Missing at Mobile World Congress: Innovation

The hottest showcase for new technology at this year's Mobile World Congress wasn't in the event's cavernous exhibition halls. It was actually about two miles away, at an affiliated show for startups and venture capitalists.

In a makeshift array of stages, geodesic tents and seats made from beer crates, organizers of the spinoff gathering titled Four Years From Now, or 4YFN, played host to an array of mobile-related startups with products like GPS for motorcycle helmets, and an application for Google's computer-enabled glasses that lets users buy things with a nod of the head. Innovation has been hard to come by in Barcelona this year. At over one million square feet, Mobile World Congress is the mobile industry's biggest yearly conference. But this year's show offered another cascade of glass-slab devices that varied in size and, maybe, color. That stagnation reflects a broader shift in the mobile business, as the smartphone revolution nears the end of its first wave, with penetration beginning to plateau in developed countries. New advances are coming increasingly from pure tech companies developing new Web- and location-enabled services, or even tiny makers of apps and gadgets far away from the main action.