This week Amazon.com has acquired text-to-speech technology company Ivona Software.

Ivona’s technology is already used on Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablets and by other businesses, application developers and individuals.

Mark Bridge writes:

Predicting the future is easy. Making accurate predictions is more of a challenge. In our final podcast of 2012 we've provided a forecast for the mobile telecoms industry in 2013 - and we've also looked back at last year's expectations.

So... what do the three of us at TheFonecast.com expect from mobile phones and wireless technology next year?

Photography pioneer Eastman Kodak Company has arranged a deal that’ll see a consortium of companies paying around $525 million to buy and license over a thousand of its patents, including its digital imaging patent portfolio.

The consortium, which has been organised by Intellectual Ventures and RPX Corporation, is believed to contain Adobe Systems, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Fujifilm, Google, HTC, Huawei, Microsoft, Research in Motion, Samsung and Shutterfly.

Mark Bridge writes:

In many ways it’s been a week of big news without big surprises. Apple announced the much-rumoured iPad mini, which is just like an iPad but smaller. It also introduced a fourth-generation update to its larger iPad, promising more speed and more 4G connectivity.

Amazon.com has announced financial results for the third quarter of its financial year.

Net sales were up 27% year-on-year to $13.81 billion (£8.57 billion), although the company made a $274 million net quarterly loss. Most of the loss was due to the company’s investment in the LivingSocial local discount business.