Robots & gadgets galore: Mobile World Congress back in Barcelona

Despite COVID-19 precautions, tech big shots Ericsson, Nokia, Intel, Sony and Qualcomm decided not to attend this year.

The Mobile World Congress (MWC) kicked off in Barcelona, Spain on Monday with less-than-usual attendance and beefed-up health measures, as tech and telecom companies present their latest inventions, devices and discoveries. MWC was cancelled last year because of the coronavirus outbreak. And this year’s comeback makes it one of the few trade shows to open its doors even though COVID-19 continues to rage in many parts of the world, with the Delta variant the latest reason some countries are reintroducing restrictions. “Obviously, there is a huge difference from previous years. This show is going to be much smaller, much safer from a health and safety perspective,” Mats Granryd, director general of the Global System for Mobile Communications Association (GSMA), told Reuters news agency.