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Mobile World Congress Day 1 In Pictures

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A bird's eye view of Barcelona, out to the sea, from atop of La Pedrera.

A bird's eye view of Barcelona, out to the sea, from atop of La Pedrera.  Barcelona is a very metropolitan city, riddled with the architecture of Antonio Gaudi.  The busy streets of Barcelona just about nearing twilight on a Sunday night.  Atop La Pedrera sits some of the more interesting twists in Antonio Gaudi's architecture.  Antonio Gaudi used lots of glass tiles in his work, most of which is colorful, unique and breathtaking.  More Antonio Gaudi work atop La Pedrera.  More Antonio Gaudi work atop La Pedrera.  La Padrera is one of the noted tourist stops along the Antonio Guadi path strewn about Barcelona. Many buildings in the city share some of this architecture, but this singular piece also holds a Guadi museum.  Sagrada Familia is the famous unfinished church, designed by Antonio Gaudi. It is as famous for its constant state of construction (note the scaffolding) as it is for the eccentric designs from each side of this gigantic cathedral. It is as if each facade were designed by a different architect and artist, and yet it is all, unmistakably, Gaudi.  Else, a partnership between Else, Sharp and Access, has completely rethought the idea of a mobile phone GUI. The goal: use a phone with one hand.  Using the Else main screen, a single thumb movement fans out options under an application.  The Else home screen presents a very simple wheel interface with the most basic applications in view.  The Else phone is sleek, with a 3.5-inch narrow capacitive touch screen interface, but with a navigation method that is unique.  The press room at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona is always packed with journalists from around the world, video teams, photographers and bloggers galore.  Martin Sole, Light Reading's Video Producer edits video in the press room. One of Light Reading's big gets: an interview with the new Ericsson CEO.  The big news from Mobile World Congress 2010 was the much-anticipated Windows Mobile 7. The interface has been vastly cleaned up, and new concepts, like People Hubs and Media Hubs have been put at the center of how users interact with the phone.  Microsoft has written a new version of Bing for Windows Mobile 7, but it also makes sure that it is one-button selection away on the phone itself.  Our intrepid reporter and master-blogger, Eric Zeman, taking a moments break in the press room to file a story -- in between about 12 other appointments he had on Day 1.  The grounds of Mobile World Congress in Barcelona are enormous. The show is spread among eight different halls, each dedicated to certain types of technologies. Up on the hill toward the palace is Hall 7 which houses application and content companies.  Fira, where Mobile World Congress is held in Barcelona, is truly a campus. It is still not quite big enough to house everything within its buildings, so it erects outdoor structures, some of them two-stories high.  Hall 8 at Mobile World Congress is usually the busiest hall. Inside are some of the biggest device makers in the world, many of them taking two-story stands. It is truly an extravaganza.  Alcatel-Lucent dressed up for Mobile World Congress; and no wonder, after being named one of the two winning bidders for AT&T's LTE roll outs (Ericsson was the other).  CBOSS is famous for ... its dancing girls at every Mobile World Congress. You can go search on what they do, if you want.  Moving to 4G isn't always easy for operators, especially those who haven't got any of the scarce spectrum, so many (even those with spectrum) are enhancing their 3G networks. Dual Carrier HSPA+ (or in some circles HSPA++) is one of those ways. Qualcomm demonstrated a concept dongle at Mobile World Congress.  Qualcomm's dual carrier HSPA+ technology is heading rapidly toward 4G-like speeds using 3G technology.  Duel carrier HSPA+ uses essentially a bonded signal across two carriers (or two carrier bands) to achieve 4G-like speeds.  WiMax chip maker, BeCeem announced a multi-mode chip at Mobile World Congress. The chip does WiMax, WiFi and LTE. The chip shown is their current WiMax chip.  ARM, which makes pretty much all the cores for all the mobile phone chips you see in smart phones always has prototype reference demos at Mobile World Congress. Two years ago, it was early Android phones. This year, among other demos, was this Texas Instruments OMAP device. It looks like an oversized Blackberry.  Texas Instrument's OMAP prototype in ARM's booth included a DLP projection capability in the phone. 


A bird's eye view of Barcelona, out to the sea, from atop of La Pedrera.