Payment processing business MasterCard has announced a five-year partnership that’ll see it working on mobile and digital payment solutions for Everything Everywhere’s UK customers.

The two companies are already planning a co-branded pre-paid solution that’ll allow customers to make payments using Near Field Communications technology via mobile devices.

Credit card business Barclaycard has published new research showing that most British people now recognise the symbol for contactless payments.

84% can identify the symbol for paying via contactless card or NFC mobile phone, which is almost double the figure from a year ago.

Samsung Tomorrow, the official blog of Samsung Electronics, has published an internal memo regarding the recent patent case in the USA.

It starts by saying “we initially proposed to negotiate with Apple instead of going to court” but “Apple pressed on with a lawsuit”.

Mark Bridge writes:

It was a week of dramatic contrasts in the mobile phone industry. We started with Everything Everywhere’s news that 4G service was coming to the UK this year – possibly with a new brand that’ll work alongside Orange and T-Mobile. Meanwhile Three UK seems to have its own plans that involve acquiring some excess 4G spectrum from Everything Everywhere. There was much muttering from Vodafone and O2, although whether this’ll manifest itself as legal action remains to be seen.

Samsung Electronics has been chosen by Three UK to provide 3G and 4G LTE infrastructure equipment. It’s the first commercial mobile network roll-out for Samsung in Europe.

There’ll be a trial of LTE base stations across the UK from this year, with a commercial launch planned for 2013.