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Imagine yourself as England's Frank Lambard playing against Germany in a preliminary match during the 2010 FIFA World Cup. After kicking a solid game-tying shot, you watch the ball oddly bounce downward off the top rail, then in and out of the goal. Even though video footage proves otherwise, the referees disallow the score and Germany eventually goes on to win the game.

Fortunately, such epic miscalls seem less likely to happen during the 2014 World Cup and beyond, as the soccer-regulating organization FIFA plans to utilize a highly accurate sensor system capable of detecting successful shots and ensuring the referees should get the call right every time.… Read more

Asus has launched a new video teasing its plans for the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona later this month.

The company's video, called "Ultimate Craftsmanship. Today." shows a UFO soaring over Barcelona and landing on a church as spectators watch in amazement. The video ends with the invite to "join Asus to embrace the metallic miracle" on February 25 at Mobile World Congress.

Exactly what Asus has in store for the show is currently unknown. However, the company's Mobile World Congress event page is titled, "In Search of Incredible." A secondary headline … Read more

HTC may be planning to unveil its new flagship phone this week, but many Android lovers are already shoving the expected HTC One out of the way in anticipation that the Samsung Galaxy S4 will descend from the heavens and into the hands of a growing legion of Samsung fanbois next month.

Or it might just be unveiled at an event in New York City on March 14.

That's the updated rumor out this morning from Russian analyst and rumor-meister Eldar Murtazin via Sammobile. Murtazin's scoops have a mixed track record of coming true, but this one is … Read more

After some earlier teasing, LG Electronics fully detailed its Optimus G Pro Android phone today, a high-end model with 5.5-inch screen, LTE networking, and a quad-core 1.7GHz processor.

LG often sells its phones first in its home market of South Korea, and it looks like that's the plan for the Optimus G Pro, too. But it'll arrive in other areas, too, including North America and Japan in the second quarter of 2013, LG said in an announcement a week ahead of the Mobile World Congress show. That's where the South Korean company will show off … Read more

It was a good day for the WebKit browser engine yesterday when Opera Software adopted it in place of its in-house Presto. But yesterday's developments also became an opportunity for a high-profile JavaScript programmer to lodge criticisms about WebKit.

"Each release of Chrome or Safari generates excitement about new bleeding-edge features; nobody seems to worry about the stuff that's already (still!) broken," complained Dave Methvin, president of the jQuery foundation and a member of the core programming team that builds the widely used Web programming tool, in a blog post.

"jQuery Core has more lines … Read more

It might have been a smart strategic move for Opera Software to move to the WebKit browser engine and scrap its own Presto, but some think it's a step backward for the development of the Web overall.

"A switch to Webkit might benefit Opera. It's just not going to benefit the open Web," Mozilla's Robert O'Callahan said today in comments on his blog about Opera's Presto change-o. "This will strengthen the WebKit mobile monoculture and make it even harder for us to promote Web standards over 'coding to Webkit.'"

Browser engines … Read more

Opera Software, an independent voice in the browser market since the 1990s, will dramatically change its strategy this year by adopting the WebKit browser engine used by Safari and Chrome.

The Norwegian company announced the move today and said it will show off the first fruits of the work with a WebKit-based version of its Android browser at the Mobile World Congress show in less than two weeks. But the company will move to WebKit for its desktop browser, too.

A browser engine processes the Web page instructions written in HTML, JavaScript, and CSS then renders the results on screens. … Read more

Along with the latest smartphone releases from Nokia, LG and more, this year's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, will play host to 20 of Britain's most innovative mobile companies thanks to the Smart U.K. competition.

The competition -- organized in association with U.K. government body U.K. Trade and Investment (UKTI) -- saw over 60 British-based companies enter, which was narrowed down to 20 by an expert judging panel. All 20 will be given entry to Mobile World Congress by UKTI -- although they'll have to pay for their own flights and accommodation -- … Read more