Mobile World Congress (MWC) is the mobile industry's biggest annual trade show. Falling shortly after CES, which was this year dominated by Amazon Alexa-enabled smart things, MWC is now in its 31st year, bringing together 100,000 attendees to exhibit, innovate, and debate all things mobile. Apple doesn't attend officially, and this year Samsung was not announcing anything huge in terms of new wearables or mobiles, which opened the way for the indie players and middle-of-the-field brands to get more exposure for their new trinkets and widgets. But MWC has not been about mobile handsets for a while. Instead, it focuses on the wider mobile ecosystem and how that is transforming our world.

The upcoming Samsung Galaxy S8 smartphone will utilize its facial recognition technology to assist with mobile payment processing, according to a report from Bloomberg. As Bloomberg notes, the S8's facial recognition technology will work alongside the smartphone's rear fingerprint sensor and iris sensor to process payments via Samsung Pay. The combination of all three features is intended to compensate for their respective gaps: while iris technology works well without needing lots of ambient light, facial recognition sensors work faster at recognizing your facial features. Facial recognition on the Galaxy S8 was initially speculated at earlier this month, but Bloomberg's report is the first indication on how thorough the technology's integration with the new smartphone will be. As smartphone companies work to separate their models from the competition, facial recognition is a feature that's also seen increasing interest from developers.

The LG G6 hasn't yet hit the shelves, but carriers have started making efforts to entice customers. T-Mobile, AT&T, Sprint and US Cellular are all offering a free Google Home speaker (priced at $129) on the purchase of the device. The offer ends April 30 or until supplies last, whichever comes first. In addition to the Google Home speaker, carriers are also offering other freebies with the device. T-Mobile is offering the G6 for a EMI of $26 a month for 24 months along with a $26 down payment, which makes the total cost of the handset $650.

Several U.S. carriers have now confirmed that the LG G6 release date will be April 7. T-Mobile and AT&T have also revealed their prices for the 2017 flagship. T-Mobile will sell the LG G6 for $650 or $26 down and $26 per month for 24 months as per the network's payment plan. T-Mobile is also offering customers who purchase the LG G6 before April 30 a free Google Home AI assistant. AT&T will sell the LG G6 for $720 or $30 per month for 24 months as per the network's payment plan. In addition to a free Google Home, AT&T is also offering a second LG G6 for free when starting a new service line.

Home, as you likely know by now, is Google's Echo-like AI voice helper that uses Google Assistant instead of Amazon's Alexa. Given that it just launched recently, it has limited capabilities compared to the rival device, but it does use Google's massive and sophisticated search engine -- for better or for worse. Up until now, you could only access Assistant via Home, Google's Allo chat app and Pixel phones, but the search giant recently announced that it would roll out to other recent Android phones as well. T-Mobile carriers will pay $26 down and $26 a month for two years for a total $650 price, while AT&T will let buyers have it via the Next phone trade-up program for $24 a month over 30 months. However, AT&T is also throwing in a second LG G6, assuming you add an additional line on your Next program, and giving buyers the option to pick up an LG Watch Sport for $50.

The S8 will apparently blend together fingerprint, iris and facial detection to verify a user for payment services -- and Samsung is apparently already working with banks to get the feature adopted. The company's flagship phones have offered facial recognition to unlock for years, and it's gotten much better at detecting faces as the Galaxy series has matured. As Bloomberg notes, Apple is approaching facial recognition too. Although it doesn't form any software features in existing iPhones, the company has picked up several facial recognition developers in the last few years. The Galaxy S8 will give Samsung the chance to make up for last year's blunders, and get ahead of a highly-anticipated iPhone that will mark 10 years of Apple's smartphone series.

Samsung is expected to launch its own AI assistant for the Galaxy S8, but its name has always been a subject of debate. Thanks to the Italian Samsung website, it does appear like the company's assistant will indeed be called Bixby. Samsung's AI assistant for the Galaxy S8 has a few names floating around, namely Viv, Bixby and Kestra. On the Italian Samsung website under its updated privacy policy, the site mentions Bixby by name located in the voice services section, according to TechRadar. The webpage doesn't give out any specific tasks that Bixby is capable of doing, but it did shed some light on what it can do.

Even if you don't follow mobile news closely, Huawei is a name you've probably been hearing a lot lately. That's because the Chinese telecommunication's phones have grown tremendously in name recognition and global units shipped in 2016. But Huawei's independent sub brand Honor is no slouch. The e-commerce brand has been popular among western consumers who want a high quality device on a budget for a couple years, but the brand's recent release, the phone, is more than just about being a good value. The Honor Magic is an unusual "concept device" that puts the "smart" in smartphone.

The Galaxy S8 should hit store shelves in April, but there's some debate as to exactly when. Samsung has confirmed it will unveil the phone at a special New York event on March 29. While the company isn't sharing many details, its invite to the event showed a silhouette of a smartphone with two small bezels at the top and bottom, suggesting the device will indeed feature a curved screen that could be substantially bigger than last year's Galaxy S7. According to a recent report from ETNews, Samsung's highly anticipated smartphone will be available for sale globally on April 21. However, a separate report from VentureBeat says the release of the Galaxy S8 has been pushed back a week to April 28.

As part of SAP's IoT Influencer program, I had the honor of interviewing Hitachi's Rob Tiffany on Industrial IoT platforms and the role of artificial intelligence at Mobile World Congress 2017.