Doro, the Swedish company best known for its easy-to-use handsets, has launched a new smartphone.

The Doro Liberto 820 is designed for older users who may need additional support or encouragement with their mobile device.

Developers at the Google I/O conference last week were shown key aspects of the forthcoming Android OS update.

Known simply as ‘Android L’ - a sweet-themed name is expected to follow - the new platform is due to be launched in the autumn.

Producing mobile phones for older customers requires much more than big buttons and a simple interface. At Mobile World Congress last month we spoke to two major players in this growing sector: Swedish company Doro and Austria's Emporia Telecom.

Our first conversation was with Harald Obereder, Chief Technology Officer at Emporia, who spoke to Mark Bridge about handset design and user interface design. This was followed by an interview with Chris Millington, Managing Director for Doro UK and Ireland, about research and development in the 'senior tech' market.

BlackBerry has revealed details of two new smartphones during Mobile World Congress 2014 this week.

The forthcoming BlackBerry Q20, which is due to become available during the second half of this year, will offer a QWERTY keyboard as well as physical buttons for ‘menu’, ‘back’, ‘send’ and ‘end’. There’ll be a trackpad for navigation as well as a 3.5-inch touchscreen.

Finnish smartphone developer Jolla says its Sailfish mobile operating system has reached release 1.0 and will ready for global distribution from next month.

There’ll also be a downloadable version of the software for handsets that currently run Android, plus a separate user interface app that’ll simulate the Sailfish OS experience on Android devices.