UK telecoms regulator Ofcom wants to ban inflation-related rises in phone and broadband contracts. Instead, it says any potential mid-contract price rises should be set out in pounds and pence.

A new forecast from research specialists Canalys shows the smartphone market is set to recover next year. Worldwide shipments declined by 12% last year but that decline is expected to slow to 5% this year.

Vodafone Group plc and CK Hutchison Group Telecom Holdings Limited have agreed to combine their UK telecommunication businesses, respectively Vodafone UK and Three UK. The merger will create a large new network operator to compete with Virgin Media O2 and EE.

UK mobile payment service Paym will close on 7th March 2023. The service, which allowed users to make and receive payments using their mobile phone numbers, was launched in 2014.

Consumer protection organisation Which? has been given permission by the UK's Competition Appeal Tribunal to represent Apple and Samsung smartphone buyers in a legal case against chip manufacturer Qualcomm.

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?

New figures from email delivery service SendGrid suggest that 46% of email in the UK is opened on an Apple iPhone, while 18% is opened on an iPad.

The figures come from two 10-day survey periods in 2013 and 2014, covering more than eight billion emails sent by over 125,000 companies.

Samsung Electronics has added a new water-resistant smart watch to its portfolio of wearable devices.

The Tizen-based Samsung Gear S is equipped with a 2-inch curved Super AMOLED display and 3G + WiFi connectivity, allowing it to work without a smartphone when required.

Opera Software says it’s signed a licensing agreement that’ll result in Opera Mini becoming the default web browser for Microsoft’s existing portfolio of feature phones.

The deal covers mobile phones based on the Series 30+, Series 40 and Asha software platforms.

The number of people using Windows-based smartphones in the UK is expected to overtake the number of BlackBerry users this year, according to a new report from digital marketing specialist eMarketer.

It anticipates the number of BlackBerry users dropping by 35.2% this year to 2.4 million, with an even steeper drop in 2015 to just 1.4 million users.

HTC has announced a Windows Phone version of its flagship HTC One smartphone in the USA.

The HTC One (M8) for Windows shares many of the Android-powered M8’s features, including the all-metal casing, the large sensor ‘UltraPixel’ camera and the front-facing stereo speakers.