congress

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

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

California Democrat Mark Takano, a freshman congressman, today released a Vine and a YouTube video showcasing milestone achievements in his nascent legislative career.

Takano used a Vine to show the process of submitting his first piece of legislation, and also released a YouTube video showing his first speech on the floor of the House of Representatives.

Takano's use of Twitter's new video service is the latest in a string of people utilizing Vine for what might be considered emergent purposes. One reporter created a (much-derided) resume on Vine, while the service has also already become a new way … Read more

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

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

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

BARCELONA, Spain--Opera Software has dropped the new engine into its browser and now has begun revving it up.

At the Mobile World Congress show here, the company began showing for the first time its new WebKit-based version of Opera for Android. That browser is the first product from a completely overhauled product line and technology strategy for the company based in Oslo, Norway.

Opera is changing the browser engine at the core of its software, dumping its own Presto for the open-source WebKit used in Chrome and Safari. It's a radical change in many ways: many engineers are changing … Read more

BARCELONA, Spain--One of the great things about a trade show like Mobile World Congress is seeing the cool phones and tablets we won't get. Hang on, did I say great? I meant depressing -- I'd love to get my hands on a 4G Android smartphone as powerful as the Fujitsu Arrows X F-02E, or a water-resistant 4G Windows 8 tablet like the Fujitsu Arrows Tab.

Both devices are only available in Japan, and unlikely to go on sale elsewhere. Which is a shame: the Arrows X F-02E, Fujitsu's flagship phone, has specs to die for -- and … Read more

BARCELONA, Spain--After a rocky start, Samsung Electronics is finally seeing the light when it comes to the tablet business.

The Korean consumer electronics giant, already the world's largest handset manufacturer, plans to double its tablet sales from a year ago, according to Y.H. Lee, executive vice president of the company's mobile unit.

That would peg its sales to about 40 million units in 2013, although Samsung's hasn't officially disclosed its full-year 2012 unit sales yet.

"We expect to be very aggressive," Lee said in an interview with CNET.

The bullish expectation further underscores … Read more