Kodak, one of the world’s best-known photographic brands, is to launch a range of smartphones and tablets in 2015.

The first smartphone will be launched at the CES 2015 trade show in January, with a 4G handset, a tablet and a connected camera due to be confirmed in the second half of the year.

Mark Bridge writes:

Happy New Year!  It’s been three weeks since our last newsletter and a fortnight since our podcast of mobile predictions for 2013, so there’s plenty to catch up with.

Photography pioneer Eastman Kodak Company has arranged a deal that’ll see a consortium of companies paying around $525 million to buy and license over a thousand of its patents, including its digital imaging patent portfolio.

The consortium, which has been organised by Intellectual Ventures and RPX Corporation, is believed to contain Adobe Systems, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Fujifilm, Google, HTC, Huawei, Microsoft, Research in Motion, Samsung and Shutterfly.

Mark Bridge writes:

We’re starting the week with breaking (but not entirely unexpected) news that RIM has a new CEO. Just one, not two. We’ll be talking much more about him in Wednesday’s podcast. In fact, RIM’s announcement concludes a week that’s been packed with big names - and big money as well.

The Eastman Kodak Company - better known as simply Kodak - and its US subsidiaries have today filed voluntary petitions for ‘chapter 11’ business reorganisation under the bankruptcy laws of the United States.

The company has also filed a lawsuit against Samsung Electronics, alleging that certain Samsung tablets infringe five of Kodak’s digital imaging technology patents.

Mark Bridge writes:

Recent figures released by ABI Research have prompted the market intelligence company to ask whether Google is losing control of the Android ecosystem.

At first glance, Android dominated smartphone shipments for the final quarter of 2013. ABI Research says 77% of the 287 million smartphones shipped in Q4 2013 were running Android.

Robin Kent writes:

After initially suffering from slow pick up by consumers, 4G has begun to accelerate, and is now well on the way to the forecasted one billion subscribers by 2017. In fact EE, owner of T-Mobile and Orange, recently announced the addition of 493,000 new 4G customers to its existing base of 1.2 million.

Mark Bridge writes:

A new report has highlighted the issue of poor mobile phone coverage in rural Sussex villages. BBC Sussex invited me onto their ‘Sussex Breakfast’ radio show to explain what could be done - and, as usual, I made enough notes for a lecture rather than a three-minute interview.

Here’s what I would have liked to have said if I’d been given a disproportionate amount of time to talk.

Mark Bridge writes:

Great news for mobile phone users. Ofcom’s new rules preventing unexpected mid-contract price rises came into force last week, which means UK consumers can no longer be surprised by their subscription charge increasing while they’re still locked into a minimum-term deal.

Mark Bridge writes:

This week, new Ofcom rules came into force. They’re designed to avoid unexpected price rises during the minimum term of a mobile phone contract. Yes, just because you signed a fixed-term contract doesn’t mean the charges can’t increase. Networks said they needed this option in case of inflation or regulatory changes. Customers felt trapped.

Iain Graham, James Rosewell and Mark Bridge return to review their mobile industry predictions from last year. Which mergers, partnerships and developments did they forecast correctly... and which didn’t work out as planned?

Later in the programme, the team anticipates some of the topics that will be hitting the headlines during 2016.

Mark Bridge learns about the mobile technology trends at Mobile World Congress 2015 by chatting to James Rosewell of 51Degrees, Dr Kevin Curran from the IEEE and Chris Millington of Doro.

They talk about wearable devices, wireless charging, mobile operating systems and much more... including some of their favourite products from the exhibition.

We're taking a look back at the biggest mobile industry news stories from February 2015, including allegations that the UK's security service tried to breach SIM card security by hacking into one of the world's biggest SIM producers.

We also talk about the planned BT and EE merger, the creation of two new UK virtual networks, some acquisitions in the mobile payment arena and a new Ubuntu smartphone.

In today's programme Mark Bridge talks to Chris Millington, who's Managing Director for Doro UK and Ireland.

They discuss the state of mobile retailing in the UK, the future of wearable devices and - as you might expect - smartphones for seniors.

We're back with a month of mobile industry news, including takeover talks and takeover rumours. O2 and Three are said to be discussing a merger... but is there any truth in the suggestions that BlackBerry could be up for grabs?

We also discuss Apple's record-breaking quarterly figures, the highlights of CES and the launch of Microsoft Windows 10, as well as saying farewell to the current version of Google Glass.