The Mobile World Congress (MWC) has never been a phone fair. It is a telecommunications event: the congress attendees who fill the halls of Fira de Gran Via come to talk about networks, radio spectrum, mergers, and infrastructure, not phones. These are just the photogenic part of a congress where the global connectivity industry tries to agree on who pays, who wins, and who rules. This year, on the 20th anniversary of the MWC in Barcelona, the big themes are repeated: satellite connectivity, artificial intelligence (AI) applied to networks, the deployment of 5G Advanced, and consolidation among European operators: Orange, Deutsche Telekom, Telefónica, and Vodafone will jointly present the first pan-European federated edge computing infrastructure of the internet cloud. I will talk about them in my daily MWC chronicles in ARA. Despite this, phones will once again capture media attention. And this year, for the first time in a while, there are reasons to pay attention.

Outside a Beijing supermarket, an elderly woman begs for money from customers leaving with shopping bags. She wears a laminated card with a QR code around her neck, which she shows as she asks for money for food. If you scan the code with your phone, you can give her any amount you want, and it will go directly to her mobile wallet account. Eight years ago, the same woman, who is especially visible after summer, did the same thing, but she collected money in cash.

When you open your phone every morning or turn on your computer to work, what language do you see on the screen? If you are a Catalan speaker and the answer isn't "Catalan," you are part of a majority that, without realizing it, is limiting the language's presence in the digital realm. The data indicates this: only one in five Internet users in Catalan-speaking states browse with their device configured in Catalan. This has important implications for the digital future of Catalan.

In a conversation with ARA, regarding the ban on cell phones in schools, psychologist Jaume Funes I told Laura Saula that"Parents have turned the device into the problem, when what they should see is that, from a young age, their child already has a digital universe." She noted that "teaching a teenager about mobile phone use is not easy," and he replied that "having conflicts with teenagers is inevitable" and that "from then on, with them thirty seconds and we will have to come to an agreement again and, surely, we will fight."

New offensive by the Mossos d'Esquadra against the resale of stolen cell phones. According to ARA, early this morning the Catalan police force launched an operation in Mataró against two apartments where stolen phones were allegedly stored and distributed. The thefts mainly occurred in Barcelona, and the owners of these apartments then purchased the stolen devices to resell them in other countries. According to police sources, three arrests have been made, and more than 600 cell phones and €58,000 in cash have been recovered.

The start of classes in Catalonia is fast approaching. We review the key dates for the 2025-2026 school year, which is marked by a significant drop in student numbers in the region's schools and secondary schools and a complete ban on cell phones in classrooms.

The story begins in a Lisbon shopping mall, or on the streets of Milan. The next episode takes place in an apartment in Barcelona's Raval district, and the finale is filmed in North Africa or China. The Mossos d'Esquadra has become a hub of mobile resale and these two stories prove it: last week, Catalan police arrested 20 people who were buying stolen cell phones in the Raval district.. They recovered more than a thousand phones. One belonged to the Portuguese man at the shopping center, another to the pedestrian in Milan, but there was also one belonging to a shopper at a supermarket in Gandía, a festival-goer in Torrejón de Ardoz, and a visitor to the April Fair in Seville.

The European Commission insisted this Tuesday that European Union countries must "restrict or exclude Huawei from their 5G networks" because the Chinese company "represents a much greater risk" than other providers. "The lack of swift action exposes the European Union as a whole to a clear risk," European Commission spokesperson for Technological Sovereignty Thomas Regnier told Efe news agency when asked about the agreement Spain has signed with Huawei for the supply of wiretapping services.

The history of the omnipresence of screens in the classroom has a more or less direct origin in the Council of Europe recommendation number 1836 made public in 2008. According to the authors of the document, although the tools ofe-learning (the expression has already been passed down) had had a considerable impact on education and training, their potential in Europe had not yet been fully exploited.e-learning encompassed electronic media for teaching and learning, both in person and remotelyIt placed new demands on educational institutions, teachers, and students. Institutions needed technical infrastructure and software. Teachers had to receive specific mandatory training, while students had to have access to devices and materials and be trained in their use from a young age. It was believed at the time that educational resources accessible to everyone would be generated, thus combating social division. Parliaments were called upon to support the "open source" movement and to combat the supposed digital divide. In short, Member States were invited to improve technologies that could be applied to education through major investments. One of the first countries to enthusiastically embrace the recommendation was Sweden. However, it was also the first to abandon it in 2023 after observing its worrying (and verifiable) results. The Swedish government, and more specifically Minister Lotta Edholm, halted all this after learning of multiple reports comparing groups that worked with screens and others that worked with books. Academic performance was significantly lower in the case of the former, especially in memory capacity, concentration, attention, and reading comprehension.

"Every time we see a Google Pixel, we think it could be a drug dealer." This quote comes from one of the National Police's anti-drug officials in Catalonia. Gangs are always one step ahead and take extreme security measures in their communications to avoid being discovered or giving clues or even evidence to the police. The Google Pixel is a mobile phone that has become popular among drug traffickers in recent years, along with the Graphene OS operating system, which allows for encrypted communication that is impossible for the police to trace. Furthermore, these devices are designed to be formatted if you enter the PIN incorrectly several times. To avoid losing information on devices seized from drug traffickers, the police isolate the mobile phones in special bags to prevent them from making a mistake. reset remotely and erase all traces of their criminal activity.

Starting at 12:31 on Monday, as soon as the massive power outage hit the Iberian Peninsula, the Spanish telecommunications operators with their own networks (MásOrange, Telefónica, Vodafone, and Digi) held their crisis teams. At each meeting, they assessed how the power outage would affect their respective services, and specific measures were taken to maximize their continuity. In the case of mobile phones, one company deactivated its 3G service, while another shut down its 5G service.

Last weekend, I took advantage of a trip to Alicante to visit Pedro Montengón, who has been dead for 200 years. I like, if I have time, to reciprocate sentimentally with the authors who have provided me with good moments of intimate reading, and, in addition to listening to them with my eyes, I try to see them with my feet. At the beginning of the street that bears his name, a plaque commemorates him with these words: "Pedro Montengón i Paret (Alicante, 1745 - Naples, 1824). Jesuit and writer. He composed poetry, odes, and novels, some of them successful, such as Eusebio".