Top 5 Trends from Mobile World Congress 2015... a 2 minute cheat sheet

The most important things to come out of this week’s Mobile World Congress were, strangely, not mobile phones. Yes of course there were plenty of them showcased from the much-anticipated Samsung S6 to the Blackberry Leap but they were arguably not the stars of the show. Take 2 minutes to read the 5 trends that were more important than the phones themselves:

5G – a rather predictable name for the successor to 4G but it's capability is a little more engaging. The main improvement is download speed. Wave goodbye to streaming video lag and say hello to instant app updates. Crucially, 5G will usher in shorter communication delays which in turn will enable super fast-response services like augmented reality and even self driving cars. The only downside? It’s likely we wont get the infrastructure and handsets for another 5 years...

Smarter watches – the Apple Watch comes out next month and to pre-empt that launch there are plenty of rivals who want to beat them to the punch. The difference between these and previous smart watches is that they look much more like conventional luxury timepieces (so essentially copying what Apple have done). The two versions that stand out are the LG Urbane and the Huawei Watch which come in a range of colours and straps. But the features they offer appear to be pretty similar to those of the Apple Watch with no killer applications to genuinely set them apart...

Virtually a reality – Oculus Rift began the virtual reality trend at CES a few years ago and now it looks like there are many more trying to jump on the bandwagon. The best of the bunch? The HTC Vive. According to the the notoriously difficult people to please at TechCrunch, they said “When I say I was impressed, amused, and excited, trust me. This was one of the best things I’ve seen in a long time.” In fairness, the unit itself still looks at little clunky but given it’s a prototype I’m guessing it will have improved enormously by the time it reaches the consumer...

IoT to IoE – as we quickly move from the Internet of Things (IoT) to the Internet of Everything (IoE), this is best epitomised by those purveyors of inexpensive DIY furniture, IKEA (yes, you read that right). They unveiled their 'Home Smart' collection of wireless charging furniture including bedside tables, lamps and desks. Basically you place your device on an area denoted with a large + symbol and as if by magic, it shall be charged. Unless you have an iPhone which isn't compatible with their chosen Qi platform.

Storage Capability – a micro-SD card was launched by SanDisk. It can fit a mind-warping 200GB of data on it. Want to put that in real terms? It can store up to 20 hours of video content – on something no bigger than the size of the nail on your pinky finger. Who needs the cloud?

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