What’s happening

Microsoft is bringing its subscription Xbox Game Pass service to Samsung televisions.

Why it matters

This service doesn’t require a console and is another step forward for cloud gaming.

What’s next

Microsoft is looking to expand its cloud gaming service to more devices.

Samsung TVs are getting a key new feature later this month: access to Xbox Game Pass and the ability to stream games like Halo Infinite and Microsoft Flight Simulator without a console. 

The service will come to all 2022 model Samsung televisions and will go live on June 30 in 27 countries. Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, a CNET Editors’ Choice, costs $15 a month, although you can try it for the first month for $1.

Microsoft’s expansion into Samsung smart TVs marks the latest example of cloud gaming, a service-based model akin to Netflix’s streaming shows and movies. The trend of moving away from physical disks and toward streaming games accessible across multiple devices has had its fits and starts — Google’s Stadia service hasn’t blown up — but it’s one many key players are banking on as a big part of the industry’s future. 

“When I think about 3 billion people on the planet playing video games, and the number of people who want to play on a device that’s already in their home or in their pocket, that has to be a primary focus for us at Xbox,” Phil Spencer, head of Microsoft’s Xbox business, said in an interview on Monday. “Giving players choice … has been critical to the journey we’ve been on.”

For Samsung, which already offers Xbox’s cloud gaming on its Galaxy S line of smartphones, getting a better gaming experience on its televisions was a no-brainer. 

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“That’s where the industry is going,” said Won-Jin Lee, president and head of the service business team at Samsung Electronics, in the same interview. “It’s only natural to think about this, with everything moving to the cloud.” 

Xbox Game Pass subscribers will be able to access the Xbox app through Samsung’s Gaming Hub. From there, gamers will see a familiar interface with the Xbox app, and have access to a library of hundreds of new and old titles, including titles such as Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed Origins and Electronic Arts’ Madden NFL 22. 

The similar interface for the Xbox app was important to ensure there was a consistent feel as players look to log in through different devices. 

“We’re putting the player at the center of the experience,” Spencer said. “It allows them to feel like they’re a full member of the community regardless of how they come in.”

Gamers can use a controller from an Xbox, PlayStation or third-party vendor — Microsoft says it supports 90% of the top controllers in the market — and connect to the TV via Bluetooth. Samsung will also support connecting any Bluetooth headphone for Xbox Live voice chat. 

Microsoft has touted its xCloud service, powered by its Azure cloud computing platform, as akin to playing a game through a physical console connected to the TV. A quick demo of Halo Infinite, Forza Horizon 5 and Flight Simulator showed an experience with little lag. 

Lee said Samsung, the world’s largest producers of TVs, added upscaling capabilities and removed latency to ensure a responsive gaming experience. He said both teams had to overcome early challenges around picture quality and lag before getting to its final polished state. 

Lee added that Samsung was also working to bring Xbox Game Pass to older televisions, but didn’t have any additional details to share. He noted that if you can stream videos from Netflix on your TV, you should be able to play Xbox games. 

Lee also noted that just 15% of its televisions are connected to consoles, and points to the large “uncharted territory” when it comes to gaming. 

That’s a big opportunity as Spencer looks to tap those 3 billion potential gamers.

Correction, 11:45 am PT: Changes Samsung executive Won-Jin Lee’s title. 

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What’s happening

Qualcomm teases the power of its next-generation processor.

Why it matters

These processors could make future PCs lighter, faster and more power efficient.

What’s next

You’ll start to see these more powerful laptops and PCs as soon as late 2023.

Apple has shown that the kind of chips that serve as the brains of its iPhones are also powerful enough to handle the company’s Mac lineup, and it’s stepped things up with the Worldwide Developers Conference debut of its second-generation M2 chip, which powers the newly redesigned MacBook Air. Excitement over mobile chips powering computers is music to the ears of Qualcomm, which is looking to make waves of its own with a next-generation mobile-based chipset it’s been developing for performance laptops.

“We’re aiming to have performance leadership in PC on the CPU, period,” Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon said in an interview last week. 

The only catch: The soonest you’ll see one of these ultra-fast processors will be the end of 2023. 

Qualcomm, best known for making chips for high-end smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy S22 family, has actually been supplying mobile-based processors — under its Snapdragon line — far longer than Apple. Microsoft’s Surface Pro X, for instance, predated the first M1 computers by nearly a year. 

But the company has high hopes for chips designed as part of its acquisition of Nuvia, which specialized in high-performance chips running on the so-called Arm architecture, the type that powers everything from smartphones to iPads. Amon said that the Nuvia chips stand out from its existing crop of Snapdragon processors and will focus on high-performance computations powering CPUs, GPUs and neural processing for artificial intelligence. 

