Actor Brian Blessed is offering to record voicemail messages for the first hundred O2 UK customers who buy an HTC Windows Phone 8 handset this week.

The promotional campaign, which involves each purchaser tweeting @O2 using the hashtag #brianmail, will reward winners with a voicemail greeting recorded by the richly-voiced British actor

Orange Vallée, the part of France Telecom-Orange responsible for innovation and development, has released a free cross-network mobile app that enables users to make free voice calls, send messages and receive voicemail messages.

It’s called Libon and is available as an iOS app in 90 countries including the UK; an Android version is planned for early next year.

Mark Bridge writes:

Much like the mainstream media, this week's news summary begins with 'voicemail hacking'. In our podcast feature on Friday we spoke to industry crime-fighter Jack Wraith about the security of voice messages. He explained how remote voicemail access was now much more secure than it was ten years ago, which is good news for everyone (except dodgy investigators).

Mark Bridge writes:

In this week's podcast feature we're joined by Jack Wraith, chief executive for the Telecommunications UK Fraud Forum and chairman of the Mobile Industry Crime Action Forum.

He talks to Iain Graham about the current state of voicemail security and the improvements to mobile security we've seen in the last few years.

As 'voicemail hacking' news stories continue, Iain Graham talks to mobile industry crime-fighter Jack Wraith. Jack discusses mobile phone security from his position as head of the Telecommunications UK Fraud Forum and the Mobile Industry Crime Action Forum.

Mark Bridge writes:

Would you like to be part of our Mobile World Congress coverage?

Mobile World Congress is Europe’s biggest mobile communications industry show. It runs from 24th - 27th February next year in Barcelona and is expected to welcome over 70,000 attendees and around 2,000 exhibitors.

Mark Bridge writes:

Earlier this month, London-based smartphone company Kazam announced seven new Android handsets. That's pretty impressive... and is an even more noteworthy feat when you consider the company didn't even exist at the beginning of the year.

Mark Bridge writes:

Imagine books that could automatically link with your tablet as you touched the pages. Or posters that reacted to your fingertips and displayed the results on your smartphone. It seems this kind of Bluetooth-enabled interactivity is just around the corner, thanks to tiny low-power processors and a patented printing process that doesn’t require specialised equipment.

The future of customer service is to bridge the gap between the smart consumer with the smartphone and the bank holding his or her financial assets. Even though mobile applications are becoming increasingly powerful customer touch points, many banks are failing to leverage them in order to engage with consumers.

Mandip Shergill, Account Executive at Genesys, looks at how banks can maintain and strengthen the customer relationship in the mobile channel.

Ashley Gilmour writes:

A quick fact: nearly half of Facebook’s advertising revenue now stems from mobile ads.

That’s right – of the social network’s $1.8 billion (£1.1 billion) generated in the third quarter of 2013, 49% of it was made up of mobile advertising revenue. Last year, the channel represented only 14%.

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.