At last week’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, CNET was impressed with the Asus Padfone Infinity, Asus FonePad, Nokia Lumia 720 and Sony Xperia Z tablet. In selecting its Best of Show award, however, a panel of CNET judges focused on the potentially disruptive category of new mobile operating systems. Mozilla’s Firefox OS and Canonical’s Ubuntu Touch generated the most buzz at MWC. Continue reading CNET Gives MWC Best of Show Award to Ubuntu Touch OS

Samsung and Google continue to compete with Apple’s dominance in the smartphone market. Samsung’s influence is growing — the South Korean company now sells a total of 40 percent of all gadgets using Google’s Android software — and Google is worried that Samsung might flex its muscle to renegotiate its arrangement and adversely affect Google’s successful mobile-ad business. Continue reading Will Samsung Hurt Google Mobile Ad Biz with Android Lead?

Technology Review interviews Microsoft’s chief executive Steve Ballmer about Windows 8, which the article refers to as the most ambitious and strangest major product ever released by the software mainstay. Windows 8 was designed to run on smartphones, tablets, laptops, servers and even on supercomputers and provides users with the same interface on any device, with minor variations from one to the next. Continue reading Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer Talks Windows 8 and Surface

In its latest version of the Android mobile operating system, Google installed a voice recognition system based on a neural network, or a computerized learning system that behaves like the human brain. The voice error rate on Android’s latest Jelly Bean is about 25 percent lower than previous versions of the software, making it far more comfortable for people to use voice commands on their devices. Continue reading Google Improves Voice Recognition with Neural Algorithms

“Microsoft’s new Windows 8 operating system is a combination of two very different user interfaces, with each best used in a different way,” suggests Walt Mossberg. The entire system is touch-based, but only the start screen is fully optimized for touch, while the second interface, the Windows desktop, is best operated with a physical keyboard and mouse or touch pad. Continue reading Windows 8: Laptop/Tablet Hybrids Attempt to Embrace Features