The Engadget Interview: Chul Bae Lee, VP of LG’s mobile design lab at MWC 2013

The Engadget Interview Chul Bae Lee, VP of LG's mobile design lab at MWC 2013

We first met Chul Bae Lee — VP of LG’s mobile design lab — in Seoul last fall and were lucky to spend a few minutes with him in the company’s booth at MWC. LG’s flagship Optimus G Pro made quite the splash in Barcelona but looks rather different from the Optimus G. We asked Mr. Lee to walk us through the design process behind the company’s new superphone. He mentioned that LG offers two high-end product lines, one focused on premium design (Optimus G), the other on high-performance design (Optimus G Pro) and shared a diagram with us to illustrate this (after the break). The new handset puts an emphasis on ergonomics rather than style by featuring a comfortable and a friendly shape, with soft edges and round corners.

We discussed the extremely narrow display bezel, striking RGB notification ring around the home button, recessed camera lens and IR blaster (for the QRemote functionality). Mr. Lee explained that the placement of the buttons around the Optimus G Pro was carefully chosen to minimize interference with the power / lock key — this includes the QNote button, which can be remapped to invoke other apps, and even double as a shutter key. We then talked about the new Optimus F series, which blends the design DNA of flagship devices with performance specs (like LTE) at a more affordable price, and the Optimus L II line, which offers unique designs for specific markets (single SIM in Europe, and dual-SIM in Latin America). Hi the break for our video interview and to check out the aforementioned design diagram.

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The After Math: Cinder block-chucking robots, Barcelona’s mobile bonanza and brain doctors

Welcome to The After Math, where we attempt to summarize this week’s tech news through numbers, decimal places and percentages.

The After Math Barcelona's mobile bonanza, Big Dog and brain doctors

Barcelona’s Mobile World Congress may have formed the backbone for this week’s news but there was also notable news elsewhere — like the fact that Boston Dynamics’ upgraded quadruped robot can now throw cinder blocks. We’ll be sticking closer to the (safer) events in Spain, however, so take a look for yourself after the break.

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Firefox OS is repeating the mistakes of others and hoping for a different outcome

Firefox OS is repeating the mistakes of others and hoping for a different outcome

I feel bad for Mozilla, I really do. Competitors and the march of time are closing in quicker than it can raise its defenses. Her crown jewel, Firefox, is feeling the squeeze as Chrome encroaches on its hard-won territory and mobile offensives have proven largely fruitless. This leaves Mozilla in an awkward position: that of out-of-touch industry stalwart. Being late to the mobile game and Apple’s reluctance to open up iOS to third-party browsers has left the company boxed in. (Developers can create browsers for iOS so long as they use the same rendering engine as Safari — a deal breaker for the Gecko-based Firefox.)

Mozilla has responded by borrowing a page from the Google (Chrome)book: build an operating system that is essentially nothing more than a browser. Firefox OS is yet another mobile platform built entirely on HTML5 that treats websites as apps. In fact, websites are the “apps” — there is no such thing as native code. And while there are legitimate arguments for such a model, I’ve yet to see it convincingly executed. We’ve caught glimpses of Mozilla’s smartphone offspring before, but Mobile World Congress 2013 was really the proper coming out party. Finally we’ve been given a chance to touch it, see it action and peek at the hardware it’ll be running on. Unfortunately, at this cotillion, Mozilla failed to make a good case for anyone to court its debutante.

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Distro Issue 80 goes mobile to tackle unlocking, form factors and the best of MWC 2013

Distro Issue 80 The Mobile Issue takes on unlocking, form factors and the best of MWC 2013

Just as we had all recovered from the January trip to Vegas, it was time to ship a pack of editors to Barcelona for another week-long barrage of gadget news. In a freshly e-printed issue of our slate ‘zine, we go hands-on with the best of what Mobile World Congress served up in 2013. To round out this Mobile Issue, Brad Molen decodes the new unlocking policy in the US and Sharif Sakr examines the death of the form factor phone. There’s a truckload of other tech-centric goodness to peruse, so grab your copy and get to it.

