BlackBerry confirms it will can its Classic smartphone

Goodbye to more tactile keys, and hello to planes of cool and smooth glass. Today, BlackBerry confirmed that it will stop making the Classic, one of the company’s last smartphone models based around a physical keyboard for inputting text, as the company prepares for a new series of phone designs based on Android and BlackBerry 10 platforms, and more attempts to compete in an increasingly lopsided smartphone market.

BlackBerry’s COO and GM for devices, Ralph Pini, confirmed the decision in a blog post published a little earlier, which itself appeared to be a belated response to news that leaked out by way of a U.S. Senate memo published by Politico before the long Independence Day weekend.

“Sometimes it can be very tough to let go,” he wrote. “As part of this, and after many successful years in the market, we will no longer manufacture BlackBerry Classic.”

To be clear, BlackBerry is not backing out of making any devices with physical keyboards. The Politico memo mentioned that a full range of BlackBerry OS 10 devices (“Q10, Z10, Z30, Passport, and Classic”) was getting discontinued, which would have covered yet more QWERTY models. But Pini writes that only the Classic would be going, and BlackBerry has confirmed the same directly to us.

“We continue to actively support sales of our BlackBerry 10 smartphones to customers in most markets. And for customers choosing our Android device as their next smartphone, there will be a seamless transition without any compromise to the security of their mobile platform or operations,” the company noted in a statement. “We believe that being truly cross platform – which includes support for BB10, Android, iOS and Windows Phone – will allow us to best serve our customers across the world.” While phone companies will stop selling these devices, BlackBerry notes you can still buy them unlocked while supplies last.

As part of this, the company said it will be releasing 10.3.3 next month, with another update next year.


In the meantime, pour one out for the model that arguably started it all, and may have even given the company its original fruity brand. (Hold it with your arm stretched out, and one of the original black Blackberry phones kind of do resemble one of the sweet berries that grows in the brambles in the forest.)

BlackBerry continues to have huge challenges ahead of it in the smartphone industry, and you could easily argue that the Classic was more important as an icon than as an actual business.

Once the early mover and market leader among all smartphones, BlackBerry accounted for only 0.2% of all worldwide sales in Q1 2016, according to Gartner. Android phones represented over 84% of all purchased devices.

The thinking seems to be that by pushing BlackBerry deeper into the realm of Android, it may pick up more users in a market that isn’t particularly strong on one brand: underscoring the fragmentation in Android, market leader Samsung only accounts for 23.2% of sales. iOS and Apple are close by at 14.8%.

In that regard, it’s particularly ironic that the Classic — which itself was a relaunched (in 2014) version of the company’s original design — is being discontinued: it was one of the few remaining phone models that you could distinctly make out in a sea of me-too, anonymous Android styles or iPhone lookalikes.

Next up, you have to wonder about the longer term fate of BlackBerry’s platform. The company has seen some major setbacks, with companies like Facebook pulling away from supporting the platform, which it lumped together with Symbian and older versions of Android in the “unfriend” pile. As the slow growth of Windows Phone demonstrated, popular app availability was one (but not the only) factor that kept consumers from buying those devices.

Source: TechCrunch

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Apple is building organ donation into iOS 10

Granted, it’s not the most cutting edge new feature for iOS 10, but it’s an important one, nonetheless. Apple issued a release this morning announcing that the company is teaming with Donate Life America to bring organ donation to its mobile operating system.

When iOS 10 rolls out this fall, it will include an option that makes it possible for users to become organ, eye and tissue donors “with just a few taps.” Those who register through the baked-in Health app will be added to the National Donate Life Registry. The app will also point interested parties to additional information.

“With the updated Health app, we’re providing education and awareness about organ donation and making it easier than ever to register,” Apple’s COO Jeff Williams said in the release. “It’s a simple process that takes just a few seconds and could help save up to eight lives.”


As the company notes, some 120,000 Americans are currently waiting for a transplant that could save their life, with a new person added to the list every ten minutes.

Source:TechCrunch

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Metro Africa Xpress Looks To Bring On-Demand Local Delivery To Urban Africa

Adetayo Bamiduro had to convince his co-founder Chinedu Azodoh that starting an e-commerce site wasn’t necessarily the best idea — at least, not yet. Instead, the two decided to start Metro Africa Xpress (or MAX, for short), a last-mile delivery service for urban Africa based in Lagos, Nigeria. MAX is launching onstage today at TechCrunch Disrupt London.

The service gives merchants a way to have their goods delivered to customers within three hours through a platform that can use an API the company built, as well as through text messaging and other platforms. Merchants summon MAX couriers through the platform and MAX charges the merchants based on distance instead of weight and other factors that logistics companies often use. In addition, traditional logistics companies currently can’t offer that kind of speed, which is largely the focus of MAX, Azodoh said.

“We hated the way things are done today — you have kilograms, measuring, everyone wastes time,” he said. “Typically, the whole process wasn’t well-organized or well thought out, so for us we do it to simplify the process and make it easy to use our platform.”

