Ten Things I Want to Say With Regard To The Mobile World Congress

Hola, estimats amics ! My Catalan is a bit on the rocks, but I can most efficiently mumble a few words to you without a flinch of the tongue. So, this year’s MWC took place in Barcelona (I seriously hope you are pronouncing that right). A lot was said and done, but few things I would say I considered in my review of the process are the following:
-Get your Gs up.
Fifth generation networks are commencing to roll out in some countries, and are observably up to 100 times faster than 4G networks. Cellular generations differ, in general, in four main aspects: radio access, data rates, bandwidth and switching schemes. The 1G (First Generation) cellular systems, mainly analog system, possessed a bandwidth ranging from 10 to 30 KHz depending on system type and service. Offered data rates were around 10 Kbps after analog to digital conversion. Radio access scheme was FDMA and switching was all circuit, suitable for voice services. The first phase of the 2G (Second Generation) GSM systems offered a data rate up to 9.6 Kbps and increased in the second phase and phase+ to reach a peak rate of more than 300Kbps with bandwidth of 200 KHz. Switching started to be packet in addition to circuit beginning from the second phase and radio access was TDMA/FDMA. With the 3G (Third Generation) systems, the peak data rate began of 2 Mbps in the first phase and approached 50Mbps in consecutive phases at constant wide bandwidth of 5 MHz .The approved access scheme for the 3G was CDMA and switching continued to be circuit in addition to packet. However, at the start of 3.5G, with HSDPA system, and thereafter it was focused on packet switching only. In 4G (Fourth Generation) cellular systems, peak data rates started at 100 Mbps and supposed to reach the order of more than 1Gbps at the downlink benefiting from a variable bandwidth up to 20, 40 or even 70 MHz.

Switching was approved to be packet only- all IP, and radio access changed from CDMA to OFDMA and SC-FDMA. In addition to the cellular systems, current wireless technologies include Wireless Local Area Networks (WLAN) 802.11 and Wireless Metropolitan Area. This is according to the International Journal of Next-Generation Networks (IJNGN) Vol.4, No.3, September 2012.

-Mobile payments business racks it up.
Increasingly, smartphone makers really want you to pay for stuff with your mobile device. Samsung formally made the leap into mobile payments with Samsung Pay, which launches this summer. Samsung says the service will work with contactless, NFC-enabled terminals and traditional “magstripe” terminals. With innovations like Bitcoin, seems only the logical step for such manufacturing practice.

-Google and Facebook are seriously ‘jonesing’ about distributing that addictive drug that is the Internet.

The ‘hoody billionaire’, Mark Zuckerberg during the Congress was enthusiastically dumming up support for his Internet. Org project to connect the 10 percent of the world that is not online, not to mention Google’s ‘Project Loon’, which I exposed in one my previous articles.
-Wireless charging is here to stay

Despite wireless charging being decent idea, it has been held back for years by an industry that couldn’t decide on a single standard. However, we’ve now whittled it down to two competing standards (called Qi and Powermat), and this year’s Mobile World Congress provided a little more room for wireless charging optimism than before. The Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge, sure to be the biggest non-iPhone phones in the world, support both Qi and Powermat charging; Ikea, the world’s largest furniture seller, announced that it would soon sell furniture with Qi chargers built in, yeah, like we need more chargeable furniture. Essentially, these are gargantuan steps toward more mainstream adoption of cordless charging. Apple, unrepresented at this show and in the two existing wireless-charging groups, may also soon ship its own proprietary version of the concept; the Apple Watch will come with a version of wireless charging, nonetheless, that remains mysterious before the lead up to its official release announcement. Though there are still obvious kinks to be worked out. Either way, this year’s Congress gave the much needed ‘mainstream respite’ for this technology.

-Virtual reality is the New reality.

Remember Facebook’s purchase of gaming hardware firm Oculus for an interesting figure of 2 billion dólares; basically, what Facebook wants to do is to dominate the virtual reality platform, especially as a launch to more mind-blowing social networking innovations. Here I say, Facebook is not the only tavern about town, others put up shop, and soon this little town of virtual reality will be crawling with ‘unreal characters in drunken stupor’; case in point, whilst Samsung works on a new version of its Gear VR, HTC reported it will partner with Valve Software on a virtual-reality headset called HTC Vive. The smartphone maker appears very confident in Vive, claiming the technology is “at least nine months to a year ahead of Oculus.” But here’s the real question: when will these headsets exit the experimental phase and actually hit stores?

-Security has become first-priority for many gadget manufactures.

Virtually, every gadget manufacturer goes to bed plagued by this marauding concept of device security; especially, now that they also want you to pay for almost everything with your device. So, the best news about smartphone security at MWC was arguably the increasing availability of login options besides pass-codes and screen patterns that many owners can’t be bothered to set up. Singularly, fingerprint recognition — considerably improved from Samsung’s previous efforts on the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge, and tolerant of wet fingertips in the version Qualcomm demonstrated and expects to see ship in the second half of this year — doesn’t require users to memorize or carry anything additional.

-Mobile ad networks have spread like a virus.

With regard to the reach and technical talent of large mobile ad networks from Google, Facebook, and Twitter, the defeatist logic would be there wouldn’t be much room for other ad networks to compete. And yet, every corner in the exhibition floor seemed to hold a mobile ad network, reportedly.

Mobile ad networks are fast becoming the most popular way for app developers to make money from their app without driving away users, so there are definitely plenty of ad networks to choose from. As someone who wants to advertise, it can be hard to know what actually works to drive app downloads and installs. Really, the effectiveness of these adverts is hard to measure, as there is little data available about how many click actually result in a download or install.

-Smart watches are the thing of the now.

You have heard of Apple Watch, yes? Apple’s competitors have been busy announcing rival products. Many are based on Google’s Android Wear, the somewhat underwhelming software that powers last year’s poor-selling smartwatches. But some manufacturers are going their own way. LG’s newest models include one that can connect on its own to high-¬speed mobile LTE networks, and it’s not using Google’s software. Instead, the watch’s operating system is based on the once -beloved WebOS system developed by Palm years ago and acquired at a fire-sale price by LG two years ago from Hewlett¬-Packard, which itself got the software in the 2010 fire sale of Palm. And it gives LG’s Urbane LTE model a more refined, colorful and good-looking design.

Samsung unveiled the Galaxy S6 as well as the Edge S6.

After days of speculating, Samsung eventually calms the waters with its release of two its 2015 tech movements. The speculations were not far off, for instance, had curved displays and aluminum bodies.

-Microsoft’s ‘entry’ into the low-cost smartphone market.

Microsoft is attempting a contrasting approach for its line of Lumia smartphones. The company revealed two new Lumia devices — including a “phablet” — that start at $177. The smartphones will include quad-core processors, large HD screens and storage expandable to 128 GB. Here, here, for Microsoft. They wish to prove what I always believed that smartphones don’t have to be pricey, especially that they are ubiquitous as the clouds.

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