It’s part of a broader shift away from legacy Intel-based chips that allows PC makers — like Apple — to integrate more smartphone-like features into laptops and desktop computers. 

Amon, who took over as the CEO of Qualcomm a year ago this month, met with me to discuss his thoughts on Nuvia, the future of augmented reality and the metaverse, the economy and dealing with supply chain constraints. 

The elusive PC market

While Qualcomm has supplied its Snapdragon processors to PCs for years, they rarely made a dent in the market. Early versions often felt underpowered and didn’t run key applications that only worked on the x86 architecture powered by Intel’s processors.  

But Apple showed that mobile processors not only work as the brains for computers, but they can become a key selling point. Amon said he’s thankful to Apple for driving the development of programs that work on Arm and noted that Microsoft’s also on this journey. 

“The timing is now because you needed a perfect alignment of stars,” he said. 

The trend of more people working remotely has also changed the requirements of laptops, Amon said. All of a sudden, connectivity anywhere, more powerful cameras and videoconferencing, and quick, always-on capabilities have become priorities. He said that plays well with Snapdragon’s key traits. 

He’s banking on Nuvia to give him an edge. The startup, which Qualcomm acquired last year, was founded by chip veterans with experience at Google, Arm and, yes, Apple. 

Supply chain and the economy

As the supply chain tightened, Amon said, he invested in capacity with its foundry partners and worked to diversify its sources. The steps it took are starting to pay off, and he said that he expects to see a better balance between demand and supply by the end of this year or early 2023.

“I know that’s not true for some of our peers and other industries, with some talking about 2024,” he said. 

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Amon said that the direction of the economy is hard to predict but acknowledged a lot of negative sentiment. Despite a potential downturn, the company is starting to see interest in serving different industries beyond its core smartphone business, from health care to the automotive industry. 

Potentially impacting Qualcomm is the loss of one of its biggest customers, Apple. The iPhone maker is reportedly working on its own modem to pair with its custom A-series processors. Qualcomm laid out guidance last year that by 2023, its share of modems powering Apple devices would drop to 20%, and single digits after that. 

But Amon said Qualcomm is still seeing growth at the company, and whether Apple is ready to use its own modem isn’t up to him. “They know our number, they know where to find us,” he said. 

On AR and the metaverse

Google, at the tail end of its I/O developer conference in May, teased a pair of augmented reality glasses that offered real-time language translation. The tease came in the form of a slickly produced video, so it’s unclear just when they’ll actually be ready for prime time. 

But the kind of thin, sleek AR glasses that you’d see on sci-fi shows may be further out.

“We’re about five years away for realistic AR glasses,” Amon said. “It’s not a technology challenge that we don’t have line of sight to.”

He said that AR glasses, which will likely come sooner, if not bulkier at first, are happening and will be significant. 

With virtual reality, you’re starting to see critical mass, with the adoption of the Meta Quest headset. AR, which overlays digital imagery on the real world, is at the beginning of this curve. But Amon said AR will be bigger than VR. 

Those VR and AR glasses will be key to the metaverse, the hot tech buzzword of the day. The metaverse is a way to connect with others, and Amon said the “applications are endless.” 

“Most likely you’ll see it getting scale in enterprise before everyone lives their lives in the metaverse,” he said. 

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AT&T again saw wireless customers return to the service amid aggressive promotions — particularly for the iPhone 13 — as overall profits surged in the third quarter. 

The company posted a net gain of 928,000 postpaid phone customers, or people with higher credit scores who pay their bills at the end of the month, which it said was the highest level in more than 10 years. AT&T was among the carriers that offered a free iPhone 13, 13 Pro or 13 Mini with an eligible trade-in.

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On the media side, AT&T said its global subscriber base of HBO and HBO Max subscribers was 69.4 million, up 12.5 million over a year ago, and 1.9 million over the previous quarter. Domestically, its base grew to 45.2 million from 38 million a year ago. 

The upward trajectory puts AT&T in a good position to finish the year strong, thanks in part to the continued promotions and the company’s decision to release its top-tier films like Dune and The Matrix Resurrections on HBO Max at the same time as in theaters, a move that has angered both Hollywood talent and the theater industry. 

The impact of the iPhone 13 launch was minimal in the third quarter — Apple launched the device on Sept. 24, at the tail end of the period. The promotions should drive further growth in the fourth quarter, although rivals Verizon and T-Mobile put out their own offers as well. 

Verizon posted its own third-quarter results on Wednesday, noting it added 275,000 net new postpaid phone users. 

