Emerging tech

BARCELONA, Spain--Even with some significant engine trouble, it took me a day to go from zero to addicted to XCom Global's MiFi rental service for travelers.

TheInter Communications subsidiary offers a handy service--$14.95 a day to rent a mobile MiFi network access point with unlimited data access when you're traveling abroad.

The price looks painful until you compare it to the alternative: I just paid my French carrier, SFR, a whopping 19 euros (more than $25) for a measly 40MB of data while I'm at the Mobile World Congress show here. And carrier gouging isn'… Read more

Researchers in Canada say they've built a device that will help them study changes in red blood cells caused by the most common species of malaria parasites, plasmodium falciparum, which causes the most lethal form of a disease that claims almost a million lives every year.

The microfluidic device, which is just 1 x 2 inches, is not a diagnostic tool but rather a way to test potential treatments--a crucial step in the fight against malaria, which is constantly evolving to develop resistance to drugs.

Typically, human red blood cells squeeze through capillaries that are narrower than the cells … Read more

BARCELONA--Bill Ford, bitten by the Silicon Valley bug, has dreams of a fast-moving Detroit at the heart of a radical overhaul of personal transportation.

As the executive chairman of Ford Motor Company and great grandson of the company founder Henry Ford, he's got deep roots in a century-old industry. Ford predicts a future, though, in which computing and communications technology is no longer an accessory but instead a primary part of a car, and in which the auto industry works on the same time scales as the electronics industry.

There was a time when technology suppliers would have a … Read more

BARCELONA, Spain--Telefonica today showed off B2G, the Mozilla browser-based operating system for mobile phones, saying it's good enough to sell to today's feature-phone customers later this year.

You may or may not agree. To help you judge, here's a video of Carlos Domingo, Telefonica Digital's director of product development and innovation, demonstrating a prototype phone at a press conference today at the Mobile World Congress show here. At the event, Telefonica announced its mobile OS pact with Mozilla.

Having watched the demo myself, the phone looked workable but awfully pokey. And touch input-- specially the keyboard--was … Read more

BARCELONA--Half of Telefonica's customers are in Latin America, where smartphones are scarcer than in wealthier parts of the world. But the mobile network operator hopes Mozilla's new browser-based operating system, B2G, will change that.

"What we're selling the most in these countries is feature phones, which is ridiculous, said Carlos Domingo, Telefonica Digital's director of product development and innovation, in an interview at the Mobile World Congress show here in Barcelona, Spain. "We think we can bring smartphones to the masses in developing countries with this approach."

How affordable, exactly? The B2G phone … Read more

BARCELONA, Spain--Mozilla took a big first step in making something real out of B2G, its browser-based mobile operating system, by signing on mobile network operator Telefonica as a partner.

In addition, the Firefox maker discussed another step, a close relationship with mobile processor maker Qualcomm to create the hardware for the first phones, expected to launch later in 2012.

Those are two very important steps. But they're only one of dozens that it must take to create an operating system competitive with Apple's iOS and Google's Android, much less one that fulfills Mozilla's grander ambition. The … Read more

BARCELONA, Spain--Later this year, some people should be able to buy mobile phones you can take into the shower.

So forecast two companies specializing in waterproof coatings for electronics, HzO and Liquipel, that are showing off their technology here at the Mobile World Congress. There's a certain shock value to seeing high-end Apple and Samsung phones swimming in the drink, but if the companies get their way, you might be able to read an e-book in the bath fearlessly without having to put your iPad in a Ziploc bag first.

Phones with Liquipel coatings "should be on the … Read more

As implantable medical devices become smaller and less power hungry, they are taking on a variety of new roles. What began as largely stationary objects, such as pacemakers and cochlear implants, are becoming small enough to actually pass through our bodies (i.e. in the form of pills) to deliver drugs and perform diagnostics.

Now, a new class of medical devices is emerging that adds a twist to the traditional implant: the devices are so small that they can travel through our bloodstream, not to mention are powered wirelessly via electromagnetic radio waves, according to Stanford electrical engineer Ada Poon.

By moving through the bloodstream, these tiny implants will be able to perform minor surgeries such as removing blood clots, Poon told an audience at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference in San Francisco this week.… Read more

Many with ALS or high-level spinal-cord injuries have been relying for years on the old sip-and-puff technology to operate wheelchairs and computers. This tech requires the user to sip or puff precise amounts of air pressure into a straw, and it is anything but subtle.

The operation of wheelchairs and other devices could soon be far less conspicuous, thanks to a prototype dental retainer developed at the Georgia Institute of Technology--for those who don't mind getting their tongues pierced, that is.

Featuring a small retainer that fits along the roof of the mouth, the Tongue Drive System uses … Read more