BARCELONA, Spain — Big changes are coming to Firefox OS over the next year as Mozilla moves the browser-based operating system away from its current Android-style functioning. At the Mobile World Congress show here Sunday, the nonprofit organization showed what’s in store for its mobile OS. Much of it’s about the interface changes — notifications, …

BARCELONA — The newest, highest-speed incarnation of Wi-Fi networking, 802.11ad, is coming to mobile phones. Wilocity announced Sunday it will show a prototype phone at Mobile World Congress that, with the company’s wireless networking chips, can use the 5Gbps wireless communication links. The company’s upcoming Sparrow chipset for phones will join existing chips that can be used in laptops and …

BARCELONA — Mozilla doubled down on its bet that low-end smartphones will give Firefox OS a place in the crowded mobile market, announcing partnerships Sunday that will bring $25 smartphones to the large number of people who can’t afford high-end models like Apple’s iPhone 5S and Samsung’s Galaxy S5 that cost hundreds of dollars. At the Mobile World Congress here, …

BARCELONA, Spain — An iPhone fanboy will sneer at it. A long-term Android user will have unpleasant flashbacks to the early versions of Google’s operating system. But Mozilla’s $25 Firefox OS smartphone is real. I toyed with a prototype Sunday at its debut at Mobile World Congress here, and I have to say, I’m impressed — given the price. A …

BARCELONA, Spain — Mobile World Congress doesn’t start until Monday — but for many, the show’s already on. The massive conference, devoted mostly to mobile phones and the mobile networks that support them, attracts thousands of people to this Mediterranean city in Catalonia, Spain’s northwest province and an area that’s been spared some of the country’s recent economic woes. To …

The download speeds of 4G LTE networks dropped in the US over the last year, according to measurements from network monitoring app OpenSignal. In the February 2014 report, the United States ranked 15th of 16 countries for download speeds, losing ground as the average data rate dropped to 6.5Mbps from 9.6 megabits per second in the February 2013 report. Of …

Any new mobile operating system faces challenges attracting developers — even a browser-based one like Firefox OS that can take advantage of the fact that there are already countless Web developers. Which is why it’s notable that Firefox OS now works with Cordova, an Apache Software Foundation project that eases the difficulties developers have getting apps to work on multiple …

Opera Software announced a variation of its Web Pass service, adding a new ad-sponsored option to the technology that lets carriers grant people free access to the Net. Opera Web Pass already was available as a way to let people use the Net with some restrictions — a limited time, or a limited number of services, for example. The idea …

The Alliance for Wireless Power wants to cut another cord: the power cable that lets people charge their laptops. The A4WP announced Thursday that it’s added a new version of its Rezance wireless charging technology that can deliver 20 to 50 watts — enough to charge laptops. Not coincidentally, it also announced its first PC maker has joined the consortium: …

Russian search and software company Yandex is offering a collection of free tools to turn the Android open-source foundation into a usable phone operating system. The software, called Yandex.Kit, gives a Yandex-flavored experience by linking to the company’s own services — e-mail, maps, contacts, online storage, and app store — rather than Google’s alternatives. It’s also got lower-level components like …