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?

Samsung Electronics has announced the bada 2.0 smartphone platform, which includes support for Near Field Communication, web applications, multitasking and voice recognition. There’s also an improved Software Development Kit for developers.

The news comes a year after bada was launched at Mobile World Congress 2010.

James Rosewell and Mark Bridge present this week's final podcast from Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

They look at innovative mobile apps and also discuss the technologies that could be on next year's mobile phones.

Digital security company Gemalto has announced a new service called Facebook for SIM. It embeds Facebook in a SIM card, enabling mobile network operators to offer the service to customers without a data connection.

Participating networks can offer the service free for a trial period before introducing a flat-rate subscription charge.

The GSMA has announced the winners of its Mobile App Challenges competitions.

The Brand App Challenge, the Band App Audition and the mWomen Base of Pyramid App Challenge were aimed at the developer community, with winners being chosen for their creativity as well as their ability to address the criteria set by the Challenge partners.

Apple has announced a subscription service that's available to anyone publishing a content-based app on the App Store.

It means the digital subscription service recently launched with News Corp.'s ‘The Daily’ app is now available to other digital magazines and newspapers, along with video and music services.