As reported by Search Engine Journal and elsewhere - FAST is laying off 148 employees. Based on the last public number I have of 735 this would be about 20% of the workforce, which is rather significant.
A 23 minute audio presentation by FAST is available here in English at the bottom. There is no information on the breakdown of the country distribution of the layoffs or how this will affect mobile search though it would seem that it might cause a slowdown of this activity.
This news may rekindle the news of potential merger of FAST with Infospace.
