Microsoft has agreed to acquire online telecom company Skype for $8.5 billion.

The two companies hope to complete the deal by the end of the year, subject to regulatory clearance. Skype will become a new business division within Microsoft, led by current Skype CEO Tony Bates who'll become President of the Microsoft Skype Division.

Rovio, the Finnish company that created the Angry Birds series of games, has acquired a $42 million investment. The funding round was led by venture capital firms Accel Partners and Atomico Ventures with participation from the Felicis Ventures fund as well.

As part of the deal, Niklas Zennström of Atomico Ventures - the man who co-founded Skype, Kazaa and Rdio - will be joining the board of Rovio.

Mobile video sharing service Qik, which recently announced it had 5 million worldwide users, is to be acquired by Skype. The transaction is expected to be completed later this month.

Happy New Year!

Iain, James and Mark are back with the first edition of The Fonecast for 2011. There’s a look at the top industry stories from the past couple of weeks, covering Skype, The Carphone Warehouse, GSM hacking, the Rise of the Machines (or, more specifically, machine-to-machine connections) and plenty more.

Skype CIO Lars Rabbe has published a blog post detailing the problems that affected the company’s VoIP service for around 24 hours from 4pm on Wednesday 22nd December.

Skype has also announced the new version of its iPhone application, which adds the option of video calling over 3G and WiFi networks.

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.