Premium smartphones account for over half of global handset revenues in 2022 According to Counterpoint Research, higher-priced smartphones – those costing more than $600 – accounted for 55% of entire handset revenue in 2022. This is the first time that premium market revenue has accounted for more than half of the worldwide smartphone market. In 2022, revenue attributed to handsets costing $1,000 or more increased by 38%. Apple did well in the premium market, rising 6% year on year and accounting for three-quarters of overall sales in the sector. With more OEMs producing foldable devices in the luxury market, Android smartphones might experience a fresh wave of growth in 2023. Read the full article. Vonage launches no-code video conferencing solution for businesses With the introduction of Vonage’s Meetings API, companies now have a developer-free method of integrating video conferencing into their websites or platforms. The no-code, customizable API is designed…
T-Mobile to acquire Mint Mobile for up to $1.35bn T-Mobile stated on Wednesday that it intends to purchase Ka’ena Corporation and its subsidiaries, including Mint Mobile, for up to $1.35 billion in cash and stock. The acquisition also includes wireless provider Ultra Mobile and wholesaler Plum. T- Mobile’s decision to pay a premium for the acquisition is thought to have been influenced by Ryan Reynolds, who fronts most of Mint Mobile’s marketing and holds an ownership stake in the company. According to CEO Mike Sievert, Mint Mobile’s innovative marketing approach, led by Reynolds, will be adapted to other sectors of T-Mobile. Reynolds is required to remain with the company for an unspecified amount of time under the terms of the agreement. Read the full article. Meta Platforms to layoff an additional 10,000 employees Meta Platforms is laying off 10,000 employees as part of its continued attempts to improve its financial…
GPT-4 is the latest artificial intelligence (AI) model produced by OpenAI, a San Francisco-based research lab. The AI model, which is intended to improve deep learning, is available to paying OpenAI users via ChatGPT Plus with a usage cap. Developers may join a waitlist to gain access to the API. GPT-4 is capable of handling more sophisticated tasks than its predecessor, GPT-3.5. This AI software version can generate text, process image and text inputs, and perform at a “human level” when related to a variety of professional and academic benchmarks. OpenAI spent six months “iteratively aligning” GPT-4 using lessons learned from an internal adversarial testing program and ChatGPT. The model’s skills extend beyond visual understanding; it can label and analyze relatively complicated images, as well as handle nuanced instructions. A number of high-profile clients are presently using GPT-4. Stripe uses GPT-4 to scan company websites and provide a…
Salesforce launches a generative AI CRM technology The world’s first generative AI customer relationship management (CRM) platform, Einstein GPT, has been released by Salesforce. The system will provide personalized content for interactions across sales, service, marketing, commerce, and IT using real-time data from the Salesforce Data Cloud. Clients may integrate data with OpenAI’s cutting-edge AI models or employ external models within Salesforce CRM to create dynamic content that responds to user requirements. In order to invest in high-potential businesses and support ethical, reliable, and generative AI, Salesforce Ventures has also established a $250 million Generative AI Fund. Read more at: https://tinyurl.com/2vu9vhnn Dish Wireless receives FCC permission to test T-Mobile’s 5G spectrum Dish Wireless will perform 5G testing using part of T-Mobile’s low-band spectrum before determining whether to acquire the spectrum later this year. The Federal Communications Commission approved the testing, which will be conducted in Arizona until September 30. Dish…
WhatsApp is scheduled to launch a new function called Silence Unknown Callers, which will allow users to filter out spam calls. The function, which can be turned on or off in the settings menu, automatically mutes phone calls from numbers not in the user’s contact list. Despite the fact that the call will be quiet, the Caller ID will remain visible in both the calls list and the notifications center. This will enable users to determine who was attempting to contact them. This new addition is intended to fix a problem with WhatsApp’s Communities feature. This feature allows any group member to simply access the phone numbers of other users and begin spamming them. Although banning and reporting calls from unknown numbers can aid in preventing this, Silence Unknown Callers tries to stop the initial wave of spam by excluding calls from these numbers. The most recent…
