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It’s been a while since I was really blown away by a trade show. I’ve been to a lot of them in the course of my career as a technology journalist, but the recent Mobile World Congress in Barcelona really stands out. Talk about feeling like you are in the center of the tech universe—or at least the center of the cell phone galaxy. The cool thing from a design perspective is that every part of the design ecosystem is represented—from chips to test to content—the companies that make up the mobile community come from all parts of the planet.

I don’t think there is a more international market than the handset design arena. For example, inside a typical cell phone designed in South Korea or Finland you might find power chips from the U.S., Bluetooth radios from Cambridge, England, and multimedia processors from The Netherlands. What’s more, the IP that is in those chips is likely to come from some other far flung region of the globe (e.g. the OMAP processors with an ARM core from Texas Instruments).

With yearly handset sales topping one billion units, companies now find profitable business models by focusing on amazingly specialized niches, all of which come together in the handset and its communications infrastructure. In our briefing with TI, Worldwide Marketing Manager Bryce Johnstone explained that the company is now moving multimedia features into the chips for entry-level phones sold to developing countries—no surprise there, who doesn’t want to have at least a camera in their phone? NXP, according to vice president Gerard Cronin, is also changing direction in the market. The company looks to narrow its focus in the handset market, playing to its multimedia processing strengths.

With over 55,000 attendees and eight halls, we only got to see the tip of the pyramid, but that represented some really cool technology. For example, the new Do Co Mo Wellness phone that includes heart, blood pressure monitors as well as a bad-breath meter. That’s right, you can check your breath before the big meeting, or the big date. Gotta have it. Also TI showed us the DLP-based pico projector that allows you to project images (or power points) from the end of the cell phone. Broadcom is integrating 802.11n into its phone chip sets, allowing the phone to double as a media server /wireless remote. Check out our videos on these and other products we saw at the MWC Hot Spot.

This was my first time in Barcelona. It’s very nice and I came at the right time of the year: cool and sunny. Oh, and did I mention it’s on the Mediterranean? The show was on grounds built for an exhibition circa 1929, allowing some beautiful architecture. Above the show grounds and up a hill, is a beautiful city park with numerous museums and also the Olympic stadiums from the 1992 Olympics. The whole city seemed safe and really prosperous. The train system, like pretty much every European city I’ve ever visited, is remarkable! We were staying outside the city (there wasn’t a vacant hotel room in the entire city because of the event) at a seaside resort town called Sitges. I don’t think we ever waited more than five minutes for the train, and it was always on time, always within a couple of minutes.

It was interesting in light of the show to see how all the train commuters carry their mobile devices—music players and game machines, but mainly cell phones. Very few people were reading a magazine or a book. I fit in—I had my iPod along for the ride. I was certainly equipped for the Mobile World Congress: I am again traveling with so much digital gear, it is kind of insane: a 60-Gb hard-disk camcorder, a 4-Gb iPod, two cell phones (neither of which works here), a laptop (with God knows how many 100s of gigabytes of storage), a digital camera with a 2-Gb card inside. It truly is a Mobile World!