BARCELONA — Samsung promoted its smartphone device testing and upgraded safety review processes during a major press event prior to Mobile World Congress on Sunday, almost without mentioning the disastrous Galaxy Note7 by name. That was the infamous smartphone that Samsung recalled globally — to the tune of 3 million devices — after lithium ion…
Lenovo is working with Amazon to get the Alexa voice assistant into a range of Motorola smartphones, and in the process, looking to depose Google’s voice assistant technology. The partners will first focus on developing an Alexa “Mod,” a block that will attach to a Moto Z modular handset. The companies will then integrate Alexa…
This year’s Mobile World Congress is starting to look like an oldies tour. It’s a time-honored tradition in pop music for acts long past their prime – some with only a few of their original members – to play a few of their greatest hits at state fairs and other cheery venues. As one star…
BARCELONA — Four years ago, Huawei was giving lessons at its trade show booth here at Mobile World Congress (MWC) on how to pronounce the company’s name. Now, Huawei is the third largest smartphone maker in the world, behind Apple and Samsung. At a preview event at this year’s MWC on Sunday, Huawei launched the…
Enterprises and cloud companies will start trying their hands at cellular this year, Nokia President and CEO Rajeev Suri predicts. “Enhanced reality” and events such as concerts may be where cloud giants first get into mobile services, Suri said at a Nokia event in Barcelona on the eve of Mobile World Congress. “The first webscale…
Classic phone brands from yesteryear are coming alive in Barcelona. Nokia, Blackberry and Moto were among the unlikely headline makers ahead of the Mobile World Congress trade show, which starts on Monday. Moto is owned by Lenovo, and the unit is still called Motorola Mobility. The new smartphones mixed up retro ideas with new features.…
Over the past decade there have been several attempts to cram video projectors into smartphones. All ultimately failed, but a Silicon Valley startup reckons it has the recipe right and is hoping for a warm response from consumers when its phone debuts later this year. The Akyumen Hawk is a 5.5-inch Android handset that packs…
Soon, your Samsung phone may be able to recognize your iris and log you into your Windows PC. Iris-scanning via phone is not yet a feature available for Samsung’s latest Galaxy Book 2-in-1s, which were announced at Mobile World Congress. But the company wants to quickly bridge the gap between its Galaxy smartphones, which run…
Huawei Technologies calls the P10 a smartphone, but its CEO doesn’t have much to say about its communication capabilities. Richard Yu, CEO of the company’s consumer business group, might instead have been talking about a new camera when he boasted of the device’s Leica-style portraiture and, in fact, like its predecessor it was “co-engineered” with…
The mobile industry is so anxious for 5G that it’s now planning something that’s almost 5G, but will be ready a year earlier. On Sunday, many of the world’s biggest equipment vendors and mobile operators joined hands to accelerate the 5G NR (New Radio) specification that will define many elements of 5G. The new technology…