We are just past the half way point at Mobile World Congress 2016, which has so far given us smartphones, tablets and Internet of Things solutions in abundance from some of the industries biggest players.

If you haven’t been paying attention for the last couple of days, here’s a quick round up of some of the big stories you might have missed.

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Picture a standard subway ride during rush hour. The car, of course, is crammed full. Some of those subway riders are pleasant commuters, and some are subway villains like pickpockets and purse-snatchers. Now imagine someone has invented a private subway that quickly and efficiently connects you and other pleasant commuters to the subway station in your neighborhood. You don’t have to deal with slowdowns, unexpected stops, or any of the risks associated with being lumped in with the aforementioned subway villains.

Now stop imagining, because someone has invented such a blissful sort of system. It’s just that instead of being a form of transportation it’s a method of directing legitimate human traffic to a website while it’s being protected from a DDoS attack. Not the best news for your commute, but great news for your website.

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The browser provided by Baidu (China's answer to Google), leaks all kinds of personal data. Researchers at Canada’s Citizen Lab tested the browser and concluded it "collects and transmits a lot of personal user data back to Baidu servers that we believe goes far beyond what should be collected, and it does so either without encryption, or with easily decryptable encryption".

The Android version of the browser is even worse: "Data collected and transmitted in the Android version without any encryption includes a user’s GPS coordinates, search terms, and URLs visited. The user’s IMEI and nearby wireless networks are sent with easily decryptable encryption".

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Most Americans, and many of the world’s iPhone users, are now aware that a court order was filed on February 16 to compel Apple to assist the FBI in retrieving information from an iPhone. This was the phone uncovered in the aftermath of the mass shooting in San Bernardino in December last year. Apple objected to the FBI’s demands and very public legal maneuvering ensued.

In this article I endeavor to explain some of the key issues that this situation raises, for both privacy and security, as they impact companies, consumers, and governments.

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Taiwanese hardware manufacturer Asus has agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission charges, the agency reported on Tuesday. Back in 2014, it was discovered that Asus’ routers had poor security protocols, putting hundreds of thousands of users’ data at risk.

Under the settlement, Asus will have to establish and maintain a comprehensive security program, subject to independent audits for the next 20 years. The FTC said the vulnerabilities allowed attackers to gain access to at least 12,900 routers.

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There have been 1,673 data breaches last year. They have led to 707 million data records being compromised. Those are the results of a new report by digital security firm Gemalto, entitled Breach Level Index.

The Breach Level Index tracks all data breaches worldwide, looking at their size, severity, as well as the number of records compromised.

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If you’re a business owner in the UK, chances are a good portion of your workers are looking for the first opportunity to ditch you.

According to a new report by Ilex International, the identity and access management firm, 59 percent of workers are looking for a new job in 2016. Two reasons are behind this: first that the majority feels underpaid, and the second is that the economy is improving and better prospects are out there.

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Mobile enterprise security firm MobileIron has released its Q4 2015 Mobile Security and Risk Review, discussing the threats and risks that enterprises face in their mobile deployments.

The report reveals the worrying find that more than 50 percent of enterprises have at least one non-compliant device, creating a broader attack surface for malware and data theft.

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In an effort to modernize SMS messaging, Google and a number of mobile service providers are working together to expedite the release and adoption of Rich Communication Services (RCS).

The company will be joined by the wireless standards group GSMA along with many global and regional carriers including America Movil, Bharti Airtel Ltd, Deutsche Telekom, Globe Telecom, Millicom, Orange, Sprint, Telenor Group, TeliaSonera, Telstra, Turkcell and Vodafone.

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After less than a year, Samsung Pay has reached 5 million users in South Korea and the US. The service has already processed over $500 million dollars worth of sales and this number is set to increase as Samsung is preparing to globally expand its mobile payment service throughout 2016.

The company will be launching Samsung Pay in China next month in partnership with China’s UnionPay. Support for the service will then be made available in Australia, Brazil, Singapore, Spain, the UK and Canada later this year.

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With more and more enterprises recognizing the need to go beyond securing devices while still finding an effective way to deploy native mobile apps to employees, it's little wonder that remote enterprise approaches like Virtual Mobile Infrastructure (VMI) are receiving more eyeballs in the enterprise mobility space and the scrutiny that comes along with it. With this comes questions, doubts and even fears over the whether this new approach can really fulfill on its promise.

In fact, fears can spiral into outright myths if left to fester. Remember the myth that Macs couldn't get viruses? We all know how that claim turned out. To this end and, without further ado, here's the truth about five of the most common myths you may have heard about VMI.

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Ford has announced today that it will unveil the new Ford Kuga SUV during the Mobile World Congress taking place in Barcelona this week.

If you were wondering what the hell is a car doing on a fair for mobile things, keep on reading.

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Dell has released its Security Annual Threat Report, taking a detailed look into the IT security landscape of 2015, as well as predicting a few trends for the ongoing year.

The report is based on "Dell SonicWALL Global Response Intelligence Defense (GRID) network with daily feeds from more than one million firewalls and tens of millions of connected endpoints, Dell SonicWALL network traffic and other industry sources".

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Mobile technology, data and analytics, mobile security, smart homes, fully autonomous cars, drones, wearable gadgets, enterprise mobility, Internet of Things, mobile commerce, app monetization, 'Internet +' -- you name it, they’re talking about it at Mobile World Congress. And the mix of people that crowded the huge halls of the venue all came from different industries and countries.

Amidst it all, I kept seeing the same three words pop up everywhere on signage in the exhibitor halls, in video ads and everywhere else -- smart, connected and Internet of Things. The more I saw and heard these three words, the more convinced I became that mobile -- in this very moment in time -- isn’t necessarily everything as the conference theme suggests. Instead, it’s a few things. To help illustrate what I mean, here are a few of those things that stood out for me on the first day of Mobile World Congress.

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One of the big debates happening at the moment is when -- and indeed, whether -- we will see the emergence of a cashless society where digital payments rule the roost.

We are already seeing it happening. Last year, cashless payments overtook physical currency in the UK and the release of services such as Apple Pay has helped propel mobile payments into the mainstream.

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