Last November, the European Aviation Safety Agency announced plans to permit the use of mobile phones and other personal electronic devices in ‘Flight Mode’ during taxiing, take-off and landing as well as throughout commercial flights.

It’s now introduced new rules that allow these electronic devices - including tablets, smartphones, eBook readers and mp3 players - to be used in their regular ‘connected’ mode when on an aircraft.

Millennial Media has used data from its mobile advertising platform, which processes billions of mobile ad requests every month, and compiled them in a new Mobile Mix study that focuses on the Europe, Middle East, and Africa device markets.

It reports that 81% of the European population has a mobile phone, with 42% owning smartphones. The overall figures for EMEA are 65% mobile penetration and 25% with a smartphone.

A new research report from Berg Insight says the market for mobile machine-to-machine (M2M) communications has begun to move from the 2G to 3G and 4G technologies.

Although cellular M2M devices on HSPA and LTE networks are expected to account for under 20% of the global market by the end of 2014, they’re forecast to dominate with more than 50% by 2018. Meanwhile, shipments of 3G/4G M2M devices are expected to overtake 2G M2M in 2017.

We start this week's podcast with news that thousands of Microsoft's ex-Nokia employees are losing their jobs.

Other topics for discussion include the new Apple and IBM partnership, Yahoo's acquisition of Flurry, regulating mobile games, improving rural mobile coverage, BT's new phone service and some management movements.

The European Commission says Google has agreed to change its policies in response to EC proposals about mobile gaming and in-app purchases.

In December 2013, the EC said games advertised as ‘free’ shouldn’t mislead consumers about the true costs. It also said consumers “should be adequately informed” about payment arrangements and shouldn’t be charged without giving explicit consent.