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Overall, AT&T posted a net profit of $5.92 billion, or 82 cents a share, compared with a year-earlier gain of $2.82 billion, or 39 cents a share. Excluding one-time gains and losses, AT&T’s adjusted earnings rose to 87 cents a share from 76 cents a share a year ago. 

Revenue excluding its divested US video business, meanwhile, rose 4.7% to $38.1 million, although total revenue fell 5.7% to $39.9 billion. 

Analysts, on average, forecast earnings of 78 cents on revenue of $39.14 billion. 

“We continue to execute well in growing customer relationships, and we’re on track to meet our guidance for the year,” AT&T CEO John Stankey said in a press release.

AT&T says it expects full-year adjusted earnings to be at the high end of its guidance of low- to mid-single digit growth. It also expects its HBO and HBO Max global subscriber base to reach the higher end of its guidance of 70 million to 73 million. 

AT&T shares rose 1.5% to $26.29 in premarket trading. 

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Apple found the best way to get even the least savvy consumer on board with its new homegrown M1 Pro and M1 Max processor: throw a slew of long-requested features into the redesigned MacBook Pro 16 and MacBook Pro 14 that many fans had given up on as the company stressed more streamlined Macs year after year.

A larger display? Check. A 1080p webcam? Check. The addition of an HDMI port? Check. An SD card slot? Check. Heck, Apple even brought back the beloved MagSafe power connector and removed the heavily criticized Touch Bar. 

In essence, Apple came out with two MacBook Pros that longtime fans and even casual consumers can’t ignore. 

Perhaps not coincidentally, it took the introduction of the second generation of Apple’s M1 processor line to usher in this series of highly coveted changes. By linking these features to its own silicon, Apple is essentially buying the goodwill of its fanbase and customers. That will go a long way to turning its efforts to build a custom chip from an industry anomaly to an injection of excitement, something laptops have rarely stirred in recent years.

“The advent of Apple Silicon has been a shot in the arm for the MacBook lineup,” said Ben Wood, an analyst at CCS Insight. “Today’s announcement underlines Apple’s determination to accelerate the growth of its laptop business.”

The move also marks a reversal of a trend toward minimalism. Over the last few years, Apple has stripped away ports and focused on USB-C. The stripped-down Macs irked many users, who missed the variety of connections earlier models supported. Even if Apple isn’t admitting to any missteps, these new MacBook Pros feel like a bit of a make-good on its previous approach.  

Wish list fulfilled

Apple made the point that its M1 Pro and Max processors are capable of handling more input, even if the company could’ve added many of those features in previous generations of the MacBook Pro. 

Still, it didn’t just add old ports back. Apple introduced a new version of its MagSafe with a sleeker power connector that offers faster charging. MagSafe last appeared in the 2017 MacBook Air.

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The SD Card slot will be a godsend to photographers looking to quickly offload hundreds of photos from their cameras. The HDMI port, meanwhile, gives you another option to connect a monitor, on top of multiple USB-C Thunderbolt ports.  

Apple also threw a bone to everyone who’s been stuck on Zoom conference calls by adding an improved 1080p webcam, a welcome upgrade over the 720p camera that’s been standard for years. 

The display also got a big upgrade, following the path of its iPhone and iPads with smaller bezel and even an iPhone-like notch at the top for the webcam (which may or may not become its own controversy). The Liquid Retina XDR display boasts higher resolution and “ProMotion” technology for faster refresh rates inline with the iPhone 13 Pro. 

Perhaps the biggest addition is the removal of a feature — the Touch Bar — that provoked critics who questioned its utility even as Apple stuck to the feature since it debuted in the 2016 MacBook Pro lineup. 

A new leaf

The introduction of the M1 Pro and M1 Max processors, coupled with the dramatic redesign, offered Apple a chance to start fresh with a different approach to the MacBook Pro. It needed a change. Apple’s penchant for removing buttons and ports in the name of sleek design seemed to finally hit against reality when people began complaining about how many converter cords and dongles they need to carry in order for all their peripherals to work.

Beyond the TouchBar and the removal of ports, Apple dealt with the derided “butterfly” keyboards, which weren’t as reliable as the company’s earlier designs.

It was a far cry from when Apple revolutionized the laptop business with the MacBook Air in 2010. Its slim and tapered aluminum shell design, combined with good-enough horsepower for everyday tasks, was so well received that Intel began a marketing program called “Ultrabooks” to get other companies to compete. 

Apple built on that success with the MacBook Pro, introducing slim-design versions of all its laptops, primarily by removing optical DVD drives while expanding battery capacity.

