The uptake of smartphones in the last few years has been astonishing, and nowhere more so than in Australia, but one analyst firm says that, in Europe and the USA, their high price and a perceived lack of need for their functionality are turning consumers off the devices.

The ACMA is predicting a new wave of innovative, interactive applications and services, driven by the availability of 'next generation networks'. While high bandwidth is not necessarily a feature of an NGN, nor of the expected applications, realisation of the ACMA's forecast will inevitably lead to increased demand for bandwidth.

Market research firm Telsyte expects M2M applications to present a near $300 million opportunity for carriers over the next four years, and "many times more for application developers" as the Australian mobile services market grows from around 29 million subscriptions this year to 35 million by June 2015.

In Australia's fast changing group-buying market travel has surged from being the smallest to the largest deal category in the space of a single quarter, and in six months the number of sites has quadrupled to 80.

The Android market is tipped to fragment as demand surges for low cost smartphones that will not have the grunt to run the latest version of the Android OS, 4.0, dubbed Ice Cream Sandwich.

Mobile operators have been slow to exploit the booming growth in revenue from mobile data service, the bulk of which has gone to over-the-top providers, but could be well-placed to profit from cloud computing.

Global PC shipments may be down but the Asia Pacific market is still growing, though not as strongly as previously expected.

The ACMA has kicked off a new approach to how it provides information to the industry and the community as a whole with release of the first of four reports on the digital economy, all designed to complement its annual statutory report to the minister.

Citrix Online is spruiking independent market research showing the company has the largest share of the Australian web conferencing market.

Internet measurement company, comScore, has ramped up its presence in the Asia Pacific, hiring in-country staff with sales responsibilities in Australia, India and Hong Kong.