MAX does have crowdsourced couriers, but it also has a baseline staff of people to deliver packages on branded motorcycles. The couriers they employ full-time are paid on a salaried basis, while its crowdsourced couriers — if the demand is there — get paid per delivery. Around 70% of the drivers are full-time, Azodoh said on stage.

The pair is from Nigeria, and they went through TechStars (one of the first to come out of Nigeria). Azodoh said they built MAX in Africa to help encourage others on the continent to start companies.

“When you look at the landscape, there weren’t many successful companies that were African-owned, it made it difficult for younger people to look up,” Azodoh said. “Cities in Africa have some of the highest urbanization rates compared across the world. With more and more coming into the system, it’s very important we have things that you can look up to, and say hey, if MAX has done it, I can do it.”

Another reason they built the company in Africa is they want to enable retailers to grow by giving them the tools to actually deliver their goods — which is a natural precursor to growing, you’d expect. On the e-commerce side, one of the reasons it hasn’t hit the penetration rate that is seen in the UK and the United States is that there isn’t a good infrastructure for delivery, he said.

“When you look at comparable markets, the growth of e-commerce has directly correlated with the appearance of strong last-mile delivery,” Azodoh said. “Our main goal is to empower retailers and consumers across the company. The most effective way to do that is to provide last-mile delivery. That provides a real way of commerce workflow.”

Of course, there is the elephant in the room: Uber. The company could end up going after the same space that MAX is going after, given its history of being an aggressive — and well-funded — company with a knack for handling trips from one point to another. Azodoh knows that there’s a chance that Uber could be gunning for them eventually, but said he’s just heads down working on the company right now.

“The great thing has been focusing on executing and executing like crazy,” he said. “We want to get things done as fast as possible. We’re not too focused on what the competitors are doing. We love them and respect them; we don’t use that as a scale of measurement of our performance.”

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Google Adds More Music, TV And Movie Content To Mobile Search, Including Recommendations

An update to Google search rolling out to mobile users is putting a greater emphasis on music and media, including recommendations on songs, TV shows, movies, and more. Now, when searching for things like singers, actors, films and other related items, Google will return enhanced results that provide information like lyrics, covers, or song recommendations for music searches, as well as details on past and current TV episodes, information about the cast, movie showtimes and other items.

To some extent, Google was already offering this information in Google Search previously. For example, it introduced song lyrics around a year ago, pointing web searchers to lyrics from Google Play that appeared as cards just above Google’s search results, reducing traffic to lyrics websites in the process.

Plus, Google’s “Knowledge Graph” – an enhancement to the search engine which provides direct answers to queries by understanding the content found in web pages – has been featuring information about TV shows and movies for some time, including things like showtimes, and even critics’ reviews,announced earlier this summer.

However, with the update, this information has more structure. For instance, a search for a particular singer takes you to a new interface where you can tap your way through tabs that offer you an overview of their work, as well as tabs that list their songs, albums, and upcoming events. You can even listen to their music via services like YouTube, Spotify, Google Play Music, and iHeartRadio – which had also been supported before via Google Search results.


A similar experience is available for actors, film and TV content, which puts Google search in more direct competition with services like Amazon’s IMDb. When introducing the update via its blog post, Google even suggests you could use this feature for the same reason that users would otherwise turn to a site like IMDb, saying: “maybe you’re watching a TV show and can’t remember where you’ve seen that actor before?”


What’s interesting about the update, too, is that Google will also show what’s related to the item in question by showing you other things people have searched for as part of its recommendation system. It’s also pointing searchers to suggestions about what to watch next, and movie showtimes through this interface.

The update is currently available only to mobile users on Android phones and tablets, but Google says it will arrive for iOS users in the near future.

Source: Techcrunch

Images: shutterstock/bloomua

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Android Wear Presents Timely Competition For Apple Watch

The wristwatch has been a fashion accessory for almost 450 years, but technology has transformed what was once a mere timepiece into a $30 billion industry. At the heart of this movement is the Apple Watch, a reimagining of the wristwatch that has turned the space on its ear by marrying wearable tech wizardry with sleek, modern design.

With the inclusion of tech, something else interesting has also happened to the humble wristwatch: It has developed the potential to be a valuable business tool, as well.

With 38 different watches available, Apple has called its Watch the most personalized device it has ever created. But there’s still a chance for a competitor, like Google Android Wear, to take a bite out of the Apple Watch market share — and enterprise usability just might be a key point of difference.

Android Wear devices offer many tools and services that can positively impact the daily life of corporate users. Android Wear’s biggest value-add for both regular consumers and professional users is the ability to communicate through the smartwatch itself. Because it syncs to your phone, all of your alerts and notifications get pushed directly to your wrist — and that wrist vibration can keep you from missing calls in meetings or in loud occupational environments like server rooms or manufacturing floors.

