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China Mobile, one of the largest state-owned telecommunications companies in that country, has designed a water purifying device powered by blockchain, thus making an explicit statement that blockchain technology is not something extraneous and out of this world, but is a beneficial high-tech solution that may be advantageously applied to ordinary household appliances. The Product Market Director at China Mobile IoT, Xiao Yi, stated: “Our goal is to also attract those who are not in the cryptocurrency or blockchain community, who may have heard of this technology but not necessarily understand it. To embrace a more mainstream adoption, we need to turn something that appears professional into something that’s very ordinary.” The Internet of Things (IoT) division within the company has developed a product with a built-in computing chip and an IoT module.  This innovative gadget collects applicable user data related to consumer behaviour habits and shares it…

We are rapidly evolving into a digital and decentralized society, where private keys on mobile devices will play a critical and indispensable role in ensuring the safety of our daily transactions and securing our digital identities. FIX Network are aiming to revolutionize the blockchain and cellular industries by providing mobile device users with innovative key holder and transaction security, coupled with a practical user experience. The underlying technology for securing the user’s private keys are the SIM cards used by mobile operators, enabled by the FIX Network open-source STK residing on those SIM cards. This standard SIM hardware, together with blockchain- powered, distributed policy engines that govern end-user transactions, form the architectural backbone of the FIX Network security solution. This solution introduces the concept of a pool of SIM cards, enhancing security, and at the same time, eliminating the possibility of a single point of failure. Multiple SIM…

The global telecom giants are increasingly acknowledging the benefits of blockchain technology.  Telefonica, a Spanish multinational telecommunications company, has signed a partnership with IBM, a leader in open-source blockchain solutions, to employ IBM blockchain technology for superior administration of international call traffic. Telefonica expects that the usage of the cloud-based IBM Blockchain Platform will help to improve the traceability of international call data, such as the origin of the call, its destination and duration. They will be able to detect fraud and address other challenges caused by the use of different networks and operators when routing international calls. Operators will have permissioned access to a decentralized platform, and perform real-time tracing of calls to achieve accurate billing processes. “This project is one of our first initiatives to secure real benefits from the adoption of blockchain in our core business. We believe that the new paradigm of process decentralization…

The Asian electronics manufacturer HTC has officially announced the pre-order of a product creating the latest buzz in the crypto world – their blockchain-enabled smartphone called Exodus 1. According to the Exodus website, the smartphone can only be purchased in cryptocurrency – for 0.15 Bitcoin or 4.78 Ethereum – which, at the moment, converts to around 960 US dollars. The expected shipping date is December 2018, making the Exodus phone the perfect end of year gift for blockchain enthusiasts. The new smartphone will have a 6 inch Quad HD+ display, 16 MP dual rear and 8 MP dual front cameras, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor, 6 GB of RAM and 128 GB of internal storage. Yet these usual specifications are not what makes this phone unique. The intriguing blockchain side of the phone will include a hardware cryptocurrency wallet called Zion, which was developed by HTC. To keep…

Grand X, a subsidiary of the leading South Korean mobile operator Kakao, has unveiled the test version of their blockchain platform called Klaytn. At the moment, the testnet version of this service-centered blockchain platform has only been offered to 10 partners of Kakako, along with a publicly available whitepaper to outline the network potential and capabilities. If all goes well, the mainnet version of the network is expected to be launched in the first quarter of 2019. According to the information in Klaytn’s whitepaper, this network focuses on a seamless user experience for all parties, including developers and end users. “The popularization of blockchain requires providing a practical blockchain service for mass adoption thereby validating the value and utility of blockchain technology. To achieve this, Ground X has designed Klaytn that can provide an easy and friendly environment for end users, service providers and developers all at…

Earlier this week, a leading IT solutions provider Tech Mahindra, announced its partnership with Microsoft to build a blockchain-based robust ecosystem meant to tackle unsolicited commercial communications in India. This blockchain solution will be developed based on Microsoft Azure, and will comply with the regulations issued by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). TRAI has been working with both these companies and other stakeholders to curb the profusion of spam calls and messages so widely spread across the country. While the initial step of introducing a “Do Not Disturb” registry in 2010 seems to be a success with 230 million listed subscribers, the telemarketers still manage to find fraudulent workarounds to obtain consent and continue delivering spam calls. “Blockchain as a technology is a powerful tool to combat the issue of spam calls and fraud risks, to protect user information, as well as the integrity of the telecom sector.…

The South Korean mobile carrier, KT (formerly Korea Telecom) has unveiled the world’s first blockchain-based commercial network, as reported by the Korean Herald. The telecom giant has implemented a blockchain layer on top of their ultra-speed nationwide commercial network to ensure maximum security and transparency for retail and business users. “Public blockchains have low processing speed and capacity, while private blockchains have low transparency. By applying blockchain onto our ultra-fast network, we have overcome both obstacles,” commented the head of the Blockchain Center at KT’s Institute of Convergence Technology, Seo Yeong-il. The mobile carrier expects to achieve the impressive number of 100 000 transactions per second by the end of 2019, while their current blockchain network capability is 2500 transactions per second. Furthermore, KT has already implemented this disruptive technology in their user identification process, eliminating the need for personal IDs and passwords. The company is also working closely with…

The San Francisco-based cryptocurrency and payment start-up, Ripple, is hoping to boost up the adoption of blockchain technology. They decided to donate $50 millions to 17 universities and colleges throughout the U.S.A. in order to promote blockchain. One of the main reasons is the need for jobs in that technology field as 4500 job openings were including the terms “blockchain” and “cryptocurrency” into their descriptions on LinkedIn. Thus universities like the M.I.T. or the University of North Carolina will get a chunk of this donation. Eric van Miltenburg, Senior Vice-President of business operations at Ripple sent an email stating, “As globalization increases, so does the demand for technological solutions and talent to solve the world’s hardest financial problems, such as retail remittances.” Ripple’s technology surrounding the cryptocurrency XRP could be a part of some studies and projects by universities, despite not being an obligation according to the company. For the…

Blockchain will be the next tool used by the TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority in India) to fight against aggressive telemarketing, that is using spam calls and SMS. According to the TRAI, blockchain technology is able to track those annoying telemarketers. As they use unregistered phone numbers, they are usually hard to track, and with this new way of fighting against those marketing methods, India’s Telecom regulator will be the first to use blockchain as a mean of regulation. TRAI Chairman RS Sharma said: “Blockchain will ensure two things — non-repudiation and confidentiality. Only those authorized will be able to access details of a subscriber and only when they need to deliver service…“ and added that “TRAI will become the first organization to implement this kind of regulation on such a large scale,” 30 billion commercial calls or SMS are sent every month to users in India. Most of them are…

For Andrew Burchik, founder of the Prague based MVNO (mobile virtual network operator) Miracle Tele, the future of mobile operators will be found in Blockchain technology. Miracle Tele is already available in 213 countries. In late April, Miracle Tele allowed its customers to call any destination for €0.2 per minute and data from €0.01 per MB. Miracle Tele is using its own Token called TELE based on ERC20 (Ethereum blockchain) that they want to sell. 150,000,000 TELE are available at €0.1 per token. The sale is not limited in time as it will end when all tokens are sold out. This way the operator allows its users to have a choice: or they use its telecom services like any operator or they “tokenize” their assets and have access to mobile plans by purchasing them with TELE. According to M. Burchik, as smartphones are less a used for conventional communications, operators…