Distro Issue 80 PDF
Distro in the iTunes App Store
Distro in the Google Play Store

Distro in the Windows Store

Distro APK (for sideloading)
Like Distro on Facebook
Follow Distro on Twitter

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Source: iTunes, Google Play, Windows Store

Telefonica shows off streaming 4K video on home fiber

Telefonica shows off streaming 4K video, won't make it fit your ISDN line

The future of TV is supposed to involve streaming video, and it’s also supposed to involve 4K TVs — but melding the two has been difficult. Telefonica wants to show that the feat is at least possible with mere mortal connections: it’s been using Mobile World Congress to show 4K video streaming on a 100Mbps fiber-to-the-home link. As our Spanish teammates can attest, the (admittedly very local) demo works as well as you’d hope, providing all the fine details without buffering or other hiccups. There’s no estimated timeframe for a commercial service, but we wouldn’t hold out hope of a version that would fit on cable or DSL when there’s a raw 40Mbps bitrate.

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Source: Engadget Spanish (translated)

The Chubby vWand Stylus Can Bring NFC Support To Non-NFC Smartphones And Tablets

vwand

NFC has always struck me as one of those things that everyone says is going to get really big next year, and the growing number of smartphones and tablets that come bearing support for the standard is proof that at least a few people care about it. But what if you want to experience the NFC lifestyle but your gadget(s) of choice don’t play nice with it? Enter Spain-based Sistel Networks, and its vWand stylus.

Put very simply, the vWand is part capacitive stylus, part Bluetooth-friendly NFC adapter — once it’s linked up to your tablet or smartphone of choice via Bluetooth you’ll have a pen that’s capable of reading from and writing data to NFC elements.

The vWand is a chubby little thing, but it’s not overly heavy thanks to its lightweight, plasticky (but comfortable) body. A pair of LEDs ride high on the vWand’s shaft to let the user know when it’s on and ready to scan, and a more-than-adequate chunky capacitive nib (not entirely unlike the end of Wacom’s Bamboo Stylus) allowed me to doodle to my heart’s content in Paper for a few moments. The real magic happens on the other end though — tapping the vWand’s butt to a set of preset NFC tags at the vWand booth prompted the connected Android tablet to fire up the messaging app, bring up the dialer, or load particular web pages.



As neat as the vWand concept sounds, chances are you won’t be linking this up to your iPad or Galaxy Note anytime soon. At this stage it’s meant mostly as a b2b device, and Sistel Networks is looking to pick up traction in a slew of fields ranging from healthcare (think doctors scanning NFC-enabled wristbands or something) to retail and logistics though company representatives didn’t completely rule out the notion that consumers would one day be able to buy one too. In fairness, the vWand certainly makes sense as a tool to be used in those lines of business, but that doesn’t keep me from wanting one just to muck around with.

Mobile World Congress 2013: best of show

Mobile World Congress 2013 best of show

Another Mobile World Congress has come and gone. While we weren’t treated to a mountain of device launches, as seen in previous years, we definitely all came away with some favorites. LG outed a few handsets, HTC‘s One made its first public appearance and Firefox OS made a grand entrance with additions to the new platform from a few different handset makers. And, on the wireless side, we were treated to what has to have been the biggest NFC love fest we’ve ever witnessed. Follow on past the break to check out some of our favorites from this year’s MWC, then weigh in and let us know what you think about the show.

