There's a new British World Record holder for sending text messages from mobile phones. Okay, so it's currently unofficial... and it's a promotional opportunity for Samsung and Swype... and it's just for touchscreen phones... but that's not stopped us celebrating.

The death of a man in India last week is being blamed on his mobile phone by many people, although a lightning strike is also being suggested as the cause. Gopal Gujjar died after taking cattle to graze near in the village of Kota. His death wasn't witnessed; he was found dead the following day, having suffered burns to his head. His shattered mobile phone was discovered nearby.

Mark Bridge writes:

Last week the Wall Street Journal published a feature that explained how techies in New York wanted the city’s 212 area code as part of their mobile phone numbers. This may seem strange from a UK perspective until you realise that American mobile phone numbers don’t have dedicated mobile ‘dialling codes’. Instead, they’re all prefixed with a local area code and cost the same to call as those landline numbers they mimic.

PlaySpan, a Californian company that provides digital goods, micro-transaction and global payment platforms, has arranged an $18 million investment. New investors include Vodafone Ventures and Softbank Bodhi Fund alongside the company's existing investors. This capital increases the company's total funding to approximately $42 million. PlaySpan says the new investment will be used to expand into Europe and Asia and to grow PlaySpan's global publisher and user base.

Chinese mobile manufacturer ZTE Corporation has announced interim financial results for the first half of 2010. Operating revenue increased by 10.9% year-on-year to $4.524 billion (around £2.9 billion), with almost a fifth of this coming from European and US markets.