BlackBerry and NFC

A BlackBerry Bold from Research In Motion lies atop a sheet of near-field communication (NFC) tags. The smartphone can read the information from the tags, in this case a telephone number.

The follow-on to the company’s highly successful Galaxy S II launched earlier this month in London, and the versions supporting 4G LTE and Evolved High-Speed Packet Access (HSPA+) will arrive in the United States this summer. It’s powered by a quad-core Exynos 4 processor.

The Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich tablet was first introduced at the Mobile World Congress show in February. The MediaPad is available in international markets, though Huawei officials would not say whether or when it would be on retail shelves in the United States.

The Android-based smartphone is the successor to the company’s Evo 4G device. Sprint is adding the smartphone to its lineup, and it is available for preorder now. However, the smartphone is expected to hit store shelves May 18.

The massive tablet was introduced in February at the Mobile World Congress show and is expected to arrive in the United States in June. Toshiba officials said they envision the 13.3-inch tablet to be a family device that can sit on its stand and be used for playing games and watching movies. The device runs Android 4.0 and is powered by a quad-core Tegra 3 chip from Nvidia.

LG Electronics unveiled both these devices in February at Mobile World Congress, but officials are not saying whether they will show up in the United States. The 5-inch Vu is seen as a device that can replace both a smartphone and tablet (a “phablet”), an idea that didn’t serve Dell too well with its now-defunct 5-inch Streak.

Nokia shows off four of its new Windows-based smartphones, with the first two from left being the Lumia 710 and Lumia 800. The last two are Lumia 900s. Nokia, which has struggled in recent years, is hoping the move to Windows will boost its fortunes.

With the GPS-outfitted device, dog owners can use the Tagg pet-tracking system to keep tabs on their pets, even from miles away.

The Escort device sits on the dashboard of the car, and via the cloud will send information to the user’s iPhone or Android-based smartphone. The device can warn drivers of traffic tie-ups and radar speed traps, and can let drivers know when they go faster than they want to go. Soon the company will add an apps-only capability, where even if a driver doesn’t own the dashboard device, with a downloaded app, they can get information from drivers who do have the device.

The zBoost appliance can improve the cell phone reception in a house by boosting the signal received from the outside antenna. The appliance can support multiple—and disparate—cell phones from any wireless carrier at the same time.