The Federal Communications Commission’s spectrum auction for the so-called H Block concluded Thursday after bids reached the $1.564 billion reserve price that satellite provider Dish Network had promised to pay for the airwaves prior to the auction. The auction, which began on January 22, closed after 167 rounds of bidding. Proceeds of this auction and …

Xiomara Blanco/CNET BARCELONA, Spain — The Mobile World Congress 2014 tablet lineup was filled with over-sized phones, undersized “tablets”, and tablet that knew exactly what it was. There’s a palpable feeling coming out of the show that tablet makers are having difficulty deciding what next to do with them. Tablets of Mobile World Congress 2014 (pictures) +8 more See all …

If you’re wondering what has happened to Google’s Project Ara modular mobile project, seeing as Google is selling Motorola to Lenovo, there’s no need to worry. Google has held onto Motorola’s Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP) group which was the home of Project Ara. And the latest news is that Google intends to start selling the modular smart phone next …

BARCELONA, Spain — Qualcomm and Samsung are back in the newest Galaxy device, the Galaxy S5. The Korean electronics giant on Monday unveiled its newest flagship phone with a slightly tweaked design and updated specs. The Galaxy S5 has a 5.1-inch display HD screen and a 16-megapixel rear-facing camera with a bunch of bells and whistles that are supposed to …

Mobile World Congress hasn’t even started yet, but Acer has jumped the gun and announced two budget smarties. The Acer Liquid E3 and Liquid Z4 will be on show at the mobile industry trade show next week, and both are wallet-friendly Android smarties. The E3 is the higher-specced of the two. It has a 4.7-inch, 720p HD screen, a quad-core …

Now playing: Watch this: Mobile World Oops 3:33 A great CNET tradition at the end of the calendar year and big technology trade shows like Mobile World Congress is the CNET TV blooper reel. Flubbed lines, accidental swearing, and breaks in concentration are bound to happen. And really, after so many long hours walking a show floor, so few hours …

Apple and Google will be among the organizations to talk to the EU this week about the impact “freemium” apps are having on the industry. In a statement on Thursday, the EU’s European Commission said that it wants to investigate in-app purchases on games that can be downloaded for free. The Commission argues that while games can be downloaded for …

Jason Cipriani/CNET When iOS 7 launched with a redesigned Safari tab interface, we showed you how to manage open tabs. But one thing we missed that should have been obvious was a workaround to closing every open tab at the same time. Have you ever tried swiping away 10 or 15 tabs? It’s an exercise in frustration, to say the …

All the big announcements may have been made at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, but there’s still plenty happening there. We’ve found the Samsung Galaxy S5‘s hidden superpowers, tried out a Chinese mobile that stays secure just by recognising your face, uncovered some new Samsung goodies, and found some of the craziest concepts of recent years. And it’s all in …

InEar is a new name to me, but it’s an established German maker of high-end headphones. ALO’s Ken Ball contacted me a few months ago about trying out some InEars and he sent over two models, the StageDiver 2 and StageDiver 3. They look similar to custom-molded in-ear monitors from Ultimate Ears and Westone, but the StageDivers are universal-fit models …

BARCELONA, Spain — Italian company I’m Spa’s latest product, the I’m Tracer, is a GPS tracker that can be worn as a wristband — or a collar for your pet. Underneath the water- and shock-resistant rubber casing is a GPS tracker as well as a SIM card. The I’m Tracer uses GSM to triangulate your position before getting a lock …

Wednesday is usually the hump day of any tech trade show. The big guns have announced their main products, and everyone is generally a bit tired. But there’s still plenty going on at MWC. Like Sony’s SmartBand, for example, that we went hands-on with. Throw in Sony’s wearable camera concept that tracks everything you do, some cool new in-car tech, …

Looking for dirt-cheap phone service for your smartphone? If it’s an unlocked GSM phone that began life on AT&T or T-Mobile, you might want to check out UppWireless. For as little as $15 per month, you can stock your smartphone with a no-contract SIM card that leverages Wi-Fi and 3G/4G connectivity for calls, text, and data. But is it really …

BARCELONA, Spain — As a devout user of Futuremark’s mobile 3D benchmark, 3DMark, it brought a smile to my face to see two new benchmark demoed at Mobile World Congress 2014. Each are coming later this year to Android, iOS, and Windows RT. The first is a new workload for 3DMark, the company’s mobile benchmark for testing a device’s 3D …

Windows Phone could be the only major mobile OS to see a gain in market share in the next few years. Released Wednesday, IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker forecasts a rise in Windows Phone’s global market share from 3.9 percent this year to 7 percent in 2018. That may not seem like a huge leap, but such growth will …