barcelona

Barcelona is the place to be, and not just for the cafe con leche, the jamon iberico, or the incredible melted-stone facades of such Gaudi creations as the Sagrada Familia or the Casa Mila. Forget all that nonsense. It's all about the phones.

Mobile World Congress just wrapped in Barcelona, and with it came a bevy of new product announcements, ranging from Ubuntu and Firefox operating systems to new Samsung tablets, new phablets from LG and ZTE, a new Wi-Fi coffee-maker from Qualcomm, and...well, no, no Samsung Galaxy S4. That's next week. But this week's episode … Read more

We are just one month away from the 2013 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, where the biggest names in the mobile industry will unveil new products.

We're having a difficult time containing our anticipation, especially since CES offered relatively few smartphone announcements. Year by year as the mobile industry grows, so to does the scope and importance of Mobile World Congress.

So what are our CNET editors expecting to see when they touch down in Barcelona next month? Well, I quizzed Senior editors Jessica Dolcourt and Brian Bennett on their predictions and used them as the basis of … Read more

With a lovely Mediterranean location, an Olympic history, and a wealth of Modernisme architecture, Barcelona, Spain, is one of the planet's top tourist destinations. And if city officials have their way, the Catalan capital will be known as the "Mobile World Capital," as well.

Since the annual Mobile World Congress trade show moved to Barcelona from Cannes, France, in 2006, the city has invested heavily to keep the event, which attracted an estimated 67,000 attendees (and their expense accounts) over the course of the 2012 show last week. And last July, Barcelona got its wish when it beat out … Read more

When should you buy a laptop? That's always a very difficult question--buy too soon after new technology hits, and you miss out on refinements and price drops. On the other hand, you certainly don't want to spend upwards of $1,000 on a device that feels outdated just months later. It's an even more difficult decision in the wake of Microsoft's look at Windows 8 in Barcelona, Spain.

For Mac users, the decision's generally simple: wait for the new version, and buy, buy, buy. MacBooks, like iPhones and iPads, only come in so many versions, and they rarely drop in price anywhere.

Windows PCs? Well, that's another story. … Read more

Nvidia's Tegra chips will for the first time power a supercomputer--more evidence that ARM is movin' on up into Intel territory.

The chipmaker said today the Barcelona Supercomputing Center is developing a new hybrid supercomputer that, for the first time, combines energy-efficient Nvidia Tegra CPUs (central processing units), based on the ARM chip architecture, with Nvidia's graphics processing units (GPUs).

The supercomputing center plans to develop a system that is two to five times more energy-efficient compared with today's efficient high-performance computing systems. Most of today's supercomputers use Intel processors.

"In most current systems, CPUs … Read more

Hoping to tap the expanding online fashion market, eBay this week launched Fashion Outlet, a virtual U.S. outlet mall that lets brands and designers connect directly with eBay customers. Think of that outlet mall in the boonies without the drive down some random highway.

The launch of the fashion outlet follows the debut of eBay outlet sites in the U.K. and Germany. The fashion items sold through the "Buy It Now" feature are priced at 20 percent to 65 percent off retail price, making them comparable price-wise to items found at outlets, Miriam Lahage, eBay's … Read more

FC Barcelona, arguably the world's best football (soccer) team (after Arsenal, anyway), toured Microsoft's Redmond campus on Tuesday during its trip to play an exhibition game against the Seattle Sounders.

It's perhaps not surprising that the football giant, known for its style and verve, would refuse to be caught on film using Microsoft's products, as reported by TechFlash.

Actually, that's not quite the way it played out. As Microsoft spokesman Lou Gellos told TechFlash, FC Barcelona was simply worried about "creating the impression that they endorsed [Project Natal]," Microsoft's super-cool motion-activated game … Read more

I’m nervous, seriously nervous. In a few hours, in the Olympic stadium in Rome, FC Barcelona (or “Barca,” as its supporters call it) will face Manchester United, the other soccer superpower, in the game of all games, the final of the UEFA Champions League, the most important club competition in Europe (and the world, for that matter). Both teams have already won two trophies this season (their national leagues and national cups, respectively), and a victory in Rome would see either one clinch the “treble.” For Barca, it would be a historic accomplishment–no other Spanish soccer team has … Read more

We complain a lot about our computer, like how it takes up to a minute to turn on, applications take more than few seconds to load, it crashes once in a while, and e-mails take forever to be delivered.

Now, let's imagine how all that would be if we did it ourselves. It takes most of us half an hour to get out of bed and get ready to begin with. Personally, give me like 45 minutes.

With this in mind, a design group called Multitouch Barcelona has carried out the Natural Interaction project to explore the communication between … Read more