A look back: the best of MWC 2012 – The Verge

The Verge Interview: Nvidia GM Mike Rayfield on Tegra 3 and LTE

2012-03-02T13:42:35-05:00

Mike Rayfield

Tegra 3, Nvidia's new quad-core chip for smartphones and tablets, has been the most talked-about new processor at MWC 2012. Its popularity continues a habit the company established last year when almost every phone maker had a Tegra 2 handset to show off. Today's a little different from yesteryear, however, in one very important aspect: America's top two carriers demand LTE in their high-end phones. That poses a conundrum for Nvidia as Tegra 3 is most evidently a high-end part, but without LTE connectivity, it won't find its way into any of AT&T or Verizon's hero devices.

Faced with that contradiction, we did the only thing we could do: we …

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Windows 8 vs. iPad: feature by feature

2012-03-01T08:49:18-05:00

ipad vs windows 8 comparison

Microsoft's Windows 8 Consumer Preview was made available to download yesterday, giving everyone a chance to experience the company's most revolutionary change in user interface since Windows 95. The interaction paradigm has shifted from a mouse-centric desktop to a touch-friendly, highly visual Metro style UI. The old Start orb has been retired and replaced by a Charms bar, which is brought to life with an inward swipe from the right. A swipe from the top down dismisses the app you're in and returns you to the home screen, and the left and bottom edges also have actions associated with them. Gestures play a very significant role in Windows …

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Windows 8 Consumer Preview hands-on

2012-02-29T09:45:09-05:00

Windows 8 Consumer Preview on ViewSonic tablet

Microsoft is releasing the Consumer Preview of Windows 8 today, a highly anticipated software release from the company that marks the introduction of a full touch interface for Windows. The software giant has attempted to bring touch functionality to Windows over a number of years, but Windows 8 goes a huge step further by introducing a separate environment for new applications, designed with touch and Metro style in mind, to the masses of Windows users.

UI changes

UI changes and Start Button removal

The new Metro experience starts instantly with Windows 8. As we saw in the Developer Preview, a lock screen introduces Windows 8 users to the …

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The Verge Interview: Stephen Elop ‘more confident than ever’ about Windows Phone

2012-02-28T07:45:41-05:00

verge interview stephen elop_640

Nokia CEO Stephen Elop is on hand at MWC this week to help spread the company's message to business partners, carriers, and the press. Ever gregarious and approachable, Elop gave us a few minutes of his time today to discuss the first year of Nokia's transition, which got started with the announcement of a strategic alliance with Microsoft in February 2011. He was candid about the downsides of this fundamental change in strategy, noting the number of jobs Nokia has had to cut in an effort to streamline operations.

Today, Nokia remains very much in the middle of its transition, says Elop, but a lot has been accomplished in those short twelve …

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Windows Phone Tango: improved MMS, voice notes, app restrictions (hands-on pictures and video)

2012-02-27T15:43:02-05:00

Gallery Photo: Windows Phone Tango hands-on pictures

Microsoft announced today that it will bring a Windows Phone 7.5 update to existing handsets in April. Codenamed Tango, the update lowers Microsoft's minimum specification for Windows Phone and introduces some new features to existing devices. We got an early hands-on look at several builds of Windows Phone today, all of which include new MMS features and several restrictions for devices with 256MB of RAM.

Microsoft is removing background agents with Windows Phone Tango if a device has 256MB of RAM, meaning certain background tasks will not work. Microsoft believes around 95 percent of existing applications will work fine on 256MB of RAM, b …

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Intel lays out its plan for Android, will cut chip size in half by 2014

2012-02-27T13:59:04-05:00

via images.scribblelive.com

As Paul Otellini said at the Intel press event at Mobile World Congress, "it wouldn't be an Intel presentation without a roadmap." The company has laid out the long-term plans for its mobile processors, aiming to move from the current 32nm architecture of the Medfield Atom Z2460 to 22nm next year, and to just 14nm by 2014. The rate that these architectures are shrinking at mean that Intel is aiming to move faster than Moore's Law, which states that the number of transistors you can fit into an integrated circuit doubles roughly every two years. This doubled density leads to equal power in chips half the size, or alternatively double the powe …

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Option Xyfi hands-on: a creative new take on the portable hotspot

2012-02-27T11:46:58-05:00

Option Xyfi

Belgian firm Option - a longtime player in the USB modem and embedded wireless module market - had yet to follow competitors Novatel and Sierra Wireless down the MiFi-style mobile hotspot path, but it just launched a product here at Mobile World Congress today that rethinks what exactly the term "mobile hotspot" means. The so-called Xyfi looks a lot more like a traditional USB stick than a hotspot (in fact, Option bills it as the world's smallest 3G hotspot), but it's actually both: when you plug it into your PC, it automatically prompts you to install drivers. If you do, you can use it just like you would a traditional 3G modem. If you like …

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Google coyly hints at Jelly Bean Android codename with… jelly beans

2012-02-27T11:10:09-05:00

google jelly beans

We first reported that Google's next version of Android would be called Jelly Bean back in September, but now we're feeling even more confident: not only has a trusted source confirmed the name for us, but it's sort of impossible not to notice the enormous bowl of candy Google's placed in the middle of its private meeting area. That candy? Jelly beans. We asked Andy Rubin what the story was, and he declined to confirm anything - although he did say we could take as many as we wanted.

They were delicious.

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Google building ‘firewall’ between Android and Motorola after acquisition

2012-02-27T09:21:27-05:00

Gallery Photo: Motorola Defy+ hands-on images

Google's Andy Rubin led the charge to acquire Motorola, but the Android boss won't have anything to do with the company once the deal closes - he told reporters at Mobile World Congress today that he "sponsored" the acquisition but now has "nothing to do with it…. I don't even know who's running it." Questions about Motorola's future are starting to heat up now that the EU and US have approved the deal, which is expected to close soon, and Google's move to replace Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha with its head of ad sales Dennis Woodside has raised a few eyebrows. Rubin said he was "painfully aware" of concerns, but stressed that Google has "literall …

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Mozilla’s Boot to Gecko project: the internet is your phone (hands-on video)

2012-02-27T08:51:12-05:00

Mozilla Boot to Gecko

We stopped by Mozilla's booth at MWC today, and in addition to all the Firefox promotion the company's doing, it was also showing off something a little different: its Boot to Gecko project. Boot to Gecko is, in essence, a phone operating system that is entirely web- and HTML5-based. From the moment you turn the phone on, everything you see is HTML5. Even the dialer uses Mozilla's "telephony APIs," and is itself web-based. There are no native apps, just a series of the most impressive bookmarks you've ever seen.

We got to use an early version of Boot to Gecko, running on a flashed Samsung device that used to run Android, and we were really …

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