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Wrap-up: Engadget editors sound off on MWC 2013

Wrapup Engadget editors sound off on MWC 2013

We blew out last month’s CES with our biggest group of editors to date, and now we’ve done it again here in Barcelona. There may have been fewer high-end smartphones than expected at the show, but we still managed to spend time with dozens of handsets and tablets, and even a surprise hybrid or two. Fira Gran Via, Mobile World Congress’ new home for 2013, was a fitting venue, and there’s even room to grow, should that be in the cards for next year. Still, we leave Spain with mixed emotions, and mixed impressions of the show. So, what exactly did we take away from our week of smartphones, sangria, tablets and tapas in Europe? Read on past the break for our take.

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Fujitsu’s Future Phones And Tablets Could Skip The Physical Keyboard And Watch Your Fingers Instead

fujitsu-keyboard2

For better or worse, the advent of smartphones and tablets mean that we’re rapidly moving away from the more tactile user experiences that were the hallmark of a bygone era in computing. As it turns out, the folks at Fujitsu are eager to close the book on the days of the physical keyboard if what they were showing off here at MWC was any indication.

Tucked away in a corner of Fujitsu’s booth here in Barcelona’s Fira Gran Via was a gentleman typing out words onto a tablet via a keyboard for anyone who would watch him. It sounds like a completely mundane occurrence, except the keyboard he was typing on wasn’t actually there.

Here’s the idea: thanks to some clever software and the front-facing camera on a tablet, Fujitsu has worked up a way for users to type on just about any flat surface. The software is purely a prototype at this point, but it doesn’t need anything in the way of exotic gadgetry to work properly — it appeared to be running just fine on a generic Fujitsu Windows 8 tablet, albeit with a lamp of sorts to keep the user’s hands nice and bright.

Using the gesture keyboard seems so simple when you’re watching it live — a person calmly tapping on the surface of a table is actually typing out sentences — but the underlying tech is nothing to sneeze at. There’s some serious machine learning going on here, as the system gets a feel for the features and movements of a user’s hands to determine their placement on a keyboard that really isn’t there.

Sadly, that means there’s a fair amount of optimization that needs to happen before someone could actually start using it. The Japanese gentleman pecking out missives on top of a table was kind enough to let me try it anyway, and while the camera clearly noticed my hand it wouldn’t track any of my finger inputs.

Apparently, the software is capable of using skin color to figure who it should actually be accepting input from — at that moment the system was setup to only track his alabaster hands, so my brown mitts were promptly ignored. Certainly a bummer for me, but a still useful feature, especially since one can never tell how many alien hands they’ll encounter as they try to get some work done on the go.

Fujitsu is considering turning this into a working product for inclusion on some of its tablets and smartphones and has been at it for a while now — company researchers published a paper on the concept back in 2011. Still, the gesture keyboard strikes me as one of those things that may be too clever for its own good in that it’s a very neat solution to a problem that doesn’t really exist. Trying to get some work done on a tray table on a plane? There’s plenty of room for a physical keyboard. Stuck slaving away in close quarters? Just pound out some text on the touchscreen.

The gesture keyboard is clearly very cool (it hearkens back to those neat laser keyboards) and I’d certainly love to a take it for a long-term spin, but I doubt that Fujitsu’s keyboard-less keyboard approach is one that will take the world by storm — for now. Its value as a standalone typing solution is questionable, but if Fujitsu baked it into a tablet or a phone as a novel alternative? Or better yet, if Fujitsu found some willing, ambitious OEM to license it to? Sign me up.

The Engadget Mobile Podcast, live at 10:15AM ET at MWC 2013!

The Engadget Mobile Podcast, live at 10AM ET at MWC 2013!

We would say it’s been an absolutely epic and crazy Mobile World Congress, but we’d be lying. Instead, we’ll talk to you about what we saw, felt and heard — some of it good, and some just outright disgusting. There’s a span of two weeks to cover, so it should be a healthy podcast with lots of stuff to talk about. As a disclaimer, our connection here in Barcelona isn’t incredibly strong, so there is a small possibility that our bandwidth may go out on occasion. If you don’t mind that chance, however, join us at 10:15AM ET!

February 28, 2013 10:15 AM EST

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