Smartphones, tablets dominate first day of Mobile World Congress

Mobile World Congress MWCLIveBARCELONA, Spain--The Mobile World Congress trade show here got started with a bang as handset vendors spanning the gamut announced new smartphones and tablets. Among those in the headlines are LG, Sony Ericsson, Samsung, Research In Motion (NASDAQ:RIMM) and ZTE. (Nokia (NYSE:NOK) was conspicuously absent on the handset front, having just announced a partnership with Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) for Windows Phone 7.) Not surprisingly, chipset vendors, network equipment suppliers and content companies contributed to the general conference noise. Here's a selection of the top headlines coming out of this year's MWC:
Qualcomm unveils quad-core Snapdragon chipset for tablets
ZTE skates into MWC with Android smartphone
LG takes wraps off Optimus Pad, Optimus 3D smartphone
Alcatel-Lucent debuts tool to help carriers manage data traffic
Sony Ericsson, Verizon hit 'start' on Xperia Play 'PlayStation' phone
Wholesale Applications Community touts commercial launch
LG, YouTube premiere 3D mobile video on Android
Foursquare expands to five new languages
SanDisk, Sony, operators team on content delivery standard

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