Another Mobile World Congress went into the books when I flew home from Barcelona Thursday. I’m glad that show and that city have become a regular part of my travel schedule.
2/21/2016: It’s really time to let go of that old tube TV, USA Today
Circling back to a topic I covered in 2013 allowed me to note some good HDTV options for under $200–including the Wirecutter’s $170 pick–and the unfortunate end of Best Buy’s free TV recycling.
2/22/2016: Zuckerberg at MWC: Getting the World (and Someday His Daughter) Online, Yahoo Tech
The Facebook founder’s Q&A session started at 6 p.m. local time, meaning the press room closed while I was still writing my recap. I finished it on a bench in the hall outside–MWC, unlike CES, has free WiFi throughout the facility.
2/22/2016: Tip: Sometimes You Really Do Need to Reboot the Damn Thing, Yahoo Tech
I’d written this tip item weeks before, not knowing that a colleague had just filed a different tip item around the virtues of rebooting. Fortunately, our devices did not get any less buggy over the ensuing month.
2/23/2016: Tip: How to Quickly and Easily Get Rid of Old E-Mails, Yahoo Tech
You read a version this three and a half years ago at USA Today, but that didn’t give enough credit to Microsoft’s Outlook.com for nailing the task of automatically deleting e-mails over a certain age.
2/23/2016: Why Wireless Charging Is Still a Tangled Mess, Yahoo Tech
Once again, the wireless industry seems dead set on balkanizing itself between two ways to do the same thing.
2/24/2016: Your Next Android Phone: Smaller but Expandable, Yahoo Tech
This was my attempt at a State of the Union address for Android phones.
2/24/2016: Best Wireless Carriers, The Wirecutter
Our first major update to this guide since September factored in the end of two-year contracts at AT&T and Sprint… and two days after it went up, I learned that Sprint had restored two-year contracts. We should have yet another update up in a few days.
2/26/2016: Your next smartphone should have these features, USA Today
My last MWC post inventoried six features that I think you’ll want on your next phone–and another that nobody should care about for a few more years.
2/27/2016: Emerging Multifamily Technologies Panel, NWP Energy Summit
The morning after I got home from Spain–professionalism!–I moderated this panel discussion with NWP’s Howard Behr, Greystar’s Pam Darmofalski, Embue’s Robert Cooper and Remotely’s Mike Branam about how smart-home technology is changing apartments.