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  LG readying mobile payment system in Europe
  European consumers may finally be able to pay for items via their smartphones next year, through a system under development by LG Electronics. LG's system would use a combination of near-field communication (NFC) and cloud computing to allow certain retailers in Europe to accept payments from customers using NFC-equipped smartphones. Scheduled to launch sometime in 2012, the system would also find its way into interactive TVs and security products sold by LG, Reuters reported this week. "The point-of-sale technology, which will be targeted at small and medium-sized businesses..., is currently in beta testing," Jin-Yong Kim, vice president for business solutions at LG's Home Entertainment division, told Reuters. NFC technology lets different devices talk to each other over a very short distance. As a result, a consumer could pay for items at stores and restaurants by using a smartphone to send payment information from a bank account to a register or terminal.
  
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  Opera Mini browser hits 80 million user benchmark
  Eighty million users worldwide accessed the Opera Mini mobile browser in Nov. 2010, up 4.9 percent month-over-month and a 91.8 percent year-over-year increase, Opera Software reports. Opera Mini users viewed over 44.6 billion pages in November, jumping 7.3 percent over October totals--users consumed more than 677 million MB of data last month, up 10.0 percent. Global data traffic has grown 137.6 percent since Nov. 2009, Opera adds. As of the end of November, Google is again the most visited mobile website worldwide, followed by Facebook, Russian social network Vkontakte, YouTube and another Russian social networking solution, Odnoklassniki. Opera Mini users in the U.S. now average 422 page views per month, up 103.1 percent since Nov. 2009. Google and Facebook are numbers one and two in terms of unique monthly U.S. visitors, followed by YouTube, Wikipedia and Yahoo. Apple's (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPhone generated more U.S. Opera Mini traffic than any other handset last month; the LG Rumor2 is next, trailed by the BlackBerry Curve, BlackBerry Bold and LG Rumor Touch.
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  Smart Grid Service Revenues for Fixed and Wireless Network Operators to Reach $4.9 Billion by 2016
  Two-way communications networks are integral to the fabric of utility smart grid deployments, from wide area networks (WANs) that enable substation automation and distribution automation to neighborhood area networks (NANs) for smart meters to home area networks (HANs) that support home energy management applications. One of the fiercest debates in the emerging smart grid industry has been over the use of private utility networks versus public networks operated by fixed and wireless service providers. A recent report from Pike Research forecasts that, while private networks will continue to represent the majority of the smart grid communications market, the revenue opportunity for service providers will increase significantly, rising from US$2.2 billion in 2009 to US$4.9 billion by 2016. The cleantech market intelligence firm anticipates that much of this growth will benefit wireless network operators, who will enjoy a six-fold increase in smart grid revenues during the forecast period.
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  LTE Will Crush WiMAX. Eventually!
  WiMAX might have gotten a head start when it comes to the next generation wireless broadband sweepstakes, but the technology is beginning to feel the heat from its rival, Long Term Evolution aka LTE. New data from research firm Telegeography shows that by 2015, LTE will have seven times as many users as WiMAX. That trend has many early WiMAX backers worried, and even Clearwire isn’t immune to the idea of experimenting with a new flavor of LTE. Telegeography says that by the end of 2010 there will 11 million WiMAX subscribers around the world. But going is to get a lot tougher for WiMAX. In next two years, LTE networks would be launched by carriers in 55 countries and that should jumpstart the growth for LTE-related services. In comparison, WiMAX is going to be relegated to fixed and nomadic applications, instead of being a mainstream mobile offering, Telegeography argues.
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  Mobile Display Marketing and Advertising Revenue Will Approach $1.5 Billion in 2016
  The audience for mobile marketing and advertising is growing steadily, and spending on the new medium is growing in parallel. One six-month period in 2010 saw spending expand in the US by almost 2.5%, and a new ABI Research study indicates that in 2016, revenue from mobile display ads will be getting close to $1.5 billion. Practice director Neil Strother says, "Although the market for mobile advertising and marketing is starting from a very small base, it is showing steady, solid growth. A Consumer Technology Barometer survey conducted by ABI Research this year revealed that about one third of the smartphone owners polled had clicked on at least one mobile advertisement."
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