William Gallo of voanews.com writes:

Analysts say this week's U.S. congressional report that called two Chinese telecoms a threat to national security is likely to prompt China to retaliate against U.S. businesses.

The House Intelligence Committee report warned U.S. companies against doing business with China's largest phone equipment companies, Huawei and ZTE.

Huawei and ZTE, two of the largest telecommunications companies based in China, shouldn’t be trusted by government departments in the USA. That’s the warning from a US House of Representatives select committee report published yesterday.

It said the companies “failed to provide evidence that would satisfy any fair and full investigation. Although this alone does not prove wrongdoing, it factors into the Committee’s conclusions”. It concluded that US national security could be undermined if Huawei or ZTE provided equipment to the country’s critical infrastructure.

International figures from ABI Research show that 4G data currently costs around 20% more than the equivalent 3G tariff.

However, the research company says there are signs that competition is already causing 4G tariffs to fall.

It’s reported that Acer has cancelled the launch of a new smartphone in China running the Aliyun cloud-based mobile operating system. Aliyun, which had been developed by the Alibaba Group, is already available on a number of devices from other manufacturers.

Alibaba is quoted as saying Google had told Acer it would terminate its Android-based cooperation and technology licensing if the launch went ahead.

US-based China Labor Watch has released an investigative report into HEG Electronics (Huizhou), which produces mobile phones and audio-visual equipment for Samsung.

It carried out three investigations during June and July 2012, noting that child labour appears to be a common practice in the factory. Seven children under the age of 16 were discovered working in one department, according to the report.

Mark Windle, head of marketing at OpenCloud, predicts that this year’s reduction in the number of traditional telecoms operators in some countries will provide an opportunity for other operators to innovate and capture market share in 2016.

He says next year will be a year of rapid change for telecoms… whether it’s MVNO disruption, competitive tariff pricing or simply defence from the ‘dark art’ of hacking.

Mark Bridge writes:

The most memorable moments in life often go unrecorded. You don't have your camera in your hands. Your finger is still hovering over the 'pause' button on your audio recorder. Or you were simply too busy experiencing whatever was happening. It's all about the one that got away.

That's where Kapture can help.

Mark Bridge writes:

James Rosewell shows me a colourful roll of paper that's the width of an iPhone but well over three metres long. When I look closer, I can see it's a printed copy of the Wall Street Journal's mobile website. That's a lot of scrolling to do... and a pretty unfriendly user experience for anyone reading the news online. Why does it work so badly?

Iain Graham, James Rosewell and Mark Bridge return to review their mobile industry predictions from last year. Which mergers, partnerships and developments did they forecast correctly... and which didn’t work out as planned?

Later in the programme, the team anticipates some of the topics that will be hitting the headlines during 2016.

Mark Bridge learns about the mobile technology trends at Mobile World Congress 2015 by chatting to James Rosewell of 51Degrees, Dr Kevin Curran from the IEEE and Chris Millington of Doro.

They talk about wearable devices, wireless charging, mobile operating systems and much more... including some of their favourite products from the exhibition.

We're taking a look back at the biggest mobile industry news stories from February 2015, including allegations that the UK's security service tried to breach SIM card security by hacking into one of the world's biggest SIM producers.

We also talk about the planned BT and EE merger, the creation of two new UK virtual networks, some acquisitions in the mobile payment arena and a new Ubuntu smartphone.

In today's programme Mark Bridge talks to Chris Millington, who's Managing Director for Doro UK and Ireland.

They discuss the state of mobile retailing in the UK, the future of wearable devices and - as you might expect - smartphones for seniors.

We're back with a month of mobile industry news, including takeover talks and takeover rumours. O2 and Three are said to be discussing a merger... but is there any truth in the suggestions that BlackBerry could be up for grabs?

We also discuss Apple's record-breaking quarterly figures, the highlights of CES and the launch of Microsoft Windows 10, as well as saying farewell to the current version of Google Glass.