Silicon.com – Europe has becomes world’s highest spender on outsourcing
Europe has overtaken North America as the region that spends the most money on outsourcing in the world.

Computer Weekly – Millions to text their season’s greetings
Mobile phones will unite millions of people this Christmas and New Year, with hundreds of millions of messages expected to be sent on Orange’s network alone.

Financial Times – Microsoft loses appeal in $290m patent case
Microsoft on Tuesday lost an appeal against a $290m patent infringement case in its biggest legal setback in an intellectual property case this year. In spite of the upholding of an injunction barring it from using the infringing code in its widely used Word program, Microsoft said it did not expect the decision to disrupt sales of its Office suite of applications, of which Word is part.

The Register – Apple angling to transform TV?
Apple is reportedly talking with CBS and Disney in its search for content partners for a planned US subscription-based television service.

The top 10 consumer mobile apps in 2012 will include:

1. Money Transfer – e.g. iMobile
2. Location-Based Services – e.g. Loopt
3. Mobile Search – e.g. Taptu
4. Mobile Browsing – e.g. Firefox Mobile
5. Mobile Health Monitoring – e.g. Main Street Medica
6. Mobile Payment- i.e. Charge Anywhere
7. Near Field Communication Services – e.g.  iCarte
8. Mobile Advertising – e.g. AdMob
9. Mobile Instant Messaging – e.g. Fring
10. Mobile Music – e.g. Spotify