Apple’s laptops were so well regarded that they began receiving awards as the best laptops in the industry. Many of the reviews at the time cited battery life, graphics and screen quality.

“The 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro is still a story of compromise, but it’s also Apple’s closest thing to a sweet-spot power laptop,” CNET reviewer Scott Stein wrote in his assessment back in 2013.

Whether these new MacBook Pros follow in the footsteps of that original MacBook Air remains to be seen. They aren’t cheap, with the 14-inch version starting at $1,999 and the 16-inch version starting at $2,499. Then again, neither was the original MacBook Air.

But by addressing what people actually want, Apple is moving in the right direction. 

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Mention Steve Jobs and most people will picture him in his trademark blue jeans and black mock turtleneck, on stage at one of Apple’s events, an iPhone in hand. But for me, the name recalls the memory of the original black and silver iPhone leaving Jobs’ hand, sailing through the air and hitting the floor with a clack in a room full of journalists.

This was months before the iPhone actually went on sale, a little after Jobs unveiled the groundbreaking smartphone in January 2007. Jobs had paid a visit to The Wall Street Journal’s headquarters, then in Manhattan’s World Financial Center area, to offer more than two dozen editors and reporters a peek at the device. It was there that he fielded questions about the gadget, with someone asking about its durability. 

Jobs’ response: tossing the prerelease model he held into the air toward the center of the room, eliciting a small gasp and then hushed silence as it hit the (carpeted) floor. 

The memory underscores the lengths Jobs went to in order to make an impression. On the 10-year anniversary of Jobs’ death, those in the tech industry have begun to pay their respects by sharing stories and memories of the tech luminary, a visionary who shook up multiple industries and changed the way we interact with our mobile devices. This was mine. 

As a telecom reporter based in New York, I rarely got the chance to attend Apple events, including the MacWorld at which Jobs unveiled the iPhone. But my beat meant I was invited to attend this private session with other editors and reporters at the Journal. 

Jobs spent a good portion of the session answering general questions about Apple. I won’t share what was discussed at the meeting — it was off the record and Jobs insisted everyone not only turn off and put away their recorders, but also stow away their notebooks and pens. Everyone complied, eager to see the device. 

It wasn’t until after he took out the iPhone that he was asked about its durability, prompting the throw. While the phone in his hand was more polished than the original, buggy prototype he showed off at MacWorld, knowing now just how prone to issues those early units were makes his nonchalant toss even more impressive. Imagine how disastrous it would’ve been if that iPhone had broken or shut down in front of so many journalists.

The phone, of course, survived unscathed — that carpeted floor likely the saving grace. His staff distributed a handful of other test units for us to play with. Picture two dozen dressed-up and professional journalists breaking out into small groups and circling the phones like schoolchildren around new toys, then moving in to swipe, pinch and otherwise test out that then-revolutionary capacitive touchscreen. 

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The iPhone made an impression on them, just like it did on the public a few months later when it hit the market in June. The device, of course, went on to revolutionize the mobile industry, dragging smartphones into the modern era and injecting a chic element that made them desirable. It remains one of the most groundbreaking pieces of technology in history. 

The iPhone created the annual phenomenon of fans waiting in lines on launch day at Apple and carrier stores for the latest version. Despite the pandemic, there were even lines in front of select Apple stores this year for the iPhone 13. For many, the image of Jobs holding one iteration of the iPhone after another on stage in front of thousands is an indelible memory. 

But forever seared in my mind is the image of Jobs in that midsize meeting room, standing in front of a group of journalists seated around a U-shaped table, taking a calculated risk to wow us — the epitome of how he ran Apple.

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Apple executives didn’t spare any superlatives this week when introducing the new iPhone 13 and the iPhone 13 Pro and Pro Max. The iPhone 13 Pro, they said, is “the most Pro” phone yet. The iPhone camera got an upgrade, and Apple tapped Academy Award-winning director Kathryn Bigelow to show off its many capabilities, predicting that the new Cinematic Mode would open opportunities for aspiring directors. The phones, they noted as well, will be the longest lasting yet, with new, bigger batteries across the line. 

Somewhere in the middle of the 80-minute presentation were about 90 seconds spent on 5G.

That’s a far cry from when Apple held up its shiny new iPhone 12 nearly a year ago. Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg joined Apple CEO Tim Cook during the 2020 keynote to talk about 5G, which served as the marquee feature and reason to upgrade. “5G just got real,” Vestberg proclaimed. Even as recently as July, during Apple’s fiscal third-quarter earnings conference call, Cook said 5G was “in the very early innings” and suggested a high ceiling. Yet on Tuesday, it was barely a blip. 

