Telefónica - the parent company of O2 in the UK - and Dolby Laboratories have signed a global agreement that’ll see the two companies working together to drive the adoption of premium sound in smartphones.

As part of the deal, Telefonica will offer its customers “the best devices from leading handset manufacturers” with Dolby Audio technology.

Mark Bridge writes:

iPhone, iPhone. Two of ‘em, one dearer than the other but neither especially cheap. One with a 64-bit look-at-me-I’m-fast processor, the other much like an iPhone 5 with a coloured rear panel.

Dolby Laboratories has announced that company founder Dr Ray Dolby OBE died yesterday at the age of 80.

Dr Dolby, who is best known for his pioneering work with the noise reduction and surround sound systems that bear his name, founded Dolby Laboratories in 1965.

UK rapper Professor Green will be the official ambassador for ZTE in 2012, having originally partnered with the Chinese telecoms business last year.

The renewed partnership has seen Professor Green featured in the official unboxing video for ZTE’s new dual-core Grand X smartphone, which was launched this week.

This week’s podcast from The Fonecast starts with news from RIM and Samsung. The BlackBerry 10 platform is offered to developers, while the Galaxy SIII smartphone makes its official debut.

You can listen to the programme on our website audio player, via iTunes, by using our RSS feed or by downloading the MP3.

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?

In today's podcast we're talking about Samsung's new Galaxy S4 smartphone, BlackBerry's record-breaking purchase order and Intuit's mobile payment service.

There's also a discussion about the changes at ST-Ericsson, a new CEO coming to ARM, Vodafone's sponsorship plans, management moves at Android and the 2013 Mobile News Awards.

Today's podcast talks about job cuts at Motorola, a tariff promise from Tesco Mobile and a departing CEO at ST-Ericsson.

There's also news about acquisitions, application stores, European network standards and a chilly way of breaking into an encrypted smartphone.

We're back from Mobile World Congress 2013 with the latest news for the UK mobile phone industry.

Today's conversation covers new handsets, forthcoming operating systems, apps, mobile payments, VoIP, 4G and Facebook's two-tier internet.

Today's podcast was recorded at Mobile World Congress 2013, where Mark Bridge has been reporting on the latest news from handset manufacturers.

He also drops into the Global Mobile Awards - and finds out who won the inaugural Dead Technology Award at the unofficial festival fringe.

In today's special programme we're preparing for Mobile World Congress 2013. To find out what to expect, Mark Bridge talks to Dr Windsor Holden of Juniper Research.

Their conversation covers everything from Apple's absence to connected cows - and from new operating systems to paying for applications.