BARCELONA, Spain–You would think Michael Abbott, who runs a joint venture aimed at deploying mobile-payment services across the nation, would want to take a shot at Google and the early stumbles it’s had with its rival digital wallet. You’d be wrong. “I applaud Google for addressing the problem quickly,” Abbott said in an interview with …

Huawei is hitting Mobile World Congress in full force — not only has it unveiled the Ascend D Quad, which it claims is the world’s fastest phone, it’s also pulled back the curtain on the Huawei MediaPad 10 FHD. It’s the world’s first quad-core 10-inch tablet, combining what many say is the optimum screen size with some of the nippiest …

There are countless ways to scan the news on an iPhone, and even a handful of ways to listen to it. But newly updated Snackr effectively does both, reading aloud the latest headlines and news summaries from a variety of sources–including some personal ones. In other words, it’s like a news “snack”–get it? The app provides five minutes’ worth of …

Panasonic only revealed last week it was launching its smart phones in the UK, and now there’s a second handset coming our way. And this one’s higher-specced than the first. The Panasonic Eluga Power comes with Ice Cream Sandwich, the latest version of Android. And it’s huge too, with its 5-inch LCD screen verging on Samsung Galaxy Note territory. So …

Now playing: Watch this: Asus Padfone 1:57 BARCELONA, Spain–Asus struck a high note when it introduced the one-of-a-kind Transformer Prime last year, but that device was only the beginning. Today at Mobile World Congress, Asus finally released its long-awaited Padfone. Though the device first made an appearance last May in a promotional video, sightings of the actual device have been …

ZTE phones, tablets of MWC (photos) +6 more See all photos BARCELONA, Spain–The cell phone manufacturers have been bringing it at MWC, and ZTE is no exception. The Chinese manufacturer announced several Android handsets and hinted at others in the weeks leading up to the show, and today, revealed the rest of their global plans. Out of the 15 smartphones …

BARCELONA, Spain–Android is far behind Apple’s iPad in total units sold, but Andy Rubin says 2012 could be the year where that changes. Speaking today at Mobile World Congress in Barcleona, Google’s Android chief said that users have activated 12 million Android-based tablets so far. According to The Verge, which first reported on his comments, Rubin said that the figure …

BARCELONA, Spain – A year into its partnership with Microsoft, Nokia is filling out its Windows Phone smartphone portfolio and differentiating devices with Nokia-only features and apps. On Monday, Nokia kicked off the Mobile World Congress tradeshow here with a new low-end Lumia Windows Phone smartphone, the Lumia 610. This is now the fourth Lumia Windows Phone in the portfolio, …

BARCELONA, Spain–Telefonica today showed off B2G, the Mozilla browser-based operating system for mobile phones, saying it’s good enough to sell to today’s feature-phone customers later this year. You may or may not agree. To help you judge, here’s a video of Carlos Domingo, Telefonica Digital’s director of product development and innovation, demonstrating a prototype phone at a press conference today …

We may be a few months away from seeing the official announcement for the Samsung Galaxy S III handset, but that’s certainly not going to stop the rumor mill from churning out new details. Case in point: a list of specs for the Galaxy S III surfaced over the weekend and provided a rather complete picture for what will undoubtedly …