Plus, those who travel for work will benefit from Android Wear’s travel cards, which pop up when a trip is scheduled in your Google calendar. This means QR codes for boarding passes load to your wrist, as do hotel reservations, local traffic conditions and turn-by-turn driving directions, when needed.

Features like these might be Google’s ticket to get ahead in the smartwatch segment. There are many potential paths to this possibility — but here are three ways it could finally pluck Apple Watch from its place at the top of the heap.
Delivering A Swiss-Made Smartwatch

To date, Samsung, LG, Motorola, Asus and Sony have all released Android Wear watches. Those brands have one thing in common: None of them are watchmakers.

On the other hand, the Swiss produce only a little more than 2 percent of the world’s watches, but capture more than half the global watch revenue. They produce some of the finest watches in the world, and Swiss watchmakers have accumulated thousands of patents that cover everything from clasps to mechanical function. Even the watch faces themselves are valuable: In 2012, Apple reportedly paid $21 million to the Swiss Federal Railway service to use its iconic watch-face design for the clock in iOS6.

Technology has transformed what was once a mere timepiece into a $30 billion industry.

To deliver the ultimate in modern form-meets-fashion, the answer is fairly simple: bring smartwatch technology into mechanical and quartz watches without sacrificing quality or style. In other words, get the Swiss on board! Not only would it be a boon to smartwatch buyers who don’t want to sacrifice fashion for function — it also could help Swiss watchmakers survive the digital age.
Harnessing The Power Of Project Ara And Android Wear OS

Google has spent a lot of time recently trying to regain control over Android. There’s been an uptick in Chinese OEMs leveraging the Android Open Source Project (AOSP), as well as momentum behind Cyanogen. This has resulted in Google preventing customization of some newer product releases, like Android Wear.


However, if Google completely open-sourced Android Wear, it would allow manufacturers to customize the OS for specific use cases, like for divers, pilots and the military. It could also ease the incorporation of Android Wear into Project Ara.

Project Ara is Google’s open hardware initiative for smartphones. The idea is to modularize the components of a phone (CPU, storage, camera, etc.) into an open platform to which any engineer — not just large hardware manufacturers — can contribute modules. These modules can be “hot swapped” or changed on the fly.

For example, an old camera module can be unplugged from the phone’s endoskeleton frame, and replaced with a newer high-resolution camera. Or you can choose to remove your Bluetooth module and add extra storage.

Google could bring together traditional Swiss craftsmanship with Silicon Valley technology.

This is a great initiative, but right now, it’s limited in scope. Why stop at smartphones? The components that live in a smartwatch, like the CPU, Bluetooth and storage, can easily fit inside a traditional watch. This is the integration point between Google and the Swiss. Project Ara for Android Wear, integrated into a Swiss watch, gives consumers the best of both worlds.

For example, you don’t need to worry about a smartwatch becoming dated, as the components can be upgraded as needed. Even better, you can keep your beloved Swiss mechanical function and watch face.
Thinking Outside the Box — And The Watch Face

Both Google and Apple stress that their product is more than just a watch. At Google IO, they are quick to point out that more than 4,000 apps have been created for their device. Today, the most interesting apps don’t even require an electronic display on the watch, such as functions for payment, identity, audio commands and fitness.

Imagine being able to hold up your Breitling to the NFC payment reader at your local supermarket to buy groceries, or automatically unlocking your car door with your Patek Philippe. Go out on a run and have your Swiss Army watch record your workout. Channel James Bond and talk into a microphone in your Omega Seamaster. The use-cases and customizations are endless and exciting.

Even better news? There is precedent for these types of partnerships. Google recently partnered with Levi’s on Project Jacquard to bring gesture and touch-sensing textiles to the masses.

Is there still a window for Google to win the smartwatch race, and drive billions in new revenue into the watch industry? Yes. By leveraging its hardware platform, Project Ara, and completely open-sourcing the Android Wear operating system, Google could bring together traditional Swiss craftsmanship with Silicon Valley technology into packages that deliver variety, and allow more consumers to become smartwatch owners.

Source: Techcrunch

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Samsung Gear S2 is More than your Average Smartwatch

Samsung has unveil its new smartwatch, and the Samsung Gear S2 is more than your average Smartwatches, which comes with a realistic watch style rendering. You could switch your watch interface according to your taste.

Being a design person, i think i would personally score Samsung Gear S2 a 100% mark. It's not just adorable it's also packed with useful applications like the sHealth application that can monitor your daily activities.

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  Monitor daily activity levels

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  Track water vs. caffeine intake

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  Measure your pulse

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  Select type of exercise

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  Count your steps

Samsung Gear S2 also comes with different variation and specs, so there'll definitely be one that will fit into your budget, hopefully.

The Samsung Gear S2 could as well become a game changer in the Smartwatch industry, and i am predicting a great sales for samsung provided the price of the device is reasonable. Regardless, i would definitely love to have one.  :) 

There’s no pricing or availability yet but you can check out the official ad for Samsung Gear S2.