The relegation of 5G from center stage to side act underscores the bumpy introduction of the next-generation wireless technology. Once heralded as a game-changer with blazing speeds, 5G has in reality been a wildly inconsistent set of experiences depending on devices and location. Unfortunately, the places with the highest speeds are the ones you’re probably avoiding in the pandemic. The result: consumers shrugging at what the carriers had hoped would inject some enthusiasm and excitement into wireless service. 

“From an Apple consumer-centric approach, there is no killer app — besides a speed test — that really takes advantage of the faster speeds and lower latency,” said Roger Entner, an analyst at Recon Analytics. “Why advertise something that the consumer will not experience as a tangible benefit?”

The experience you got with 5G was already inconsistent prior to last year’s iPhone 12. Verizon touted an ultra-fast flavor powered by millimeter wave spectrum, the kind of connection that would let you download seasons of a TV show in seconds, but the service was available only in stadiums or crowded city centers — not the best places to be over the last year and a half. On the other end, T-Mobile touted full nationwide coverage with a version of 5G that was only marginally faster than 4G. 

But Apple was supposed to bring some simplicity and spark interest in 5G, just like it had with everything from mobile payments to wireless charging. Other companies jump into new technologies early, but Apple comes in with a polished version that gets the masses pumped. Having Apple adding all flavors of 5G across all of its devices in the US was also an impressive feat. 

“5G is the most exciting step yet,” Cook touted in his speech last year. 

Sales of the iPhone 12 were brisk right out of the gate. A new design for the iPhone, including upgraded cameras, as well as the typical Apple fan devotion, spurred record sales of its latest flagship device. It was such a success that it drove Apple’s sales and profits to new records despite launching in a pandemic, says my colleague and CNET editor Ian Sherr. 

But 5G was more along for the ride than a driver of interest. With the iPhone 13, it might as well be in the trunk. 

More 5G in more places

This year, Cook didn’t mention 5G. Kaiann Drance, vice president of iPhone marketing for Apple, devoted a perfunctory 90-second segment on the wider embrace of the technology with the new iPhone. She mentioned that the iPhone 13 would be able to connect to 5G networks from over 200 carriers in more than 60 countries and regions this year. 

“5G will be far more relevant to consumers in Europe and the US this year than last, as carriers build out their midband 5G networks,” said Avi Greengart, an analyst at Techsponential, who referred to the flavor of spectrum that offers a good mix of speed and range. 

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Even in the US, network rollouts are still happening. 

“5G still isn’t really ubiquitous despite carrier claims,” said Maribel Lopez, an analyst at Lopez Research. 

But beyond that short segment, Apple only offered a token mention of 5G when touting its the new iPad Mini and ninth-generation iPad. 

Apple was more keen to talk about the 5G capabilities in its iPhone a year ago. Drance talked to me and my colleague Patrick Holland about the technology they incorporated into the radios that kept 5G from being a total power hog on the iPhone 12 (Android makers had similar settings as well).

Instead, Apple this year focused on core features like the iPhone 13’s improved camera, as well as the extra battery life. 

Still, that won’t stop carriers from pushing the new iPhone, which represents one of the biggest opportunities to nab new customers or poach subscribers from rivals with some great deals. AT&T and Verizon, for instance, have already laid out aggressive trade-in offers for the new iPhones, while T-Mobile has a “Forever” upgrade plan that gives you $800 for a new iPhone every two years.  

It’s not like 5G is a bust. The thing about the technology, as muddled as its introduction has been, is that there remains a lot of potential. It’s still seen as a foundation for other breakthroughs like self-driving cars and telemedicine. 

Verizon and AT&T are racing to roll out a new flavor of midband spectrum that’s supposed to provide a big speed boost to 5G, something T-Mobile has already been doing this year. 

Maybe at that point, Apple will deem 5G interesting enough to bring up again during a future iPhone launch. 

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For the most up-to-date news and information about the coronavirus pandemic, visit the WHO and CDC websites.

Samsung pulled out all the stops with its new foldable phones, the Galaxy Z Fold 3 and Galaxy Z Flip 3. The South Korean electronics giant waxed poetic about the engineering that ensures the phones are water resistant, and lauded apps that take advantage of their unique displays. The company crowed about a camera built beneath the display, a first in the US market.

But let’s be honest, these aren’t the reasons why you’d buy a foldable. The true killer app isn’t multitasking capability or grander video formats. It isn’t even the pure aesthetic wonder of watching one of these phones fold and unfold. 

