The Washington Post reports that version 4.3 of the iOS Apple operating system has introduced new security for purchases made within an iPhone, iPad or iPod application. It follows complaints that children were inadvertently spending real money to buy in-app features and virtual currency.

Previous versions of iOS didn't require passwords to be entered for in-game purchases made within 15 minutes of an application purchase.

Mark Bridge writes:

Sadly we’re ending the week with yet another natural disaster. Barely two weeks after New Zealand’s earthquake comes news of Japan’s biggest quake in living memory.

Still, I’m here to talk about mobile phones, so – after a quick mention of the great work being done by the Red Cross – I’ll get on with it.

Rovio, the Finnish company that created the Angry Birds series of games, has acquired a $42 million investment. The funding round was led by venture capital firms Accel Partners and Atomico Ventures with participation from the Felicis Ventures fund as well.

As part of the deal, Niklas Zennström of Atomico Ventures - the man who co-founded Skype, Kazaa and Rdio - will be joining the board of Rovio.

This year, 49.6% of all in-car navigation device sales are expected to be smartphone solutions. That’s up from 40.6% in 2010 and 23.4% in 2009, according to IHS iSuppli research.

2012 will see unit sales for smartphone navigation take more than 50% of the automotive navigation market.

A new report from Juniper Research forecasts that one in eight mobile phone users worldwide will either have a 'mobile ticket' delivered to their phone or will buy a ticket using their phone by 2015. That's over 750 million users, compared with 230 million people today.

The next two years are expected to see mobile ticketing become mainstream, with mobile barcode boarding passes and cinema tickets leading the way.