The International Telecommunication Union - the United Nations’ agency for Information and Communication technologies - has published its latest figures showing how the uptake of ICT is growing around the world.

Its latest annual report ranks the Republic of Korea (South Korea) as the world’s most advanced ICT economy, followed by Sweden, Denmark, Iceland and Finland. The UK is a new entry in the ICT top ten, moving up from last year’s 14th place to 9th place in 2012.

The International Telecommunications Union, which is the United Nations agency for IT and telecoms, has confirmed the specifications for next-generation mobile technologies. This will be known as IMT-Advanced and will include ‘LTE-Advanced’ and ‘WirelessMAN-Advanced’ (which is also known as Mobile WiMAX Release 2).

Although WiMAX, LTE and HSPA+ are often described as a ‘4G’ service, the ITU sees IMT-Advanced as being the true fourth-generation evolution.

This week is UNESCO’s first Mobile Learning Week, which is being held in the group’s Paris HQ in partnership with Nokia.

UNESCO - the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation - has invited around 200 government officials, industry experts and practitioners to discuss how mobile technologies can transform education.

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 podcast takes a look at the issue of finance for start-ups - and, in particular, at Accelerators for tech-based companies.

It's a discussion that was recorded at Mobile Monday London earlier this week with a panel including Jon Bradford of Techstars, Simon Devonshire from Telefonica's Wayra, Diane Perlman from Microsoft Ventures and Simon Cook of DFJ Esprit.

We start this week's report with two new smartphones: a flagship Android device from LG and a dual-boot handset from Geeksphone.

We also talk about the health effects of mobile phones, a new mobile loyalty app, wireless charging, machine-to-machine connections, the purchase of Viber and a recent acquisition by Google.

In the past few months, the topics of security and privacy have gripped the mobile industry. The humble SMS text message has been subjected to particular attention, both on its own and in association with smartphone apps.

John Murtagh, CTO at text message specialist Anam Technologies, explains more about the risks involved with SMS, the challenges for mobile network operators and the solutions that can protect consumers.

After catching up with last week's Microsoft announcement about new CEO Satya Nadella, we go on to talk about big changes for Brightstar and Sony as well.

There's also mobile payment news from MasterCard and Weve, some patent agreements, a warning about second-hand smartphone sales, a forecast of mobile data growth and a report about app developers.

The Smart UK project is an annual government-supported competition looking for the UK's Most Innovative Mobile Company.

A few days ago, all 20 companies on the competition shortlist gave a short presentation to the Smart UK panel of judges. Afterwards, Mark Bridge spoke to some of the entrants to discover exactly what they had to offer - and how they planned to disrupt the mobile industry.