Mobile World Congress has ended and as everyone looks forward to catching up on some sleep and digesting those Ice Cream Sandwich shakes, Google and the Android team take us on a farewell ride through MWC 2012. Take a look at all the hard work that went into this year’s Android Booth and all the fun that resulted from it. As always, Google did an impressive job and we’re already looking forward to next year. Farewell MWC 2012, you gave us quite a show.
The GSMA has announced the winners of the 17th Annual Global Mobile Awards which took place yesterday at Mobile World Congress. The top mobile products and services were showcased and there was even some entertainment with comedian/songwriter Tim Minchine as the host. Categories ranged from Best Consumer Mobile Service to Best Mobile Innovation for Publishing and while we love hearing about innovative products, it’s really the hardware categories that had us talking.
Panasonic earlier announced they would re-enter the European smartphone market with their Eluga smartphone. If you thought that was going to be the end of that, you were wrong. Panasonic has also unveiled its beefier, larger screened Eluga Power. The Eluga Power joins the phablet club by offering a 5″ 1280×720 HD LCD screen. That puts it up there with the Galaxy Note and LG Vu as far as screen size goes. Other specs include:
The heavily backed Isis mobile payment system is set to take on Google Wallet this summer and will be available to 100 Million U.S. cardholders. Chase, Capital One and Barclaycard have all signed on with Isis to enable their credit, debit and prepaid cards to be placed into the Isis Mobile Wallet. Isis is a joint venture created by AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless and is the reason why Google Wallet was blocked on the Verizon Galaxy Nexus (which is anti-competitive IMO but we have a fix for that).
-Eric Schmidt is about to take the stage at Mobile World Congress and it’s anyone’s guess at what he will say but we’ll be here to give you up-to-date coverage just in case he spills the beans on the latest Jelly Bean rumors or the 7″ Google tablet. Stay tuned as we’ll have more for you as it develops.
