Worlds

Google's ninja approach to Mobile World Congress

BARCELONA, Spain--Gone is the giant Android figures, the twisty slide, colorful pins, and free ice cream sandwiches. Gone is the massive, head-turning booth that clearly established Google as a major player at Mobile World Congress.

In its place is a small meeting room with a blank glass placard on the outside. A white curtain provides privacy for the briefings inside.

Google has largely run under the radar, taking a few meetings with the press, vendors, and other partners at the show. But the company isn't listed as an exhibitor, and its name and meeting room doesn't appear on … Read more

NFC seeps into bloodstream of Mobile World Congress

BARCELONA, Spain--NFC (near field communication) technology has been around for some time now, but as of yet it's failed to hit a level of ubiquity in our devices that would galvanize more businesses to adopt it. That, however, is changing fast.

While most think of NFC as solely a new payment solution, companies are constantly finding new ways to implement it.

NFC is essentially a new way to exchange information from one device to another, wirelessly. It's different from other wireless technology in that it requires the two devices to be within a centimeter of each other. Hence … Read more

Sorry, LTE compatibility in the U.S. still years away

BARCELONA, Spain--Here's the good news: the U.S. wireless industry is working to ensure that you'll eventually be able to take your LTE-enabled phone from one carrier to another and get the same experience.

The bad news: it likely won't happen for a few years.

That's according to T-Mobile Chief Technology Officer Neville Ray, who spoke to CNET in an interview at Mobile World Congress. Ray says the industry is keen on phones that can operate on different carriers, but that there remain a lot of complexities.

The advent of 4G LTE technology was supposed to … Read more

Touchless touch screen gives you control without contact (video)

BARCELONA, Spain--One of the more jaw-dropping tech demos on view at this year's Mobile World Congress, new touch-screen technology from chipmaker STMicroelectronics lets you control your smartphone or tablet without actually touching the display.

Using it, you can swipe, drag, and prod at your touch-screen device, replacing the fear of fingerprints with the feeling of controlling a spaceship's navigation system.

There's nothing special about the touch screen itself, but rather about the controller chip that manages the panel. Rather than monitoring contact with the screen, the chip observes the electrical field that the tablet's touch screen … Read more

LG's 4K phone upscaling squeezes Ultra HD from your mobile, wirelessly (video)

BARCELONA, Spain--LG is showing off a new system that transforms your smartphone into a 4K media hub.

The South Korean company is calling the new platform the "world's first wireless Ultra HD transmission technology." If you've got a game or video playing on your mobile in HD, the new platform will upscale the feed to a 4K resolution, before beaming it out wirelessly to another device.

In this situation that second device was an LG 4K television, acting as a simple monitor for the 4K feed that the phone was pumping out.

At Mobile World Congress, … Read more

Google exec: There's a wall between Nexus, Motorola

BARCELONA, Spain--Google considers its own Motorola Mobility unit the same as HTC or Samsung Electronics when it comes to their relationship.

"It's almost as if they are a separate company," said Hiroshi Lockheimer, vice president of engineering for Android at Google, adding that there is a wall between the Nexus business and Motorola.

Still, in answering a question about whether Motorola would ever participate in the Nexus program again, Lockheimer wasn't particularly clear. While there is a firewall between the two businesses, the equal treatment of Motorola and Samsung suggests there is the possibility of collaboration … Read more

Day 2 at MWC: What you may have missed

Though most of the big players chose Sunday or Monday to make news and drop their newest devices, Day 2 of Mobile World Congress didn't slow down in the least.

Mobile operating systems have long been a popular theme at the word's biggest wireless trade show and the 2013 confab is no exception. Sunday brought us the announcement of the new Firefox mobile OS, and today the Tizen Association entered the game, as well. The group showed its new operating system at a press conference that closed the day. CNET's Luke Westaway and Rich Trenholm got their hands on an early device … Read more

Samsung, Intel's Tizen OS makes splashy intro at MWC

BARCELONA, Spain--It's Tizen's turn for the spotlight.

The upstart mobile operating system, shepherded into development by Samsung Electronics and Intel, made a splashy debut at an event at Mobile World Congress.

The operating system is seen as a potential alternative to the dominance of Android, and has been driven in part by demand by carriers for a more open OS that they can tinker with.

Beyond the two key players, the night was a celebration of other partners, including Huawei, which is joining the steering committee of the Tizen Association, and European wireless carrier Orange. Orange said that … Read more

We get Emotion-al with Huawei's 'UI Guy'

BARCELONA, Spain--"They call me the UI guy." This is Dennis Poon speaking, Huawei's global UI design director for device-maker, and the man in charge of the new Emotion UI interface that all but completely re-envisions Android on smartphones.

Sporting a textured brown blazer and collapsing comfortably onto a couch in Huawei's meeting room, it's apparent that Poon is a different breed of executive, easily cracking jokes and sharing stories as he discusses Emotion UI, the Android layer Huawei uses in its Ascend P2 and Ascend Mate.

Like the debut version shown this past summer, … Read more

NEC unveils bizarre dual-screen Medias W N-05E

BARCELONA, Spain--Announced in Japan last month for NTT Docomo, NEC's latest Android smartphone, the Medias W N-05E isn't quite your usual device. Like the YotaPhone, this dual-core handset sports two screens, and supposedly offers twice the fun. Unlike the YotaPhone though, it comes packed with twin 4.3-inch qHD displays that are fully colored.

Design As is always the case with a phone with two screens, NEC needed to find somewhere to tuck the second panel away when it's not in use. The solution is simple -- the W N-05E folds in half, keeping its form compact. … Read more