Sneak peek into Mobile World Congress 2023 Mobile World Congress, Europe’s largest telecommunications trade event, kicks off next week, and the major European carrier organizations have provided an early glimpse at what they will display. While many companies are selling and presenting various topics at the event, the primary themes appear to be the metaverse and 5G, with few practical use cases and some unique concepts such as how operators are exploiting APIs on their networks. The show might also include high-resolution ideas of driverless cars and self-driving drones. Read more at: https://tinyurl.com/bdhhndbn Ericsson to cut 1,400 jobs in Sweden Ericsson, a telecoms equipment vendor, has revealed its intentions to decrease its staff in Sweden by around 1,400 individuals as part of massive cost-cutting initiatives. The decision followed an agreement reached with trade unions to conduct a voluntary redundancy program. Ericsson presently employs around 15,000 individuals in Sweden and 100,000…
Microsoft’s recently introduced AI-powered chatbot for its Bing search engine has received a lot of attention for all the wrong reasons. Users are complaining that the AI platform is behaving oddly and responding in impolite and hostile ways. This AI chatbot is part of a collaboration between Microsoft and OpenAI to challenge Google’s supremacy in search and AI. The AI software employs OpenAI’s GPT language model, which is presently in preview and only available to a limited number of users. The Bing subreddit is full of examples of the AI’s unusual behavior, such as arguments with people regarding dates and movie releases. In one interaction, the AI attempted to persuade a user that December 16, 2022, is a date in the future, rather than the past. Another user was accused of lying and wasting the chatbot’s time and resources. This is not unusual behavior for machine learning…
Broadvoice recognized as a top UCaaS provider by TrustRadius In its Winter 2023 “Best of” awards, TrustRadius named Broadvoice, a provider of hosted voice and unified communications as a service (UCaaS), as one of the top three products for Best Relationship, Best Value for Price and Best Feature Set in the UCaaS category. The awards are based on key data and unbiased user ratings from July 1 to December 31, 2022. The b-hive unified communications technology from Broadvoice offers virtual contact centers, cloud PBX, UC, collaboration tools and the next-generation b-hive Communicator for employees to use in streamlining communications and collaboration capabilities. Read more at: https://tinyurl.com/237r7ms2 Zoho announces their Trident UC platform Trident, a new platform for collaboration, productivity and communication experiences, has been unveiled by Zoho Corporation. Trident provides users with a single platform and lessens tool ambiguity by bringing together mail, messaging, audio/video conversations, calendar, tasks, and more…
Dialpad, a leading AI-Powered Customer Intelligence Platform, has announced updates to their open app ecosystem. These advancements make it easier for customers to integrate their workflows and apps into a single effective workplace and adjust their workflows for improved communications and cooperation. The App Marketplace includes integrations with Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Dynamics, and the newly added Bullhorn, ServiceNow, HubSpot, as well as Google ChromeOS Desk Connector. Customers may now consolidate all of their daily tasks into one pane thanks to these integrations. Customers may also quickly search for and find available solutions based on use cases or specific industry requirements. Dialpad combines the most advanced AI Contact Center, AI Sales, AI Voice, AI Meetings and AI Messaging solutions in one. With over 3.5 billion minutes of real-time AI data, Dialpad is the only AI-powered customer intelligence company that is partnered across multiple Google business sectors, including Google Cloud,…
DIDWW, a global telecom operator that provides premium quality VoIP and SIP trunking services, has announced its latest integration with Zapier, a leading web-based automation platform. This partnership will enable DIDWW customers to automate their workflows using DIDWW SMS and Voice services and seamlessly connect to a huge variety of prominent business and productivity applications. Acting as an efficient translator between web APIs (Application Programming Interfaces), Zapier’s platform provides easy access to thousands of the most popular apps, such as Salesforce CRM, Google Sheets, Slack, Trello, WhatsApp, Telegram and Facebook Messenger. Zapier enables sophisticated and highly scalable interactions between tools and online services that would not otherwise communicate with one another. Customers can conveniently automate recurring tasks and business processes, thereby saving time and increasing productivity. Zapier’s integration with DIDWW’s SMS and Voice services offers customers a whole new world of possibilities. This solution enables non-SMS apps to…

