Telefonica UK and Chargemaster plc have announced a partnership that’ll see O2 SIM cards used in the machine-to-machine technology connecting Chargemaster’s UK-wide network of electric vehicle charging points.

Chargemaster recently announced a national charging network called POLAR. It’s the UK’s largest private sector-funded network, with around 4,000 electric vehicle charging bays due to be installed in towns and cities across the UK by the end of 2012.

Mobile network operators are facing a seven-fold increase in the cost of delivering data across their networks, according to Juniper Research.

As a result, it says these mobile networks need to deal with the costs of data delivery and the inefficiencies in base station operations if they are to remain economically viable.

O2 has published the latest scores from its Eco rating scheme. Nokia's C6-01 and E7-00 topped the list, both scoring 4.1 out of 5, followed by the Samsung Galaxy Mini, the Sony Ericsson X8 and the Nokia C7-02 - all with 4 points.

The Eco ratings were launched in August last year as part of O2's Think Big sustainability programme.

LG Electronics says it’ll replace all conventional magnesium inside its mobile phones with ‘eco-magnesium’ by 2012.

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's programme begins with some of the biggest news stories that came out of Mobile World Congress.

Iain, James and Mark then move on to the other headlines from the past few days, including Boeing's secret agent smartphone, Apple's plans for mobile in-car entertainment, a new structure for Telefonica and new technology for mobile payments.

London-based Capito Systems won a place on this year's Smart UK Project shortlist, guaranteeing them entry to Mobile World Congress 2014. And when they arrived, they won the international Barca Starta competition as well.

In this podcast we talk to CEO Tony Ballardie about the company’s 'natural language' voice control, which can be integrated into almost any mCommerce application... from gambling to ticket purchases.

Dr Kevin Curran, Reader in Computer Science at the University of Ulster, joined us during Mobile World Congress to offer his well-informed opinion about trends in mobile technology.

We talked about a wide range of topics, including battery life, disposable tablets, wearables, m-health, 4G fragmentation, connected furniture, M2M security, the rise of video and the IEEE.

James Rosewell and Mark Bridge report from Mobile World Congress 2014 in Barcelona.

In this podcast they talk about all the major mobile manufacturer announcements, including Nokia's new Android-based phones and Sony's newest high-spec devices.

One of the highlights of Mobile World Congress is the Global Mobile Awards - and this year the event was hosted by James Corden: actor, comedian, TV presenter and one-time promoter of Windows Phone.

Here's how he introduced the ceremony, with jokes about Facebook, BlackBerry, Steve Jobs and the gestures required to control an iPhone.