Former mobile phone manufacturer Nokia has signed a deal that’ll see a new Finnish company producing Nokia-branded mobile phones and tablets.

The new company – HMD global – is being granted an exclusive branding and intellectual property licence to create Nokia-branded mobile phones and tablets for the next ten years.

Finnish mobile company Jolla says it has completed its latest investment round and has secured new financing for the company.

It follows an announcement in November, when co-founder Antti Saarnio described the company as being in a “death valley”.

Finnish mobile company Jolla says it is adjusting its operations and will temporarily lay off what it describes as “a big part” of its personnel from next month.

The business, formed four years ago, developed the Sailfish mobile operating system and two associated products: the Jolla smartphone (launched in 2013) and the Jolla Tablet (launched last year).

Finnish smartphone manufacturer Jolla is now planning to produce its own tablet device.

The Jolla Tablet is being offered via crowd-funding site Indiegogo, with shipments anticipated in the second quarter of 2015.

Finnish smartphone developer Jolla says its Sailfish mobile operating system has reached release 1.0 and will ready for global distribution from next month.

There’ll also be a downloadable version of the software for handsets that currently run Android, plus a separate user interface app that’ll simulate the Sailfish OS experience on Android devices.

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 week in The Fonecast we interview Quore MD Ronojay Nag. In addition, there's the usual look at industry news and rumours from the last 7 days, plus a review of the Sony Ericsson Z555i.

In this week’s edition of The Fonecast we take an extended look at the week's industry news headlines and gossip, including Arun Sarin's departure from Vodafone and 3's termination charge appeal. Plus we also find time to review the Samsung F490 widescreen mobile phone.

This week’s edition of The Fonecast includes our regular look at industry news headlines and gossip from the last 7 days. Mobile News editorial director Ian White talks about a press release that’s been troubling him, plus there's a preview of the Motorola MOTO Z10 video-focussed smartphone.

On The Fonecast this week, Faisal Sheikh talks to Iain Graham about his new "Love Your Mobile" TV show. We take our usual look at the week's industry news headlines, plus there's a preview of the HTC Touch Diamond smartphone.

In this week's edition of The Fonecast you’ll hear an interview with Shaun Gregory, the UK CEO of Blyk, about the company’s achievements and its plans. The team also takes its usual look at the latest mobile news headlines, plus there’s a quick review of the new Nokia 6600 slide.