While the UK government is trialling the use of SMS text messages and GSM cell broadcast to inform members of the public during a local or national emergency, Twitter is introducing its own scheme.

Twitter Alerts enable the sender to highlight urgent tweets, which will cause them to be delivered by text message and highlighted with an orange bell icon when they’re received by the Twitter iOS or Android app.

The Office of Fair Trading - the UK government department responsible for competition and consumer law - has told mobile app developers and games producers that it wants consumers to be warned about optional extra costs before they download or start playing.

Ending the possibility of unintentional ‘in-app’ or ‘in-game’ payments is just one of eight principles the OFT has published today.

The UK government’s Department of Energy & Climate Change has announced details of the companies that’ll be responsible for the country’s rollout of ‘smart’ gas and electricity meters.

53 million smart meters in homes and small businesses will be connected to the business systems of energy suppliers, network operators and energy service companies, enabling consumers to benefit from accurate bills and new tariffs without the need for meter reading visits.

There are big changes on the horizon at BlackBerry. We talk about the company's potential future and also look at the recent tablet announcements from Microsoft and Tesco... plus the rest of the week's mobile news.

There's also a special report from IAB2013 about the sometimes awkward relationship between mobile devices and the television industry.

BlackBerry has signed a ‘letter of intent’ agreement that could see a consortium led by Canadian shareholder Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited acquiring the company.

Fairfax, which currently owns around 10% of BlackBerry shares, would pay around $4.7 billion (£2.9 billion) for the remainder of the business.