Report by:TechVersusMan

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YC-Backed Cymmetria Uses Virtual Machines To Decoy And Detect Hackers

YC-backed Cymmetria, which is uncloaking from stealth now after around a year working its cyber security startup business, wants to tilt the traditional security odds so it’s hackers who are left feeling vulnerable and on their guard — by giving the businesses whose systems are under attack a ‘home advantage’.

How does it flip the attacker/attacked dynamic? By creating decoys which are embedded into the network and designed to draw hackers to them, making it quicker and easier for a business to detect and mitigate a security breach. And harder for a hacker to know what’s what.

“I’ve been sitting on this idea for several years, really, waiting for the right timing,” says co-founder Gadi Evron, who used to head up the Israeli government’s Internet security operation, and has also worked in senior security roles for PwC and Kaspersky.

“I got somewhat exhausted with the security industry. From various directions. In a way we’re very defeatist — we go to work everyday knowing that the attackers will succeed if they just want to. That eventually they will get in. Two and a half years ago people started saying the words ‘assume compromise’. Assume the attacker’s already inside. And then suddenly we all discovered that is not just the perception but rather the reality of how things actually work.”

High profile hack attacks make the news every week. Right now the attention is on the U.S. Office Of Personal Management data breach. Last year a massive Sony Pictures hack which leaked all sorts of salacious celebrity gossip into the public domain via a dump of the stolen emails turned into a media feeding frenzy. A huge breach of retailer Target’s systems in which millions of customer credit card details were reported compromised, back in 2014, has cost the company some $162 million purely in expenses — minus any class action lawsuits. Earlier this year health insurance providerAnthem fessed up to a data breach likely compromising the personal data of tens of millions of its customers. The list goes on.

Current solutions generate thousands upon thousands of alerts every day. We generate one because our decoys are real machines.

“Every day there is another data breach,” says Evron. “That was very frustrating for me personally.” Cymmetria was born out of that sense of frustration — with the team hoping to shake up a reactionary status quote by doing something “inherently different in the security industry”, as Evron puts it.

Their focus is APT attacks. Aka: advanced persistent threats — where attackers, perhaps State-sponsored, are aiming to get into a network and lurk undetected for a long time in order to steal large amounts of data.

“The first value proposition is essentially one alert — one critical alert,” he says, explaining how Cymmetria works. “Current solutions generate thousands upon thousands of alerts every day. We generate one because our decoys are real machines and nothing should run on them except for what we put on them. Which exactly means that if anything now runs on that computer that is not ours that is a 100 per cent indication there is an attacker now in the network. There are no false positives.”

At that point Cymmetria also performs forensic analysis on the attack, and offers an action plan on how to mitigate it — using a company’s existing systems and security infrastructure, with which it integrates. It’s not the only decoy-based security startup out there but Evron argues the focus on integrating with a business’ operations and processes makes its approach distinct.

“There are quite a few startups out there that are in the same active defense or cyber deception space but I can’t really say that any of them are working exactly the way we do it. Some of them just deploy decoys across the network, some of them are trying to use SDN technology for datacenters. We haven’t really seen anybody out there trying to approach this from a management perspective and a business perspective,” he says.

“We automate forensics. They now can know what attack an attacker used, vulnerability credentials, Trojan horse, everything the attacker did — where they connected on all the networks, they already have ready made information becoming available to them,” he adds, noting that the typical security scenario is that a breach is not detected until long after it has occurred — whereas Cymmetria is able to flag it up if not quite in real-time, then in a “significantly reduced time window”.

“You get immediate information that you can start using immediately to mitigate.”

What are the decoys exactly? Virtual machines, making them indistinguishable from any other machine on the network, according to Evron. Cymmetria’s approach also doesn’t require companies to install on premise hardware or put agents on computers or change existing network structure. As near to ‘plug and play’ as possible is the idea. He says a generous estimate for getting the system up and running is just a day.

“Essentially they are real machines. They’re machines just like any other. They could be a CEO laptop, they could be a super secret backup. But essentially attackers are going to see computers around the network, computers and other types of resources around the network that are simply not real — and they’re not going to be able to distinguish what’s real and what’s not,” he adds.

“We don’t mimic. That’s exactly the point. We create real machines — we use the world of virtualization. Ten years ago if an attacker would see a virtual machine they’d say that’s a researcher, trying to mimic a real machine. Today, when you look at organizations, a lot is in the cloud. Local cloud with virtualized environments. Global cloud like Amazon, Google, whatever. But essentially these are part of the corporate network. They’re just regular machines. So as long as my machines are just like any other machines they have no way of distinguishing.”

The system uses a series of breadcrumbs to lead attackers to the decoys. “When the attackers try to spread through an environment they essentially look for certain things. These signposts or breadcrumbs are what’s going to lead them towards the decoys,” is how Evron explains this element, careful not to give away too many signposts (given the game of smoke and mirrors it intends to play with attackers).

