French telecoms company MobiWire - formerly Sagem Wireless - appears to have filed for insolvency.

Court documents show receivership ("redressement judiciaire") being pronounced on 28th April and papers being issued today, with a hearing set for 23rd June 2011.

MobiWire has launched its new user interface for Android smartphones. The news follows the company's transformation in February, when it changed its name from Sagem and first revealed its user interface plans.

Surface UX enhances the standard Android user interface. It claims to simplify and improve usability - and also introduces 'Surface Apps' that appear as branded on-screen widgets.

Mark Bridge writes:

The mobile user interface seems to fall in and out of fashion. Nokia and Apple have both transformed the mobile UI in previous years… but still the challenge of creating the 'perfect' user interface design remains.

This focus on mobile usability is the main topic of today's special podcast, which includes Chris Millington of Doro UK and Jerome Nadel from MobiWire.

Mobile usability is the main topic of this special podcast, which includes Chris Millington from Doro UK and Jérôme Nadel of MobiWire (recorded at Mobile World Congress). Conversation topics include the user interface, encouraging usage and designing mobile phones to suit a specific customer group.

MobiWire - formerly known as Sagem Wireless - has unveiled a portfolio of secure business phones with embedded security for voice, SMS, data and on-device encryption. There's a feature phone with a proprietary OS and an Android-powered smartphone as well. The devices have been co-developed with secure communications specialists ERCOM following a partnership announced last year.

Control of the phone's security is managed by a company IT department, not by the user. The built-in security cannot be removed from the device or tampered with.

Mark Bridge writes:

Yesterday I spotted a new blog page from O2-supported MVNO giffgaff. The company’s head of digital marketing Rob Gotlieb announced the finished version of a promotional film – and mentioned the official voice of giffgaff, voiceover artist Tom Oldham (who, interestingly, was also the voice on Vodafone ads at one point). And for a moment I thought “Official voice?  You what?”

Mark Bridge writes:

“Okay, Mr Bridge, just relax. This won’t hurt a bit. I just need to… oh, hold on a moment, my phone’s crashed. I’ll just pop the battery out and we can start again.”

Some years ago I read an article in Fast Company magazine. Entitled “They Write the Right Stuff”, it explained how NASA’s software engineers couldn’t afford to make errors because any mistakes were likely to kill their colleagues.

That need to check, double-check and then check again was also one of the reasons the space agency ended up looking on eBay for tried-and-tested obsolete components. But now things seem to be swinging towards the opposite end of the scale.

Mark Bridge writes:

A few months ago James wrote about the slow adoption of mobile and contactless payments in the UK. Now we hear that Kenya’s M-PESA mobile money transfer service has arrived here. Yes, m-payments are finally going mainstream in the United Kingdom. Well, sort of. Well, alright, not at all really. What’s happened is that people in the UK are now able to send money to M-PESA users in Kenya. But what about the progress of mobile payments in the UK?

James Rosewell writes:

It seems to be accepted that the Apple iPhone will be the top selling mobile phone this Christmas now it’s available on almost every UK network. The more interesting question is which handsets will hold the number 2 to 5 positions - and what operating system will they be running when the smartphone scores are announced in the new year?

Microsoft announced Windows Phone last week and I commented on the importance of persuading their heartland fans to move from iPhone and other platforms to Windows Phone. Disappointingly, finding a mobile retailer willing to sell a Windows Phone is not easy at the moment. Orange tell me they’ve withdrawn the one model they were going to offer from Toshiba. Vodafone didn’t even know what a Windows Phone was.

Iain Graham writes:

I have just bought (well, been given) a new mobile phone!  It, of course, cost me nothing, because we still haven't learnt in this industry, but it came with the now obligatory, shrink-wrapped, 140-page instruction manual on how to use it!!  A perfect cure for insomnia!  I read the opening page or two and it might as well have been written in Serbo-Croatian for all the sense it made to me!!  (I then realised it WAS written in Serbo-Croatian and so I turned to the correct language section) and it was just as incomprehensible!

Even worse, the manufacturers (who are too tight to pay for the printing in the name of 'going green') put the instruction manual on a CD!!

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.