Mobile-based music recognition service Shazam has arranged a new $30 million investment (around £20 million), which values the company at over $1 billion (£663 million).

The company has over 100 million active mobile users per month and has seen its app downloaded over 500 million times.

Shazam, which enables users to identify or ‘tag’ music tracks and learn more about TV shows via a smartphone app, has predicted the music artists that it expects will ‘break’ during 2014.

Overall, more than 400 million people use Shazam worldwide, with more than 15 million Shazam searches taking place every day.

Media engagement company Shazam, which offers a mobile-based music identification service, says its free mobile app has now been used more than 10 billion times to identify and ‘tag’ songs, television shows and TV ads.

The 10 billionth song was ‘Applause’ by Lady Gaga, which was tagged on an iOS device in the US state of New Jersey.

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.

America Movil, which is Latin America’s largest mobile telecom network operator, has invested $40 million in mobile music recognition and media engagement company Shazam.

The money will help accelerate Shazam’s growth as well as funding the development of new products.

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?

Can mobile devices be used for game-based learning as part of the school curriculum?

This discussion was recorded in Barcelona during Mobile World Congress 2013 as part of Heroes of the Mobile Fringe. The panel was moderated by Russell Buckley with contributions from Vincent Hoogsteder of Distimo, Volker Hirsch of BlackBerry and Alina Vandenberghe of Pearson.

Traditional media is in a state of flux, with consumers changing their media consumption habits. User-generated content, piracy and the rise of mobile are presenting even more challenges.

But what does it mean for publishers and media owners?

Today's edition of The Fonecast takes a look at the top mobile-related news stories from the past week, including the new Google Keep app, Apple's mapping acquisition and Facebook's VoIP service.

We also cover the BlackBerry World application store, a new UK 4G survey from eBay, in-car connectivity and the recent Yahoo! purchase of Summly.

Mobile has been called the new frontier in consumer loyalty. But exactly how can mobile technology be used to improve the customer experience in high-street shops?

To learn more, we've joined a discussion group moderated by Russell Buckley with contributions from Katie Lips, Coen van Breda, David Hueso, Troy Norcross and Priya Prakash.

New businesses need more than just a good idea. They also need money. That's why the Mobile Monday London group chose 'Finance, Incubators and Accelerators' as the topic for its recent meeting.

This special report offers a variety of perspectives on business funding in a panel discussion with John Spindler, Alistair Hill, Nic Brisbourne, Sitar Teli, Michel Sabatier and Inma Martinez.