Spotlight on AI & Robotics Innovations at MWC 2019 Every year as the calendar turns from February to March, the world's leading electronics and telecommunications companies, startups, inventors, and a herd of tech journalists and analysts head to the Mobile World Congress. MWC 2019 kicked off February 25 in Barcelona, Spain, and the leading congress of its type has already produced a plethora of news and products built on AI and robotics. MWC 2019: Intel's'network in a box' for smart cities Intel is targeting smart cities deployments by looking into providing a network-in-a-box offering that integrates its Movidius artificial intelligence (AI) accelerator, multi-access edge computing, and a 5G mobile network all into a single offering. "It's essentially a solution that can go into smart city where it sits like a beacon up on a wall," Intel GM of 5G Advanced Technologies Rob Topol told ZDNet at Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2019 in Barcelona. MWC 2019: Huawei Showcases Its 5G, SoftCOM AI Solutions Huawei is presenting its end-to-end 5G products and solutions at MWC 2019, such as simplified 5G sites, architecture, protocols, and operations & maintenance (O&M).

Finding the best way to get around a busy city is no easy task. Unless you know the place like the back of your hand, choosing between cars, public transport, bike and even scooter shares can be a daunting prospect – but IBM's Watson might be able to help. At MWC 2019, Seat and IBM announced Mobility Advisor, which uses Watson artificial intelligence (AI) to work out the best way to reach your destination – whether it's a train, ride-hailing service or an electric scooter. The tool's suggestions will take into account traffic reports, weather forecasts, and any events happening in the city that day, so you won't get caught in the rain riding a hire bike, or reach a train station at the same time as a crowd of sports fans. Mobility Advisor is currently in development, and is intended to run as a mobile app on 4G and 5G networks.

Microsoft debuted its take on active noise-cancelling headphones last year with a Surface-branded model. At MWC 2019, Lenovo is introducing an audio device of its own with headphones that carry its Yoga label. The on-ear Yoga headphones employ hybrid active and electronic noise-cancelling microphones to help block out the world around you. On-board controls offer easy access to voice control, as well as basic functions like volume adjustments. Lenovo is promising better audio for your conference calls or Skype chats with a Smart Voice Pickup feature.

The Azure Kinect combines depth-sensing cameras with an array of microphones, connecting with Microsoft's cloud. At Microsoft's HoloLens 2 unveiling here in Barcelona at MWC 2019, another product made a quiet debut. The Xbox Kinect, an experimental motion-controlled camera and microphone array for games, died in 2017 and was a precursor to the HoloLens headset. But the Azure Kinect Developer Kit is back alongside the HoloLens 2 as a PC peripheral and developer kit, designed to also connect to the cloud and be used for computer vision-related tasks without a computer. The developer kit can be preordered now for $399 (about £300 or AU$560), a little over a tenth of the cost of the $3,500 HoloLens 2. To Microsoft, they're two parts of the same story.