sylvie barak

It wasn’t 3D stealing the show at this year’s Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona, Spain, but near field communication (NFC), a technology thought to settle, once and for all, the “mobile wallet” and “mobile payment” discussion.

While Texas Instruments and Qualcomm were busy paper launching dual and quad core processors at this year’s MWC, NVIDIA seemed a step ahead, demoing what looked to be a working model of its upcoming Tegra 3 quad-core mobile processor.

BARCELONA, Spain – Location, location, location was the message sent out by Qualcom Inc.’s Paul Jacobs this week at the Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona, Spain. The firm’s CEO said the new wave of mobile was all about proximity based peer to peer, and that Qualcomm would be making significant efforts to invest in firms and technologies which took advantage of that vision.

BARCELONA, Spain – It’s not often operators get the cheerleader treatment from mobile phone makers, but Jim Basille of Research In Motion Ltd. was certainly waving his pom-poms for them this week during his keynote at the Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona, Spain.

BARCELONA, Spain – Stephen Elop delivered what can only be described as a cheese-fest during his appearances during MWC at the Barcelona Fira this week. Laying it on thick, the Microsoft Corp. transfer refused to talk about the new MicroKia partnership, instead opting for the same old spiel about how Nokia Corp. was saving the world.

Though it had already been rumored and leaked a few weeks ago, Qualcomm Inc. confirmed this week that future Android devices powered by the Snapdragon processor would be able to run Netflix Inc.’s content service.

Just a short while after Apple and News Corp. announced their collaboration to produce a tablet newspaper called The Daily, Yahoo has announced its new publishing platform, which it calls Livestand – a digital newsstand for tablets and mobile phones.

Size may not matter, but what you have jutting out of your trouser pocket does have an impact, according to OK Cupid, the online dating site. And by that, of course, we mean your phone.

Norwegian software firm Opera has announced it has pushed past the 100 million mark in terms of mobile users.

While the Internet is rife with rumor surrounding what embattled Nokia Corp. plans to do next, cross platform app store GetJar has thrown its hat in the ring with the opinion Nokia should go Android and not Windows Phone 7.

Digital security firm McAfee says the number of malicious software attacks rose by 46% last year and that hackers have started zoning in on mobile phones – specifically the popular Android and iOS platforms.

We must confess this has come as a shock: The Catholic Church has embraced Apple Inc.’s iPhone and approved an app to guide troubled worshippers through confession.

There are all kinds of rumors swirling about tonight’s Sprint Nextel Corp. announcement. Will David Blaine make WiMAX disappear? Will Dan Hesse pull an iPhone out of his hat? Or will it be something as mundane as a new Android phone?

While Canadian BlackBerry maker RIM seems to be steadily losing ground in North America to the likes of Apple and Google’s Android, the firm is veritably thriving south of the border, where its devices are esteemed by many as the epitome of cool.

RIM has just announced that at long last it has released a new and hopefully improved version of its App World 2.1, which should be rolling out throughout the day

Research In Motion Ltd. released a new video providing a sneak peek at some of the unique business features available on the BlackBerry PlayBook today, including BlackBerry Bridge, multitasking, Flash …

Rumors are currently swirling around Samsung’s upcoming second tablet, with dubious videos and specs showing up all over the place, but AroundThe.Net claims to have it on “airtight” authority that Tab 2 will indeed be sporting Nvidia’s Tegra 2 as opposed to Samsung’s own Hummingbird processor.

This week the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) gave nine firms, including Google, backing to manage databases which will coordinate the usage of “white spaces” for high-speed wireless broadband networking.

Google is “not happy” with current app sales in the Android marketplace according to Android platform manager Eric Chu speaking at the Inside Social Apps conference in San Francisco yesterday.

With 200 million mobile users and counting, it really was about time for Facebook to try and cash in on the burgeoning mobile advertising bandwagon – something it appears ready to do after the acquisition of Seattle hyperlocal ad startup Rel8tion.

Yesterday we reported that a leaked roadmap had shown not only Tegra 3 coming down Nvidia’s pipeline, but also a Tegra 2 3D chip, prompting speculation about what 3D devices we might have in store for us in 2011.

This week we have a bevy of changes occurring in Silicon Valley to deal with.

Bad news for Kodak this morning as a judge ruled the company’s patent infringement claim against mobile giants RIM and Apple was ruled invalid and not infringed.

Nvidia’s dual-core Tegra 2 chip is about to be followed up with a stunningly powerful 1.5 gigahertz Tegra 3 chip by the end of 2011.