The primary target market for Cymmetria is large enterprises and Fortune 500 companies, plus financial institutions and banks — although security is generally rising up every digital business’ agenda. It has “several” early users at this point, including a major U.S. bank that it’s working with as a “design partner” — so tailoring the system to meet their needs while using their feedback to help shape the software. Its first user deployment was this February. Evron says it hasn’t yet encountered an APT attack with this initial group of beta users.

In terms of funding so far, Cymmetria has taken in early investment from several angels, YC, Seedcamp and U.S. VC firm Felicis. The business model is a multi-layered SaaS. “We support different types of models for different types of customer,” says Evron. “From on premise to the cloud, we support it all.”

Cymmetria is the first Israeli security company to be selected by Y Combinator. The team will be presenting at demo day at the end of August, when it will be looking raise its next round and start to scale up and grow the business.

source: TechCrunch

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South Africa: Samsung donates solar powered Internet School to Mpumalanga

Samsung Electronics South Africa, has delivered a Solar Powered Internet School (SPIS) to the Chief SW Nhlapho Secondary School in Dundonald, Mpumalanga.

The Executive Mayor of Chief Albert Luthuli Municipality, Ms B.P. Shiba, attended the SPIS handover ceremony, along with the Department of Education’s acting District Director, Mr P.P. Magagula and Head of Corporate Citizenship at Samsung Electronics South Africa, Mr Pitso Kekana.

According to Samsung, many communities facing economic and geographic challenges often have little or no access to electricity and Samsung designed the SPIS with these issues in mind. The units come completely self-contained with solar generators and wireless communication, providing unlimited access to technology, communication and information as long as there is sunlight to power the solar panels, digital cellular network or satellite connectivity. This initiative is part of Samsung’s Corporate Citizenship programme, which seeks to provide educational material and connected classrooms to disadvantaged communities.

Chief SW Nhlapo Secondary School was established in 1994 and currently has 643 learners. In 2014 the school obtained an 81.03% pass rate, producing the highest number of matric passes in Dundonald. The pupils of this school possess an incredible amount of dedication and perseverance and the school is geared towards advancing the surrounding community. The secondary school was crowned as the proud winners of a national competition called the “2012 Youth Citizens Action Programme”, where learners were challenged to demonstrate empowered active citizenship.

The Chief SW Nhlapo High School presented a road safety campaign which tackled a number of challenges they faced outside their school. The campaign generated awareness for learners to make use of the pedestrian crossings and have the boundaries of their roads fixed. In addition, the learners approached local traffic police to assist with taking non-roadworthy vehicles off the road, which is one of the main contributing factors to road accidents. This school demonstrated that hard work and persistence is a reward on its own. “The school’s drive and enthusiasm displayed in their zeal to make the road safety campaign a collective achievement, further gives us faith that they will indeed make a success of the SPIS”, concludes Kekana.

Source: ITNewsAfrica

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Vodafone reveals Instant Classrooms for refugees in Africa

he Vodafone Foundation has announced the Instant Classroom initiative, a digital ‘school in a box’, which according to Vodafone, can be set up in a matter of minutes.

The initiative is intent on helping pupils in refugee camps as well as offer them the opportunity to continue their education. The Instant Classroom has been designed for areas where electricity and internet connectivity are unreliable or non-existent, and will be deployed in partnership with UNHCR’s Innovation and Education units.

The Instant Classroom comes in a 52 kg case which contains a laptop, 25 tablets ready-loaded with educational software, a projector, loudspeaker and a hotspot modem with 3G connectivity. After six to eight hours of charging, the Instant Classroom can be used for a full day.

Over the next year, the Vodafone Foundation Instant Classroom will be deployed to twelve schools in refugee settlements in Kakuma in Kenya, in the Nyarungusu refugee settlement in Tanzania and in the Equatorial Region in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Instant Classroom will provide up to 15,000 children and young adults aged 7 to 20 years with advanced teaching aids that are currently only available in a minority of schools in developed nations.

Source: ITNewsAfrica

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GSMA MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS 2015 SHATTERS PREVIOUS RECORDS

With More Than 93,000 Visitors, Attendance Up By Nine Per Cent Over Mobile World Congress 2014

Barcelona: The GSMA today reported that more than 93,000* visitors from 200 countries attended the 2015 Mobile World Congress at the Fira Gran Via and Fira Montjuïc venues in Barcelona, setting another new record for the mobile industry’s premier event. The 2015 Mobile World Congress featured more than 2,000 exhibiting companies showcasing cutting-edge products and services across 100,000 net square metres of exhibition and hospitality space. More than 3,800 international media and industry analysts attended the event to report on the many significant industry announcements made at the Congress. Preliminary independent economic analysis indicates that the 2015 Mobile World Congress will have contributed more than €436 million and nearly 12,675 part-time jobs to the local economy.

