THE loudest cheer from the audience at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona last week was for a charger. Not for a cellphone, but for its power supply.<\/p>\n
The irony was seemingly missed by the proud executives announcing that a universal charger would ship with the majority of new phones by 2012. It is already used by some new phones from BlackBerry, Samsung and Nokia.<\/p>\n
Despite all the other weighty issues (like the telecom industry\u2019s role in easing the global meltdown, and clever green initiatives in an energy-hungry industry), this single device generated the most buzz, and captured the public\u2019s imagination in a way new touchscreens and smartphones can\u2019t.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s such a blindingly obvious solution, and something consumers have been begging for so many years, that it\u2019s a wonder it\u2019s taken so long to be realised.<\/p>\n
Be that as it may, a universal charger was the star attraction, upstaging the phones themselves \u2014 and there were a lot of fancy new phones to compete against.<\/p>\n
With an expected 10percent drop in handset sales, which reached 1.2billion last year, of which between half and 80percent are replacement models, the industry was looking for good news.<\/p>\n
Not replacing the chargers that go with these handsets would save between 51000 tons and 82000 tons of replacement chargers every year, said Michael O\u2019Hara off the GSM Association , the industry\u2019s umbrella body.<\/p>\n
Talking of green, there was a rush of interest in Samsung\u2019s new Blue Earth phone, which charges using the solar panel that covers its back, and 25percent of which comes from recycled plastic water bottles from office water coolers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe aim to reduce greenhouse gases by 2012 by 13.6 million tons,\u201d said O\u2019Hara. \u201cIt\u2019s a cool environmental measure which is also very convenient for customers.\u201d<\/p>\n
All of these numbers are pretty meaningless to the average consumer, but the much-mentioned drawers full of old chargers aren\u2019t. Even actor Kevin Spacey, in Barcelona to discuss short movies and punt his own video site, TriggerStreet.com, called it \u201cthe greatest invention ever. I have a drawer full of chargers. I don\u2019t want to get rid of them because I don\u2019t know what phone they belong to\u201d.<\/p>\n
The second cheer, bigger than the first, was when Google vice- president of engineering Vic Gundotra demonstrated a whole range of Google services designed for mobiles on a number of handsets, from the iPhone, BlackBerry, Palm Pre and HTC Magic.<\/p>\n
To show voice-activated search, he spoke into his iPhone \u201cpictures of cathedrals in Spain\u201d and placed it in front of a camera that projected the results on the screen behind him. Almost instantly, several images appeared.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s unlikely you\u2019d type in something that long,\u201d he said to a stirring round of applause.<\/p>\n
He was trying to demonstrate that a cellphone has a variety of attributes that set it apart from a computer, and how search needs to evolve to take advantage.<\/p>\n
The iPhone has a new input method (voice) and knows your location \u2014 so \u201cif I say \u2018weather\u2019, it knows that I\u2019m in Barcelona,\u201d Gundotra explained.<\/p>\n
Microsoft chief executive officer Steve Ballmer, making his first trip to WMC, by comparison elicited sniggers from a packed room of journalists when he announced the new Windows Phone and services \u2014 an almost identical copy of Apple\u2019s iPhone and business model.<\/p>\n
Amusingly, a top secret early handset running the brand new Windows Mobile 6.5 operating system was reportedly stolen from an Australian Telstra executive by one of Barcelona\u2019s world-famous pickpockets.<\/p>\n
There were a number of developments and trends that will shape this new mobile world, which I will unpack over the next few weeks.<\/p>\n