Eurobites: Telefónica Seeks 'Agility' Through Corporate Restructuring

Openet Telecom Ltd. , the Ireland-based supplier of "customer experience" software, has been chosen by Globe Telecom Inc. of the Philippines to implement its Digital Business Platform. Globe, which counts more than 60 million mobile customers, hopes that the Openet offering will beef up its legacy business support systems.

Israel's Hoopo, which sells a geolocation (or tracking) system for devices on low-power wide area (LPWA) networks, has launched itself on the world, announcing in the process that it has received $1.5 million in funding in develop its business from a group of investors that includes Ben Marcus, CEO of AirMap.

Deutsche Telekom AG (NYSE: DT) has begun rolling out a sensor system to support a "digital parking service" in Hamburg. The sensors provide information on free parking spaces, offering, it says here, a sense of "Park and Joy" to the city's drivers. (Lovin' the positivity, guys!) The plan is to roll out the system to other congested German cities this year, including Bonn, Dortmund and Duisburg.

The UK courts have ruled that significant parts of the Investigatory Powers Act, which was criticized by human rights organization Liberty as an "extreme mass surveillance regime" and colloquially branded a "snooper's charter," are unlawful. As the Guardian reports, a lack of privacy safeguards in the legislation that paved the way for the Act led to it being condemned as "inconsistent with EU law." Several major companies, Vodafone and Apple among them, criticized the legislation when it was in draft form. (See Eurobites: Vodafone Slams 'Snoopers' Charter'.)

— Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe, Light Reading