It’s the flex. And not the mechanical kind. 

Foldables represent the most exciting advance in the phone industry since the iPhone. And just like the iPhone, which initially had people buzzing and clamoring to see one, there’s an element of exclusivity to foldable devices like the Galaxy Z Fold 3. Their historical astronomical prices have served as a figurative red velvet rope keeping most people from getting their hands on one. That, of course, makes the phones all the more appealing to someone who can actually afford them. 

But as my colleague CNET Senior Reporter Shara Tibken has said, these phones, unveiled just this past week, could still struggle to find buyers even as Samsung does all the right things by focusing on elements like durability and lower (but still high relative to regular phones) prices. That’s partly because opportunities to show off the latest and greatest devices have largely been negated by the pandemic amid our fear of interacting too closely with others. The new delta variant of COVID-19, which is surging through the US, will likely stoke those worries. 

If there’s no one around to check out your cutting-edge phone, that exclusivity and novelty lose their appeal. Sure, there are features and applications on your Z Fold 3 or Z Flip 3 that you may grow to love down the line. But it isn’t the same if you can’t show it off. Foldables are clearly meant to be conversation pieces, and right now face-to-face conversations with random people or even friends can be a touchy subject. 

Sound superficial? Perhaps. But you aren’t buying a Lamborghini to race in rush hour traffic. 

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This isn’t a knock on Samsung or the new Z line of foldables. The company is trying to establish a new category of devices, and that’s always difficult. The task is complicated by a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic, which just won’t go away. This might not be an environment in which consumers — even affluent ones who would normally consider a foldable — are willing to take a gamble on a wholly different product. Particularly if they can’t show it off.

Samsung, for its part, said the large display was the main reason consumers bought the previous iteration of the Galaxy Z Fold. It says enthusiasm for foldables is on the rise. 

“The market is signaling increased interest and demand for our new foldables line-up,” the company said in a statement. “Foldable buyers tell us they are experiencing impactful benefits of having this innovative device in their daily lives.”

Given how early we are in the adoption of foldables, however, there isn’t a huge number of applications that take advantage of the larger Fold display or of the Flip, which folds down into a small clamshell design. 

Samsung called out a few partners working to craft apps that better take advantage of the devices’ unique design, like Microsoft Teams. CNET Editor Patrick Holland lauds its improved multitasking abilities in his initial take. But nothing leaps out as a killer app. 

Until someone creates a breakthrough app, the biggest appeal of a foldable is its wow factor. And it’s less wow when you can’t really share it with anyone. 

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Carriers around the world have launched their 5G networks. Nationwide coverage is available in the US from the big three providers. Compatible smartphones are getting cheaper. The next-generation wireless technology is rapidly maturing. 

So let’s talk about the next-next-generation wireless technology. Yes, 6G. 

Each wireless generation lasts about a decade, so 6G is a long, long way from becoming reality. Maybe in 2029 we’ll get a hint of a deployment. Still, it’s worth considering the technology that will be around the next corner and looking at what wireless researchers are thinking about in terms of its potential. Samsung, Qualcomm and researchers at the University of Texas at Austin yesterday launched 6G@UT, a research center to lay the groundwork for the new technology. 

5G won’t stand still as 6G is developed. As wireless executives convened (virtually) at the Mobile World Congress conference at the beginning of July, a separate group of researchers from hundreds of companies representing the 3GPP standard-setting body met to talk about 5G Advanced, a marketing buzzword coming to a commercial near you. 

Attending that discussion was Tingfang Ji, senior director of engineering at Qualcomm and one of the lead 5G researchers at the company. Ji, who holds more than 800 patents at Qualcomm, offered some insight into what both 5G Advanced and 6G technology might look like. 

6G will sense your environment

It’s worth looking back before looking to the future. The move to 4G saw a big boost in speed. Now 5G offers greater connectivity for multiple devices, as well as breakneck speeds, particularly in city centers like Times Square and arenas such as football stadiums. While 6G will undoubtedly bring even higher speeds, a key benefit will be using those radios to sense your surroundings as well as to ferry information.

There’s already work on this in 5G, with the phone’s radio acting like a GPS device to figure out your location. With 6G, your phone will be able to figure out the devices around you, serving as a bridge between the physical and digital worlds. Those nifty augmented reality demos — the ones that feature digital menus popping up on your eyeglasses screen when you look at a restaurant — could materialize with 6G.

Apple already uses Bluetooth embedded in its network of devices to let people track objects with its AirTags. But Ji says the 6G experience will be more like radar, allowing for more interaction between devices. 

“You can actually sense the environment, so it should be more powerful,” Ji said. 

