A new study says South Africans and Kenyans are Africa’s most active Twitter users and that the social networking site is rapidly becoming a key information tool across the continent.

Researchers analyzed more than 11.5 million tweets from specific locations in Africa during the last three months of 2011.

A new report from ABI Research says the trend towards ‘freemium’ pricing on mobile apps will continue next year. The term refers to a product that’s offered free with a chargeable option for customers who want additional features or enhanced functionality.

Apple enabled in-app purchasing for free apps just over two years ago.

Not content with its efforts to put television on mobile phones, Vodafone has now launched a plug-in keyboard that turns your TV into a mobile phone.

The ‘Webbox’ is aimed at emerging markets rather than the UK, with Vodacom in South Africa preparing to start selling the Webbox next week.

A new report from Pyramid Research says more than 200 million mHealth applications are in use today, with the number expected to increase threefold by 2012.

Browser company Opera has taken a look at ‘gender equality on the mobile web’ in its latest State of the Mobile Web report. It notes that the percentage of women on the mobile web has risen 575% in the last two years. South Africa currently has the world’s highest proportion of mobile internet users – 43.5% - followed by the USA with 35.6%, Russia at 32.4% and the United Kingdom with 31.5%. At the other end of the scale, India has the fewest female users (4.0%), followed by Nigeria (5.4%), China (11.6%) and Vietnam (17.9%).

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 panel discussion about new mobile operating systems was recorded at Mobile Monday London on 15th July 2013.

It's chaired by Geoff Blaber of CCS Insight with contributions from the GSMA's Alex Sinclair, David Wood of Delta Wisdom (and formerly of Symbian), Andreas Constantinou from Vision Mobile, Victor Palau of Canonical and Christian Heilmann from Mozilla Corporation.

There's big news from big names this week as Nokia announces a new smartphone, Microsoft announces a new structure and Research In Motion announces a new name.

We also talk about O2 UK's backhaul deal, Apple's eBook court case, a complaint about advertising and plenty more as well.

We start this week's podcast by talking about an Android security risk - before moving on to new 4G services from EE, a drop in Nook tablet prices and a couple of quarterly results that disappointed the stock market.

In addition we discuss insurance complaints, Bluetooth Smart technology, a new multi-million investment in Shazam and some research about the future of apps.

Robin Kent, operations director at Adax Europe, talks to Mark Bridge about some of the challenges facing mobile network operators as data usage increases.

They discuss how networks can differentiate their services, how can they monetise the app phenomenon, whether mobile data will kill voice and SMS... and the privacy concerns that arise around all-IP communication.

In our podcast this week we're discussing the new SmartWatch from Sony, talking about Firefox OS smartphones and contemplating Vodafone's partnership with Sainsbury's.

We're also looking at complaint figures, roaming charges, pay as you go pricing, joint ventures, BlackBerry's recent results and the future of Windows Phone.