Anton Faulconbridge of RantMedia writes:

2013 promises to be an exciting year for the app industry. With the number of smartphone users almost on par with laptop, desktop and tablet users, this is a crucial time for app developers to bring fresh and innovative material to the table.

Whilst many industries are drying out, the smartphone technology sector continues to flourish and a wave of app developers who sit up and take notice of new trends are likely to do well compared with slapdash competitors. Let’s take a look at some savvy tips and tricks to stay ahead of the game in 2013.

Visa Europe says the adoption of NFC contactless payments has reached a ‘critical point’ across Europe.

More than 19 million transactions took place in March 2013, driving the total spend on contactless cards and smartphones equipped with a Visa payWave app to over €1 billion (£856 million).

Mark Bridge writes:

Unmanned drone aircraft are flown by pilots thousands of miles away, while hackers attempt to intercept their transmissions.

It’s clear that communications technology has transformed 21st century warfare. What may not be so obvious are the ways that wireless communications played a part in the First World War... and the concerns about security that remain with us today.

We start this week's podcast by talking about Yahoo and Tumblr before moving on to discuss Google's recent developer conference.

There are product announcements from BlackBerry, HP and the former MeeGo developers at Jolla... and there's some interesting mobile app news as well.

The eighth annual Millward Brown Optimor BrandZ Top 100 ranking of the most valuable global brands still has Apple at the top, despite a slight drop in the total value of technology brands.

Apple’s brand value was calculated at $185 billion, just 1% up from 2012. Google retained second place but closed the gap slightly.