The second day of Mobile World Congress (MWC) has passed so why not take some time to catch up with some the big news to come out of the event today. I understand your memory may not be at its highest level from all that ‘networking’, so here’s some of the things you probably did see but haven’t the foggiest idea about.

World’s first 5G end-to-end network debuts
The University of Surrey, University of Bristol and King’s College London unveiled the world’s first 5G end-to-end network.

The trio showed off this development via a 5G-connected robotic football player. Visitors were asked to remotely control the robot by kicking a ball in one of the exhibition halls. This kick was then instantly replicated by a robotic-foot located in a different exhibition hall.

T-Mobile has big 5G plans for this year
Mobile network provider T-Mobile announced that it to build out 5G in 30 cities this year, with customers in New York, Los Angeles, Dallas, and Las Vegas the first to experience the technology when the first 5G smartphones launch in 2019.

Upon announcing the plans, company CEO John Legere took a swipe at AT&T and Verizon – who he referred to as “Dumb and Dumber” – criticising their plans to introduce 5G hotspots later this year rather than waiting it out until 5G-enabled smartphones actually arrive.

Sprint unveils its first six 5G-ready cities
Sticking to the theme of 5G technology, T-Mobile’s SoftBank-owned rival, Sprint, announced that customers in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles and Washington D.C. would be the first to experience its 5G mobile network.

To achieve the rollout of the technology, Sprint purchased 5G-ready massive MIMO (multi-input and multi-output) solutions from Samsung, which will form ‘a critical bridge’ to the 5G network.

Visa expands its network for public transport contactless payments
Financial and payments card company Visa announced it has signed 14 new technology companies, across 10 countries, to its ‘Visa Ready for Transit’ program.

The program, which was first announced in November 2017, works with companies to increase contactless usage in public transport around the world by implementing technology solutions.

Alibaba brings its cloud to Europe
eCommerce giant Alibaba is laying down a challenge to the likes of Amazon and Microsoft in Europe with the launch of a range of cloud computing products.

The eight products from Alibaba Cloud address big data, artificial intelligence, infrastructure, security, and private cloud solutions. These products for European enterprises include Image Search, Intelligent Service Robot, Super Computing Cluster, Vulnerability Discovery Service, and more.

IAB research identifies ‘personal prime times’ that consumers are creating
The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) released research that show how consumers are creating their own ‘personal prime times’ – or points of highly concentrated engagement – through the day.

By acknowledging these personal prime times, marketers can capture the attention of the individual at the times they are most engaged, rather than opting for a crowd-level approach to the best times to reach consumers.

Avast warns that consumers are at risk of financial loss due to mobile banking trojan
Digital security company Avast found that fake mobile banking interfaces do a pretty good job of fooling people.

The firm asked 40,00 consumers across 12 countries to compare the authenticity of official and counterfeit mobile banking app interfaces. It found that 58 per cent of respondents identified the official app interface as fraudulent, while 36 per cent of people mistook the fake interface for the real one.

In other Avast-related news, it has teamed up with Vodafone in the Czech Republic to give the mobile network provider’s subscribers access to two Avast-powered apps.

Telefonica show off SIM-based solution to connect IoT devices to AWS
Spanish telecoms provider Telefonica presented a SIM-based solution to connect internet of things (IoT) devices to Amazon Web Services IoT (AWS IoT).

The solution, which is in private preview, aims at simplifying the connection of IoT devices to the cloud.