Mark Bridge writes:

Mobile security - as I’ve said several times in the last few months - is becoming a hot topic. Although the number of mobile viruses and malicious applications is relatively small when compared with attacks on PCs, it’s on the increase.

Last week we talked to Eddy Willems, Security Evangelist at G Data, about the security risks facing smartphone users... and in the last 12 months we’ve also spoken to David Emm of Kaspersky Lab UK and Craig Heath from Franklin Heath about similar subjects.

Telefónica has released its quarterly results along with figures for the first three-quarters of its financial year.

Overall, the company reported a 5.4% increase in revenue to 46.7 billion Euro (£39.9 billion) for the nine-month period and a 6% rise in customer numbers to almost 300 million fixed-line and mobile connections worldwide.

Nigel Cranswick, a former policeman from South Yorkshire, has been jailed for over ten years today for his part in an attempted £330 million VAT fraud. He and six others, including his sister and brother-in-law, were caught by investigators from HM Revenue & Customs.

They’d set up a business called Ideas 2 Go Ltd and falsely claimed they’d generated billions of pounds in turnover selling mobile phones and computer software.

Online marketplace eBay.co.uk has submitted a ‘mobile manifesto’ to the UK government today, listing seven areas of focus that will boost the UK's economic recovery by supporting the digital communications industry.

It points out that a recent report prepared for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport estimated the UK’s digital communications industry is worth over £50 billion to the UK economy and employs 531,000 UK workers.

Mark Bridge writes:

We’ve previously talked on The Fonecast about ‘superphones’ - a relatively arbitrary description for high-end smartphones. Google described its Nexus One as a superphone when it was launched at the beginning of 2010 - although it’s also what Dr Who’s companion called her upgraded Nokia 3200 in 2005.

Now Strategy Analytics has a definition and a growth forecast.