With 6G, the industry is looking to expand into new bands of spectrum. Wireless carriers embraced gigahertz frequencies, which offer you a huge amount of speeds — comparable to a speedy fiber landline connection — but limited range. Ji said they were looking at terahertz spectrum, which operates at a frequency that’s 1,000 times faster than gigahertz (which itself is 1,000 times faster than a megahertz). 

It’s important to note that frequency doesn’t exactly correspond to speed, but it gives you a sense of how much more capacity you could get with 6G. 

The next-next-generation technology could also solve the dilemma that gigahertz spectrum faces now. It could potentially offer both higher capacity and wider range in a best-of-both-worlds scenario. 

“There will be some fundamental technology we will want to introduce to overcome that,” he said. “It’s something we’re working on that’s super exciting.”

What is 5G Advanced?

Work on 6G is just getting started. Right now, it’s little more than a collection of ideas and goals. More concrete is the prospect of 5G Advanced, an upgraded version of 5G that could come in the next two and a half years. 

While no one knows for sure what it will consist of, there’s industry movement to clarify the picture. At their meeting, researchers under the 3GPP group debated what improvements the industry should focus on. 

“5G Advanced gives us a second chance to look at the fundamental tradeoffs inside 5G,” Ji said. 

There are 50 areas that researchers are looking at, but they will likely get narrowed to about 20, he added. 

Qualcomm has proposed integrating machine learning into 5G and for the networks to better handle internet of things devices. It’s also proposing to use full duplex radios, in which both sides can communicate with each other simultaneously. (Typically, it’s one-way traffic.) 

“There’s a wide area where we can make a substantial boost to the technology,” Ji said. 

The 3GPP organization counts 700 companies, including Apple, Google and Huawei, so what Qualcomm is proposing may not be what the industry focuses on. 

Again, this is technology that isn’t going to show up in your phone for a while, so no need to hold off on that upgrade for 5G Advanced. And 6G, despite a sense of where it may go, is barely on the map. 

See also: Best 5G phones for 2021

The post Here’s a hint of what 6G might look like first appeared on Joggingvideo.com.

One of the key traits of 5G is its ability to cut down on the latency, or lag time, on apps like Fortnite or streaming services like Netflix. The idea is, you tap your phone and it instantly responds. But there’s another technology that works in concert with 5G called mobile edge computing. 

It’s a wonky-sounding term, but essentially it means that companies like Amazon can work with carriers — they’re all doing mobile edge computing — to bring processing power closer to your phone.

Right now, when you tap on the Netflix app or press fire on your gun in Fortnite, your phone sends a signal to the closest cell tower, which then takes a ride on a fiber-optic line back to a data center — often several states away — where the command is processed and a response is sent all the way back to your phone. 

In your hands, there probably doesn’t seem to be much of a lag — maybe seconds or a fraction of a second. But for future applications like self-driving cars or remote medical diagnostics, those fractions of a second count. Moving that computing process closer to you, so that round trip from your phone is much, much shorter, can have a huge impact on your life. 

That’s why I invited Verizon Business CEO Tami Erwin to discuss what mobile edge computing is and why it will play such a big role in our lives, even if you never really notice it. Erwin joins me on the Daily Charge podcast in a two-part interview running Tuesday and Wednesday. Listen in for the full interview. 

In the second part of the interview, Erwin discusses what Verizon plans to do with the massive swath of spectrum it acquired in the FCC spectrum auction that ended last month. Those plans include offering more home internet service through the new bands of spectrum, which cover more parts of the country. 

The company previously said that customers will have access to the new C-band spectrum, which should provide a huge boost of speed, within 12 months. She noted that iPhone 12 users will be able to tap into that new spectrum without a change, and that 70% of 5G phones on its network are already compatible. 

Erwin also took a shot at T-Mobile’s coverage, calling it “Swiss cheese” because it isn’t contiguous spectrum and only offers the ability to bolster coverage market by market. 

T-Mobile, which didn’t respond to a request for comment, touts its current advantage because it already employs spectrum similar to the C-band radio airwaves and has arguably the most extensive 5G network among the big three carriers in the US. 

Check out part 2 here:

The post Verizon Business CEO talks 5G, rural broadband service and mobile edge computing first appeared on Joggingvideo.com.

When Apple or Samsung unveils a new smartphone, consumers can preorder the device within days and expect to get it in their hands within weeks. When Motorola introduced the first-ever cellphone, the DynaTAC, in 1973, it took another decade before consumers could actually use one. 

Talk about delayed gratification. 

