Samsung has put a 10x optical zoom lens on a smartphone, Google is acquiring navigation app Waze and the European Commission is getting ready to equip cars with an emergency call system.

We're also talking about a strike threat at O2, the risk of 'showrooming' to high-street retailers, the end of Symbian smartphones and plenty more as well.

The Financial Times has reported that Nokia is expected to stop shipping Symbian smartphones this summer, although it doesn’t expect the company to make a formal announcement.

Nokia chose Microsoft’s Windows Phone OS as its main smartphone platform in 2011 but has committed to providing support for Symbian until 2016.

Nokia has published its fourth quarter and full-year financial results for 2012, moving back into profit during Q4 for the first time in over a year.

However, the annual figure still shows a loss and the company is proposing not to make a dividend payment to shareholders.

Nokia is the latest mobile manufacturer to release preliminary quarterly results, which come just a fortnight ahead of the company’s formal full-year announcement on 24th January.

It estimated that 86.3 million mobile devices were shipped in the quarter, including 9.3 million touch-screen Asha handsets, 4.4 million Lumia smartphones and 2.2 million Symbian smartphones.

Smartphone penetration across France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom hit 54.6% during the three-month period from August to the end of October 2012, according to the comScore MobiLens service. It found that Spain had the highest smartphone penetration in Europe (63.2% of mobile phone users) followed by the UK at 62.3%.

Spain also had the most dramatic growth, up almost 15 percentage points from last year.

By incorporating advanced algorithms and machine learning capabilities, AI can help to optimize a smartphone's performance, providing users with a faster, more efficient and user-friendly experience.

Mark Bridge writes:

I've been taking a look back at the devices I've written about during the past few years. Some are still faithful companions, others... well, let's just say my faith was misplaced.

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?

This week Iain and Mark take a deeper look at mobile security and crime, they review the massive 4GB N91 from Nokia and look at a a budget video phone from LG.

As well as a brief look at the News this week the gang look at both ends of the new handset spectrum with the QTek 8500 and the BenQ-Siemens E61. James Rosewell provides an overview of how to get music and video to your mobile from DVDs and CDs.

In The Fonecast this week, industry veteran Iain Graham and tech enthusiast Mark Bridge take a close look at the ultra-slim Samsung D900, they pore over the Nokia N73 smartphone and they evaluate a couple of new software downloads. In addition, application developer James Rosewell joins them for a revealing conversation about mobile blogging.

In The Fonecast this week, Iain Graham and Mark Bridge review the new Nokia N93 and Sony Ericsson W850i mobile phones, guest James Rosewell takes a look at competition from VoIP, HSDPA technology is demystified and a couple of new software downloads are evaluated.