“As we celebrate the 10th anniversary of Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, we are gratified by the record-breaking success we’ve seen this year,” said John Hoffman, CEO, GSMA Ltd. “It’s been a tremendously exciting show, with many major device launches, discussion and debate on the future of our industry and demonstrations of the cutting-edge products and services that customers are enjoying now and will experience in the future. The industry has advanced significantly over the past decade and we look forward to the many new developments that the next ten years will surely hold.”

The four-day conference and exhibition attracted executives from the world’s largest and most influential mobile operators, software companies, equipment providers, internet companies and companies from industry sectors such as automotive, finance and healthcare, as well as government delegations from across the globe. Over 52 per cent of this year’s Mobile World Congress attendees hold C-level positions, including more than 5,000 CEOs and 18 per cent of attendees for the 2015 show were women.

Leading CEOs Take the Stage at Mobile World Congress 
The Mobile World Congress conference programme featured two Mobile World Live keynotes. On Monday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was joined onstage by Christian De Faria, CEO of Airtel Africa, Mario Zanotti, Senior Vice President of Operations at Millicom and Jon Fredrik Baksaas, President and CEO of Telenor Group to discuss efforts to extend connectivity to more people around the world. The Tuesday evening Mobile World Live keynote featured Tom Wheeler, Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, in a discussion on the impact of recent telecommunications regulation in the United States.

CEOs and senior executives from companies including ARM, AT&T, Avegant, AVG Technologies, BBVA, BSH Home Appliances, Deutsche Telekom, Dialog Axiata, e-Estonia, Ericsson, Hong Leong Islamic Bank Berhad, Huawei, Intel, Klarna, KT Corporation, LINE, MasterCard, Micromax Informatics, Mozilla Foundation, Nokia, Orange, Peel, Qualcomm, Renault-Nissan Alliance, SAP, TAPTAP Networks, Telefónica, Telenor, Thinfilm, Visa, VMWare, Vodafone, Wicab and Wikipedia also participated in the keynote programme.

Record Attendance to GSMA Ministerial ProgrammeThe GSMA’s Ministerial Programme again saw record attendance, with 161 delegations representing 136 countries and 25 international organisations, including 69 Ministers and 76 heads of National Regulatory Authorities. The Ministerial Programme brings together governments, regulators and industry leaders to discuss the specific regulatory issues shaping the development of mobile around the world. Tata Consultancy Services was the Official Sponsor for the 2015 GSMA Ministerial Programme.

Experiencing the Internet of Things 
A major highlight of the Mobile World Congress was the GSMA Innovation City. This unique space enabled attendees to experience technology in context and see how mobile-connected products and services can improve the daily lives of citizens and businesses across automotive, health, home, retail and other applications, in both urban and rural settings.

The Innovation City offered a real-world city environment that includes a café, a theatre, shops, trains, connected cars and a dental spa. Attendees had the opportunity to experience immersive demonstrations and interactive exhibits catering to a wide range of interests. The Innovation City featured exhibits from the GSMA and AT&T, Jasper, KT Corporation, Oral-B, Sierra Wireless and Vodafone, demonstrating the very latest in mobile connected products and services.

4 Years From Now at Fira Montjuïc
Now in its second year, 4 Years From Now (4YFN) is an international programme presented by Mobile World Capital Barcelona and GSMA bringing together the best mobile start-ups and entrepreneurs with investors, accelerators, incubators and corporations from the mobile ecosystem. Over four days, the 4YFN programme hosted inspiring talks, interactive workshops, cutting-edge exhibition, startup competitions and unique networking opportunities for more than 8,000 attendees, including 4,000 dedicated 4YFN attendees as well as an additional 4,000 visitors from Mobile World Congress at Fira Gran Via.

Mobile World Congress: A Carbon Neutral Event
Mobile World Congress was certified carbon neutral in July 2014, under the PAS 2060 standard, becoming the world’s largest conference and exhibition to achieve this status. In 2015, the GSMA focused on further reducing the environmental impact of the event, reducing electricity consumption and waste in printed materials, encouraging the re-use and recycling of materials at the venue, utilising digital signage and electronic tools and working with Fira Barcelona, exhibitors and local partners to minimise the carbon footprint. Following Mobile World Congress, the GSMA will pursue re-certification, calculating the event’s total carbon footprint and offsetting any outstanding emissions.

Mobile World Congress 2016
The 2016 Mobile World Congress will be held 22-25 February 2016 at Fira Gran Via.

“On behalf of the GSMA, I’d like to thank the city of Barcelona, the city of Hospitalet, the Generalitat de Catalunya, the Fira de Barcelona and all of our Barcelona partners, for their continued strong support over the past ten years. We look forward to returning next year and building on our success together,” concluded Hoffman. 

