Mark Bridge writes:

This week’s podcast feature from TheFonecast.com takes a look at mobile telecare: using mobile telecommunications to help elderly people and those with special needs.

UK-based Burnside Telecom has recently announced a couple of telecare products that take advantage of the company’s expertise in producing ‘fixed cellular’ devices, so I’ve been talking to managing director Colin Aitken about these new products.

A new report from KPMG says consumers around the world are embracing new technology - and consumers in the UK are adopting many of these new technologies faster than the rest of the world.

The KPMG report, entitled ‘The Converged Lifestyle’, also says UK consumers appear to be more concerned about privacy and security than other countries.

Mark Bridge writes:

Season of goodwill?  Not in the mobile phone industry.

Orange UK is putting its prices up next month. It says the 4.34% rise is less than inflation, so you might think customers would be pleased. You’d be wrong. Also unhappy are many people who’ve discovered Carrier IQ software embedded on their phones. Fortunately for the UK mobile industry, most of those people seem to be in the United States. And there was unhappiness in Egypt as Twitter’s acquisition of privacy and security company Whisper Systems saw Whisper’s mobile encryption applications taken (temporarily) offline.

Vodafone UK has launched a free Android app called Vodafone Guardian that’s designed to help parents and carers protect young people from inappropriate use of the internet and unwanted calls and texts.

Children and parents can arrange for certain calls or text messages to be blocked - and internet access can be restricted at certain times of the day.

The last couple of weeks have seen mobile software and analytics company Carrier IQ generating some unwelcome headlines. It took legal action against security researcher Trevor Eckhart, who revealed how the software was embedded in many mobile devices, before withdrawing its action and apologising.

It’s now published an updated statement to clarify its position.