Ironically, it took the team at Motorola just three months to conceive and build the first DynaTAC, a minor miracle considering it takes 12 to 18 months today to do the same thing with a flagship smartphone. The company only made two prototypes, the culmination of thousands of parts welded together in a boot-shaped phone with a massive antenna. 

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“It’s far more complicated than a modern phone, believe it or not,” Martin Cooper, who led the team at Motorola and is credited as the father of the cellphone, said in an interview for the Daily Charge podcast last week.

Cooper shared stories about the whirlwind race to develop that first phone, which was less a commercial product and more an attempt to head off attempts by then-monopoly AT&T to get a stranglehold on the wireless business. The reaction he got from his colleagues: “That’s impossible.” They went to work anyway, culminating in Cooper’s memorable first-ever cellphone call to rival AT&T engineer Joel Engel while standing on a sidewalk in Manhattan next to a journalist. 

“I didn’t hold back at all in rubbing it in,” Cooper quipped, noting that to this day, Engel says he doesn’t remember the call. 

Cooper reflects back on the impact that cellphones have had on the world, and what the wireless business still needs to do when it comes to issues like closing the broadband gap and the real promise of 5G. He shared his ’70s-inspired business insights, like taking a customer-centric approach to products and services and embracing a willingness to fail, that still holds true today.

Given the dominance of AT&T at that time, Cooper also speculates on what would have happened had Motorola failed and Ma Bell taken control of the wireless business. (Hint: AT&T was really big into car phones at the time.)

Those stories are part of his new book, Cutting the Cord, which came out earlier this year.

The following are more of this thoughts from the interview.

On the digital divide

While cellphones, and now modern smartphones, have brought new ways to access information to more people than ever, there are still many left behind. Cooper estimates that 40% of the students in this country don’t have access to broadband wireless. 

“Just imagine what that means over the long term,” he said. “That’s unacceptable.”

Cooper said the technology exists to deliver wireless broadband to students for as little as $5 to $10 a month, and that the government needs to be more proactive in convincing carriers to offer such services. 

“It’s as essential as water and food,” he said. “We need to have 100% accessibility to broadband services not just for students, but everyone.”

You can hear all of Cooper’s thoughts here in a four-part discussion that’s running over several days. Check back here for all of the episodes.

On the issue of spectrum capacity

A key mantra expressed by the wireless industry is the continuous need for more spectrum, or the radio airwaves that ferry everything from cat videos to text messages from your phone to a cell tower. 

But Cooper said that technology has always kept the industry ahead of spectrum demand, with the wireless industry finding ways to fit more data into those airwaves. 

“There’s plentiful spectrum,” he said, noting that his unofficial “Cooper’s Law” states that spectrum capacity doubles every two and a half years. 

Cooper railed against Federal Communications Commission’s spectrum auctions like the one that wrapped up in late February. Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile spent $81 billion on radio airwaves for 5G services. 

“Someone that has paid billions of dollars for radio airwaves would not appreciate the idea of plentiful spectrum,” he said, adding that spectrum should be only allocated to companies that can deliver services that take care of human needs. 

Likewise, he says the focus and hype around 5G and what it can do is all wrong. Rather than focusing on connecting more devices like self-driving cars and giving people insane mobile speeds, the industry should focus more on expanding access to more people and bringing down costs. 

“We haven’t finished the internet of people yet, and the industry is already emphasizing the internet of things,” he said. 

On the pandemic

The coronavirus lockdown sped up the pace of innovation and our embrace of connected services like telemedicine and video conferencing. While COVID-19 vaccines are now available and society sees some light at the end of the tunnel, Cooper doesn’t think that the world will revert back in certain key ways. 

“People will travel less and collaborate more,” Cooper said. “These remote services will become more and more common.”

Cooper also warned of the dominant powers of Big Tech and said people need to better understand that free services come with strings attached. “We need to educate people that their personal data has value, and they shouldn’t give it away for nothing,” he said. 

Motorola’s last hurrah was with the Razr, an ultra-slim flip phone that saw the company take a dominant position in feature phones. Then the smartphone arrived, and Motorola couldn’t keep up. The American pioneer is now a unit of Chinese laptop maker Lenovo. 

“They got complacent,” Cooper said. 

Cooper noted that he isn’t bothered by the idea that many of the innovations in the wireless world are coming from other countries, with China being particularly aggressive, but said that he has faith that the freedom of expression and level of creativity in Western markets like the US will continue to provide an advantage, and that technological progress is ultimately going to benefit society. 

“I have an abiding belief in people,” he said. “The world’s better today than it has been in every measurable aspect.”

See also: The best phone to buy for 2021 

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