Mark Bridge writes:

It’s a smartphone autumn, as prophesied a few weeks ago by the Carphone Warehouse and many others. The frenzy of big-name announcements led by Samsung at Berlin’s IFA has given way to stand-alone media presentations from Nokia, Motorola and Amazon.

Google-owned Motorola Mobility has announced three new additions to its RAZR smartphone family.

All support 4G LTE and offer protection against wear and tear by incorporating a Kevlar casing plus Corning Gorilla Glass.

A number of major consumer electronics companies are leading the way in rejecting the use of ‘conflict minerals’ that are mined illegally and traded illicitly, according to a new report.

The Enough Project, a US-based group working to end genocide and crimes against humanity, has published a report that assesses consumer electronics companies on their progress toward responsible and conflict-free supply chains. It comes two years after a law in the USA required companies to ensure any raw materials they used weren’t linked to the Congo conflict.

This week's edition of The Fonecast starts with news that Motorola Mobility is to lose around a fifth of its staff worldwide. There's also more reorganisation at Nokia, which is passing its Qt software business to Digia.

In addition we're talking about a new US partnership between Starbucks and Square, some good news for Research In Motion, a worrying report for Samsung and a major milestone for Shazam.

In a bid to return its mobile phone business to profitability, Google says it’s planning to reduce the number of employees at its Motorola Mobility subsidiary by around a fifth.

Approximately 4,000 of the company’s 20,000 employees are expected to be cut, with two-thirds of the reduction expected to occur outside the US.