Throughout the churn of ever-changing priorities and products at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, or at any trade show for that matter, there is one constant: slogans. To be more specific: big banners printed with meaningless corporate gibberish.
This is where the world’s surplus of words like “enabling,” “future,” “innovating,” and “together” go to die, like orange-skinned retirees to Florida.
BARCELONA, MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS – This year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona was pretty disappointing from a gadget-lovers point of view. Samsung was there, but didn’t announce anything new. Microsoft didn’t even have a stand, and even the once-great App Planet section is little but a business-service wasteland (albeit with the best tea, coffee and beer in the show).
Still, even a pile of crap has variations in its texture, and so we bring you the “Best” of Mobile World Congress 2013.
BARCELONA, MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS – Bluetooth speakers are great in the kitchen. But the the Josiah from Kwamecorp is possibly the best kitchen speaker ever. Not only does its beautifully minimal styling fit right into any kitchen, but it’s fashioned from ceramic, and can even act as a snack tray.
BARCELONA, MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS — During a Samsung developer conference here at Mobile World Congress this morning, the Korean company unveiled a new service called Samsung Wallet, which lets Samsung smartphone owners turn tickets, coupons, membership cards, boarding passes, and more into digital cards that they can store in a virtual wallet.
The service probably sounds familiar, and it is — Samsung Wallet is basically Apple’s Passbook, but for Samsung phones. It works in almost exactly the same way, and looks very similar, too.
BARCELONA, MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS — Here at MWC in Barcelona, Krussell is showing off its latest lineup of waterproof smartphones cases called Sealabox, which let you take your smartphone swimming to snap pictures of the fishes. Available for almost all common smartphones, the Sealabox is IPX7 certified for water resistance up to one meter, and it’s been carefully designed to allow you to make the most of your smartphone in almost any environment.
BARCELONA, MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS – I’m willing to bet that you have – at some point – been frustrated by the App Store. More specifically, you have been driven crazy trying to find apps via search. Even apps which you know are there, which you have used before, and about which you know almost everything but their names.
Quixey is a search engine for Apps, and it will ease your App Store pain.
BARCELONA, MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS – It’s not all announcements of exciting new Android handsets with fractionally faster processors here at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Oh no. You’ll also find rose-tinted spectacles. Yes, Elecom – maker of some of the most accessorial iAccessories ever – now makes some specs that will stop your eyes from being ruined – ruined! – by blue light.
BARCELONA, MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS – Excito is an AppleTV-a-like puck which hooks up to your home network and lets you stream TV, music and movies to any stereo or screen in the house.
So what, right? The Apple TV already does that? The difference is that the Excito only uses your phone as a remote, and streams the content either direct from the internet, or from your own local media server. Oh, and it costs around half the price if the already-cheap Apple TV.
