Mobile banking is soaring in the United Kingdom, where the number of customer interactions with banks via mobile passed the number of desktop interactions and visits to physical branches over the last year. That makes mobile the dominant channel for consumer banking activity in one of the world's financial hubs.

Mobility is driving profound changes in how search marketing goes about its work. Marketers have to provide answers, not just results. Voice search and deep-linking will be key drivers of change.

Mass livery service Uber has released a mobile game called Uber Drive that lets the player inhabit the world of an Uber driver, in the hopes of convincing some of them to actually give it a try. The educational aspect could help address one common source of complaints about Uber -- that new, inexperienced drivers sometimes don't know the best routes to destinations.

Apple is about to throw a monkey wrench into mobile advertising with its new iOS 9 operating system, which includes an ad blocking feature for Web browser Safari. Unlike its other new features, usually rolled out with great fanfare, the ad blocking capability pretty much flew under the radar until some diligent tech bloggers actually read through the fine print in Apple's press releases.

With Apple Pay and Android Pay, mobile payments are easier and more accessible than ever, but there are still a few issues that have to be addressed before widespread adoption becomes possible. One of these is the relative scarcity of the required hardware at the point of sale.

An early example of branded live streaming from Bolthouse Farms tells us a bit about the potential of the form. Brands can craft little adventures worth taking with the unique dynamic live-streaming invites.

Mobile data is providing unexpected insights into all sorts of aspects of human behavior -- and now you can add depressed moping to the list. Economists are now using anonymized mobile data to understand the impact of mass layoffs across society, including the ways they may lead to long-term unemployment.

Americans are watching more and more mobile video, but ad dollars aren't migrating to the new medium as quickly as might be expected, according to a new report from eMarketer. Mobile video advertising is currently hobbled by a number of problems, including technical issues and challenges in the marketplace, which need to be resolved before advertisers feel confident allocating more video ad dollars

While wearables shipments tripled in the last year, it's likely that Apple Watches have sold enough to dominate the market in short order. Still we'll probably see the market divide into high, middle and lower tiers, with Apple Watch setting the pace for all.

The number of smartphones in use around the world will more than double over the next five years, from 2.6 billion in 2014 to 6.1 billion in 2020, according to a new forecast from network equipment manufacturer Ericsson. That means around 70% of the world's population will have a smartphone by the latter date, with the bulk of new mobile subscriptions (two billion) located in the Asia-Pacific region, and another 750 million in the Middle East and Africa.