Mikael

LG Electronics has launched the Optimus 4X HD smartphone, which is powered by a quad-core processor from Nvidia and runs Android 4.0, the company said on Thursday.

The move from two to four cores in high-end smartphones is expected to be one of the big hardware trends at this year's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, which opens its doors on Monday.

Microsoft is spending about US$130 million to build a new datacenter in Dublin, as it needs more room to run cloud services there, the company said on Thursday.

The expansion is a direct result of increased demand for cloud services such as Office 365, Windows Live, Xbox Live, Bing and Windows Azure in Europe, according to Microsoft.

Ericsson can increase upload capacity by a factor of three in HSPA (High-Speed Packet Access) networks, thanks to the use of more antennas and proprietary interference suppression technology, the company said on Wednesday.

Download speeds in mobile networks tend to get the most attention. But as more users upload information from mobile devices to cloud services and share photos via social networks, upload capacity is becoming more important, according to Ericsson.

Amazon Web Services has launched Simple Workflow Service (SWF), which will allow enterprises to automate business processes across both cloud-based and on-premise applications, the company said on Tuesday.

With SWF, developers get full control over implementing processing steps and coordinating the tasks that drive them, without worrying about underlying complexities such as tracking their progress and keeping their state, Amazon said.

ForeScout Technologies has launched ForeScout Mobile, which comes in the shape of plug-in modules for Android and iOS and allows enterprises to keep control as a plethora of devices access corporate resources, the company said on Tuesday.

ForeScout's access control technology is device agnostic, but with the addition of the Mobile Security Module the company adds more extensive features for Android and iOS.

Ericsson has entered into an agreement to buy privately held Canadian Wi-Fi company BelAir Networks, as operators get increasingly interested in using Wi-Fi to offload their networks.

The acquisition will give Ericsson a carrier grade Wi-Fi portfolio, technological expertise, IPR, and established customer contracts and relationships, it said Tuesday. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

The Galaxy AceSamsung Electronics and LG Electronics have announced new mid- and low-end Android-based smartphones. Samsung hopes to attract users with a dual-core processor, while LG is putting Android 4.0 on some of its new phones from day one.

The new arrivals are the Galaxy Ace 2 and the Galaxy mini 2 from Samsung, and the Optimus L3, L5 and L7 from LG.

Nokia Siemens Networks and Qualcomm are planning to demo a feature that will allow users to receive data from two base stations at the same time at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Nokia Siemens said on Monday.

The feature is called HSPA+ (High-Speed Packet Access) multiflow and enables the transmission of two data streams from base stations in two adjacent cells to a single user device. Overall, this can up to double throughput data speeds for users at cell edge, Nokia Siemens said without elaborating on the real-world numbers.

Microsoft has struck a deal which will make it easier for more Windows Phone users to pay for Marketplace apps via their phone bill. Payments on Microsoft Marketplace are handled by Microsoft's new Commerce Platform, which it has now integrated with the Direct Billing Gateway (DBG) developed by Mach.

The integration makes it easier for mobile carriers to add operator billing, according to Mach. Among the first to profit from the new arrangement will be customers of Canadian operator Telus Communications.

The pressure is on HTC and LG Electronics to show they can compete with Apple and Samsung Electronics in the smartphone market by showing off impressive products at Mobile World Congress, which starts in Barcelona later this month.

Smartphone sales during the fourth quarter were dominated by Apple and Samsung. The two companies had almost 50 percent of the market, compared to about 25 percent in the previous year, according to data from market research company Strategy Analytics.

Apple scored a victory in its patent battle with Motorola Mobility, as the district court in Munich on Thursday granted an injunction against some of Motorola's smartphones.

The injunction is related to an Apple patent for unlocking touchscreens on select Motorola devices sold in Germany, according to a spokeswoman at Motorola.

Quortus has launched the EdgeCentrix software, which allows the core of mobile networks to be installed at smaller cell sites, and in the process cut costs by offloading data and voice traffic, the company said on Thursday.

Operators are looking high and low for ways lighten the load on their networks, in order to handle increasing amounts of data traffic. One way to do this is move network features and content to the edge of the network, which is what U.K. company Quortus has chosen to do.