers his M2M predictions for 2013.

Juniper Research has revised its forecasts for the worldwide NFC market, lowering its estimates for NFC growth in North America and Western Europe.

It says Apple’s decision not to include NFC technology in its iPhone 5 has reduced the confidence of brands and retailers, which means we’ll see fewer NFC marketing campaigns and less interest in rolling out new Point of Sale equipment.

Telefonica has reported quarterly results, including figures for O2 in the UK. It says O2’s UK mobile customer base was up 1% year-on-year to 22.5 million at the end of September 2012, with ‘pay monthly’ contract numbers up and prepay numbers down.

UK revenue for the first nine months of 2012 was down 5.6% year-on-year to €5,234 million (£4.18 billion).

Research from the International Data Corporation shows that consumers are moving away from using PCs as their default device for internet usage and are favouring mobile technology instead.

In 2015, IDC expects the number of consumers accessing the internet through mobile devices in the USA to exceed PC-based internet use. Western Europe and Japan are thought to be around two years behind this trend.

VOA News writes:

Data protection agencies in Europe have concluded that Google's new privacy policy does not comply with the continent's laws, but the Internet search giant immediately rejected the claim.