The Mobile World Congress is the cornerstone of the Mobile World Capital, which will be hosted in Barcelona from 2013 to 2018. The Mobile World Capital encompasses programmes and activities that span the entire year and will benefit not only the citizens of Barcelona, Catalonia and Spain, but also the worldwide mobile industry. For more information on the Mobile World Capital, visit www.mobileworldcapital.com.

For more information on the 2015 Mobile World Congress, please visitwww.mobileworldcongress.com.

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MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS 2015 Event Highlights

MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS 2015 Event Highlights

AT THE EDGE OF INNOVATION: MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS 2015

Surpassing all projections, GSMA Mobile World Congress, the world’s biggest and most influential mobile event, had a record-breaking 93,000+ attendees from 200 countries.

Hosted in the Mobile World Capital Barcelona for the 10th year, Mobile World Congress 2015 attendees were treated to a wealth of learning and networking opportunities; product showcases and announcements; inspiration and innovation, including:

CONFERENCE

Inspiring speakers from consumer brands, mobile organisations, mobile operators and industries touched by the mobile market — including advertising, banking, health, entertainment and education — presented at more than 40 conferencesessions at MWC. Keynote speakers included:

• Jon Fredrik Baksaas, President and CEO, Telenor Group and Chairman, GSMA
• Anne Bouverot, Director General, GSMA
• Simon Segars, CEO, ARM
• Ralph de la Vega, President & CEO, AT&T Mobile & Business Solutions
• Joerg Tewes, CEO, Avegant
• Gary Kovacs, CEO, AVG Technologies
• Francisco González, Chairman and CEO, BBVA
• Karsten Ottenberg, CEO, BSH Home Appliances
• Timotheus Höttges, CEO, Deutsche Telekom
• Dr Hans Wijayasuriya, Group Chief Executive, Dialog, Dialog Axiata
• Taavi Kotka, CIO, e-Estonia
• Hans Vestberg, President & CEO, Ericsson
• Guenther Oettinger, Commissioner for the Digital Economy & Society, European Commission
• Raja Teh Maimunah, MDCEO and COO, Digital and Transactional Banking, Hong Leong Islamic Bank
• Ken Hu, Deputy Chairman and Rotating CEO, Huawei
• Brian Krzanich, CEO, Intel
• Niklas Adalberth, Co-Founder, Klarna
• Chang-Gyu Hwang, CEO, KT
• Jeanie Han, CEO, LINE Euro-Americas
• Ajay Banga, President & CEO, MasterCard
• Sanjay Kapoor, Chairman, Micromax Informatics
• Mitchell Baker, Executive Chairwoman, Mozilla Foundation
• Rajeev Suri, President & CEO, Nokia
• Stéphane Richard, Chairman & CEO, Orange Group
• Thiru Arunachalam, Founder and CEO, Peel
• Steve Mollenkopf, CEO, Qualcomm Incorporated
• Carlos Ghosn, Chairman and CEO, Renault-Nissan Alliance
• Bill McDermott, CEO, SAP
• Alvaro del Castillo, Founder and CEO, TAPTAP Networks
• César Alierta, Executive Chairman & CEO, Telefónica
• Davor Sutija, CEO, Thinfilm
• Patrick Gelsinger, CEO, VMWare
• Vittorio Colao, Chief Executive, Vodafone
• Robert Beckman, CEO, Wicab
• Jimmy Wales, Founder, Wikipedia

The Mobile World Live Keynotes, held Monday and Tuesday afternoon, were streamed live to viewers around the globe on www.mobileworldlive.com. Featuring Mark Zuckerberg, Founder, Chairman & CEO, Facebook, and Tom Wheeler, Chairman, Federal Communications Commission (FCC), these sessions provided much thought-provoking discussion amongst attendees. Want to add your thoughts to the discussion? Watch the presentations now by clicking here.

The GSMA also hosted the GSMA Seminar programme, educating attendees on industry initiatives such as Connected Living, Big Data, mHealth, Connected Women, Mobile Identity, Development and Inclusion.

AN EXHIBITION SURPASSING ALL OTHERS

Over 2,100 companies showcased their organisations via exhibition stands and hospitality spaces across nine halls and outdoor spaces at Fira Gran Via and Fira Montjuïc, including a vastly expanded exhibition in Hall 8.0. Visiting the exhibition halls provided glimpses of exciting new devices, connected cars, wearables, back-end solutions, technologies, tablets, applications, accessories, and more. Many new devices and services were announced at the event, and our attendees had the opportunity to get their hands on the latest tech.

New ‘Connected Living’ innovations were on display in the GSMA Innovation City, where attendees could see first-hand how mobile-connected products will continue to transform our personal and working lives. Several specialty pavilions throughout the exhibition highlighted important initiatives benefiting the industry, including Mobile Apps, Cloud, Green Technology, Mobile Money and Wearables. And more than 34 countries and territories from around the world showcased innovative companies and ideas from their citizens in dedicated Country Pavilions.

