The European Parliament has moved closer to mandating the installation of an emergency call system in all new cars and smaller commercial vehicles.

Earlier this week MEPs voted to require all new car models to have its eCall system installed from 31st March 2018. They’d originally hoped to mandate eCall from 2015.

Navigation and mapping specialist TomTom has agreed a multi-year deal with technology manufacturer Acer.

It’s powering a new navigation application called ‘AcerNAV’ that’ll be available on Acer smartphones.

Nokia has announced that Sean Fernback will be taking over as president of its HERE mapping business from 1st November.

He’ll be taking over from Cliff Fox, who’d been appointed as an interim leader after CEO Michael Halbherr left in August.

The majority of navigation-equipped cars that are being launched at this week’s Paris Motor Show have their in-dash navigation powered by Nokia’s HERE mapping business, the company says.

Its maps can be found in more than 50 of the estimated 62 new car models with in-dash navigation at the 2014 Paris Motor Show.

Mark Bridge writes:

With mobile phones becoming smarter – and increasing numbers of children using these smartphones – it's not surprising to hear that bullies are taking advantage of mobile technology. 'Cyber-bullying' is now in the Oxford English Dictionary... and some people have even called for a ban on mobiles in schools in an attempt to reduce bullying.

Taking a high-tech perspective in the fight against mobile bullying is Sedgrid Lewis, CEO of Spy Parent LLC.

Mark Bridge writes:

I like a bit of competition. It can encourage innovation, whether it's NASA's moon landings or Formula 1's telemetry. And it can be entertaining to watch, from Premiership football to the Tour de France.

It's one of the reasons the mobile industry still excites me. Although the frenzied growth of the 1990s is gone, there are still many competing forces.

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.

Mark Bridge writes:

The public telephone box is disappearing as mobile phone coverage improves. In 2002, there were 92,000 BT phone boxes in the UK. Today, there are a total of 51,500 payphones… including 11,000 traditional red boxes. In order to preserve the appearance of rural life - if not the landline connection - BT has been asking parish councils across the UK if they'd like to adopt their local kiosk. Just £1 lets a community keep its red BT phone box (with the payphone taken out)… and 1,500 have been adopted so far.

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.