Over 250,000 SIM-only mobile contracts were taken up in the UK during July 2012, the highest figure since research company GfK began keeping records.

It means customers committed themselves to over 150,000 years of mobile phone use in that one month.

The Google Play application store has now delivered more than 25 billion app downloads, according to the official Android blog. The service, which currently hosts 675,000 apps and games, will be celebrating for five days with a series of offers including some software discounted to 25 cents.

It’s around six months since Apple celebrated the same milestone.

US-based online and high-street bookshop Barnes & Noble has launched two new tablets in the USA and the UK. The 7-inch NOOK HD and 9-inch NOOK HD+ will support more than 2.5 million eBooks, electronic magazines and apps. In addition, B&N says TV shows and movies will also be available in the next few weeks.

Pre-orders will begin next month, with availability expected towards the end of November.

UK telecoms regulator Ofcom has published a new quarterly report that shows the most complained-about telephone and pay TV suppliers.

Complaints about mobile phone services are now being classified as ‘pay monthly’ and ‘pay as you go’ (pre-pay) customers. Ofcom says around 95% of mobile complaints come from users with ‘pay monthly’ contracts, with the number of ‘pay as you go’ complaints currently too low to be statistically valid.

Research In Motion revealed more about its forthcoming BlackBerry 10 mobile operating system at its BlackBerry Jam developer conference in California yesterday.

BlackBerry 10, which is expected to be available on new BlackBerry devices early next year, is focussed on what RIM is calling ‘BlackBerry Flow’ - the idea that a BlackBerry device won’t slow you down. For example, BB10 can show all currently-running applications as small widgets rather than simply as icons.