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?

The Fonecast team talks to former Unique Distribution CEO Andy Tow about his new role at Data Select. The Fly SLT100 is put through its paces, plus there's all the latest mobile-related news.

The Fonecast team discusses the Mobile News Awards, reviews the Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 and brings you the latest news and rumours from around the industry.

Iain, Mark and James offer their regular weekly look at the latest mobile news headlines and rumours. Freelance journalist Steve Gold explains the benefits of mobile email for dealers, and the sporty Samsung SGH-F110 miCoach handset comes under the team's spotlight.

Iain Graham, Mark Bridge and James Rosewell take their usual look at the week's mobile news headlines and gossip in 'The Fonecast'. Jez Harris explains the latest dealer controversy about Orange commission clawback and there's a review of the new Sony Ericsson C902 Cyber-shot camera phone.

This week's edition of The Fonecast includes the usual mix of mobile industry headlines and gossip. There's an interview about cashback with Paul Withers from Fone! magazine and there's also a review of the new Onyx Liscio handset.