MOBILE WORLD LIVE TV

Our award-winning Mobile World Live team were once again on hand to keep our attendees up-to-date on the latest news from MWC, via the Mobile World Live Daily and by broadcasting live from the event on Mobile World Live TV. The team broadcast two Mobile World Live Keynote presentations to audiences around the world, featuring Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, and Tom Wheeler, FCC.

For video highlights and mobile industry news year-round, visit Mobile World Livetoday!

EXCITING PARTNER PROGRAMMES

Partners again led events, conferences, trainings and forums for attendees in the Hall 8.0 Theatre District. Our more than 30 industry partners covered nearly every imaginable topic in the mobile ecosystem, from gaming and mobile health to ‘hyperconnectivity’ and mobile entertainment. These programmes were open to all Congress attendees, and were widely attended. We’d like to extend our thanks to our many programme partners for providing these engaging experiences to our attendees, which you can learn about here.

HIGHLIGHTING THE BEST IN THE INDUSTRY

Excellence, Innovation and inspiration were recognised at the 20th Annual Global Mobile Awards, which recognised 37 outstanding offerings in a number of categories, covering a myriad of topics including best use of mobile in health, education and marketing; best mobile services in emerging markets and for accessibility; the best apps of the year; and innovation in mobile technology. For full categories and winners list, please click here. Our host this year was the very funny British actor, comedian, writer and film star, John Cleese.

OUTSTANDING NETWORKING OPPORTUNITIES

Our attendees highlight the outstanding networking opportunities as a major reason to attend Mobile World Congress. And this year proved no exception; between our record-setting attendance, ample networking locations across the venue, and LinkedIn integration into the My MWC Event app, attendees were able to make contacts, find new partners and hold meetings throughout the event. Thankfully, Barcelona provided us with lovely weather which allowed attendees to take full advantage of ten themed Networking Gardens scattered around the venue.

ADDING A BIT OF FUN TO THE EVENT

Passionate about fitness? The Garmin Healthband Challenge gave attendees the opportunity to purchase a discounted vívofit or vívosmart to track their steps during the event. It’s easy to understand why your feet are sore when you can look at your wrist and see that you’ve taken 15,000, 25,000 or 40,000 steps in a single day!

Love Art? Cisco sponsored a Graffiti Wall in the Artists Rambla Networking Garden, where local artists created a large mural that encapsulated #MWC15.

Etermax’s smash-hit app Trivia Crack had attendees competing against each other in multiple trivia categories, then gave them the opportunity to meet up at several locations throughout the venue.

GOING GREEN

Through reduction in printed materials, encouraging the re-use and recycling of materials at the venue, and utilising digital signage and electronic tools at our venues, the GSMA has steadily reduced our environmental impact since 2008. In fact, in 2014, Mobile World Congress was certified as the world’s largest certified Carbon Neutralevent. It’s a certification we intend to renew each year, so we’ll be announcing this summer our 2015 certification.

Attendees are encouraged to ask for digital collaterals and publications from exhibitors, to recycle their badges at the conclusion of the event, and to take advantage of our solar device charges at the venue. Exhibitors are encouraged to build green stands using sustainable materials. Many thanks to Schneider Electric for their support of our carbon neutrality initiatives at MWC.

4 YEARS FROM NOW

Mobile entrepreneurs and start-ups had their own programme at Fira Montjuïc called4 Years From Now (4YFN). This innovative programme, developed by Mobile World Capital Barcelona and the GSMA, brings together start-ups and interested business owners with amazing learning and networking opportunities to help them take their businesses to the next level.

THE NEXT GENERATION OF MWC ATTENDEES

More than 30 children participated in the “Mobile Explorers Club”, which brings together kids aged eight to 14 from around the globe. For the second year, Explorers learned new skills and had the opportunity to discover the world of mobile and technology.

You may have seen some small groups of kids in the exhibition during the week. Besides venturing into the show to explore some of the GSMA and selected exhibitor activities and products, the children had the opportunity to participate in a number of different activities, including a range of tech and mobile based workshops courtesy of selected sponsors and partners.

WHAT’S NEXT

Our next Barcelona event will be the 2016 Mobile World Congress, 22-25 February 2016, at Fira Gran Via in Barcelona, Spain. More information will be available in the coming months. If you’d like to receive email updates about the industry’s biggest and best event, please click here. To become a sponsor or partner of MWC 2016, please contact our sales team.

Unable to wait until February? Our next ‘Mobile World Congress’ event will be held 15-17 July in Shanghai, China. Join us for Mobile World Congress Shanghai where we will be discussing the unlimited possibilities mobile provides. This event continues the long-standing tradition of first-class, international events delivered by the GSMA. Make plans now to join us! You can learn more at www.MWCshanghai.com.

Throughout the year, the GSMA hosts smaller conferences as part of our Mobile 360 Series, which focus on topical or regional issues. In 2015 we’re holding events in Latin America, North America, the Middle East, Africa and Europe. Please visitwww.mobile360series.com to learn more and register for the event(s) near you.

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