Earlier this year we reported that Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom-Orange had agreed to work together on machine-to-machine communication in a number of countries. The agreement currently covers France, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and the UK.

TeliaSonera has now joined the M2M Service Cooperation Agreement between the two companies, adding Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Estonia and Lithuania to the list of countries.

Mark Bridge writes:

When applications first hit the headlines, there were many stories about developers making small fortunes just from selling applications. Now there’s much more focus on promoting the app.

To understand what's changed - and to discover how developers get their apps noticed inside ever-expanding app stores - I spoke to Carsten Frien. He's CEO & co-founder of mobile advertising marketplace madvertise, a company that's based in Germany and has recently opened an office in the UK.

Nathan Vautier, managing director of Sony Ericsson UK and Ireland, is reported to be leaving his job in the next few months.

His next role is "not in direct competition with Sony Ericsson", according to the company.

Research from Nielsen says games are (still) the most popular app category, with 64% of app downloaders having used them in the last month. Next were weather apps, followed by social networking.

The survey contacted people in the USA who'd downloaded an app in the previous 30 days.

Processor company VIA Technologies has agreed to sell its share in S3 Graphics to HTC Corporation.

HTC is paying $300 million for the deal; VIA will receive $147 million and WTI Investment International will receive $153 million.