Vodafone will be launching a ‘mass market’ smartphone this summer. The Smart II - an update from last year’s Vodafone 858 Smart - has been launched in the UK at £70 on ‘pay as you go’ before being rolled out to other European countries at under €99.

It’s described as having twice the processing power of the most expensive and sought-after smartphones available three years ago.

London Underground and Virgin Media have named a list of 82 London Underground stations that will offer free WiFi this summer. Oxford Circus, Stratford, Liverpool Street, Leicester Square and King’s Cross will be among the first to launch.

Virgin Media’s WiFi service will be free throughout the summer, with charges introduced at a later date.

UK-based m-ticketing technology specialist Masabi has demonstrated a proof-of-concept Android application that can read and display the contents of ITSO-based transport ticketing smart cards. ITSO is the UK government-chosen standard for smart ticketing that’s already being used by transport operators including Go-Ahead, Stagecoach and Newport Transport as well as in a number of regional schemes.

Masabi’s Smart Card Buddy Beta has been developed by the company’s Beta Labs programme and can be downloaded from the Google Play app store.

Three months ago Microsoft took advantage of Mobile World Congress to announce the public ‘preview’ version of Windows 8. It’s now moved beyond this beta version to announce the availability of the Windows 8 Release Preview, which is the final development phase before the OS goes into commercial production.

The new tablet and computer operating system can be downloaded by customers who are currently using Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7 or the previous Windows 8 preview, depending on their equipment specifications.

Research from Juniper Research shows more than 1 in 4 of Western European and US mobile phone users will use an NFC-equipped mobile phone to pay in-store for goods by 2017. That’s a dramatic increase on this year’s total, which is expected to be less than 2%.

The total amount of money transacted in NFC mobile payments is set to exceed $180 billion (£117 billion) worldwide in 2017.