The *Spark home screen application for Android devices has been updated with a new sports module. Users in the USA can now see sports scores from major American football, baseball, basketball and hockey fixtures, while European users will have cricket and football results available in a couple of weeks.

*Spark is also the only official mobile partner of Groupon in the UK, offering targeted local discounts.

An extended interview with Mark Anderson, CEO of HipLogic, about the launch of his company's real-time home screen app called *Spark.

In this week's edition of The Fonecast we’re making some predictions for 2011... and we’re looking back on last year's predictions as well.

This week's edition of The Fonecast takes its regular look at mobile news headlines from the past seven days, including the launch of HipLogic's Spark application. In addition, the team makes some predictions about the industry for 2011... and discusses the successes and failures of last year's predictions.

Mark Bridge writes:

Groupon is a US phenomenon that’s not quite become ‘mainstream’ in the UK… yet. While the transatlantic tech press have been intrigued by the will-they-won’t-they story of Google apparently offering up to $6 billion for the two-year-old company, most of the UK has been wondering what the fuss is about.

But all that could be about to change.

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.