Testing  the  technology  at the   Mobile World Congress  to gauge what will hit  India soon
February 29 2016: This year marks  a quarter century,  since mobile phones  became  mass consumer tools,  with the birth of digital cellular  or 2G networks.  Today, we can hardly imagine life without a handset. Which is why the  largest annual mela of  this industry-- the Mobile World Congress  -- in Barcelona, Spain,  last week, took as its mantra: 'Mobile is EVERYTHING'.
Well, 'Everything' can be  a bit overwhelming --so we will rather look for something in this  techsplosion of  gadgets and gimmicks,   that we can expect to experience in India -- soon. These are the top three  technologies that will likely touch us in 2016.

1:   Shoot selfie  for security!
There's more to selfies than  social media vanities!  They  can be an effective tool for  identification -- doing  away with passwords, or  finger print scans, to  protect your phone.  It can even be alternative to verifying a credit card holder's online identity. And since the selfie is captured live, there's less chance for fraud.   French mobile security firm Morpho, unveiled its selfie-based  facial recognition technology, which uses the built-in camera of a phone or tablet,  to  enable secure account access.  And since Samsung  has come on board as one of the earliest to deploy  Morpho technology, we can expect to  be offered the option quite soon on their  devices. Say 'cheese' to enter!
2..  Super fast charging
Oppo,  the Chinese handset brand that entered India last year,  has answered the prayers of millions of  users, underwhelmed  by their  phone batteries : how to  do a really fast   charge.  They unveiled  their SuperVOOC Flash Charge technology, which enables   a full 10 hours of talk time with only five minutes of charging, and  fills  a 2500 mAh battery in  15 minutes. This uses  a  custom battery  and a low temperature  charging technique. The  technology is particularly useful for charging, while  downloading a video or  playing a graphics-heavy game.
3. Surya,  namaskar! Solar smart phones
Solar chargers can be found on some makes of phone power banks, supplementing the mains charge option. Why hasn't  anyone thought to  have a solar option built into the phone itself? The challenge is to  make a  solar photo-voltaic panel thin enough to fit under the phone's screen  and transparent enough to  not affect the phone's  HD and  touch operations.   The France-based  Sunpartner Technologies has cracked the problem -- and last week unveiled a  5-inch  Kyocera  solar smart  phone which  needs  just 3-minutes  of exposure to light to provide one minute of talk time -- a great alternative  for a quick call, when your phone battery dies on you! Sunpartner also unveiled  smart watches from Vector Watch  where a tiny solar panel effectively doubled the battery life from 30 to 60 days. All it needs is ambient light -- either sunlight  or  indoor lighting. Time for  phone and watch owners to do a surya namaskar!