CES2019

Eight essential characteristics of 5G networks defined by Verizon CEO

9 January 2019 by Steve Blum
, , ,

Vestberg keynote ces 8jan2019

Hans Vestberg, Verizon’s CEO, did a rockstar, black t-shirt keynote at CES in Las Vegas yesterday. Vestberg took over the top spot at Verizon last year. As he often did in his former job as head of Ericsson, Vestberg offered a clear and credible explanation of what 5G networks and technology – particularly, Verizon’s – will deliver.

According to Vestberg, the eight “currencies”, or defining characteristics, of 5G are…

  • Peak data rate of 10 gigabits per second.
… More

Huawei to Intel: so long, and thanks for all the fish

8 January 2019 by Steve Blum
, , , ,

Huawei press photo 7jan2019

The two big Chinese players – Huawei and ZTE – have a low profile in Las Vegas. The troubles that the two companies have had this past year took a toll. ZTE was shutdown for a time by the U.S. government and a very senior Huawei executive was jailed in Canada, pending extradition to the U.S. Both companies have been accused of being too cosy with the Chinese government. Neither company held their usual media extravaganzas at CES this year.… More

5G is about video and gaming, says Qualcomm exec at LG press event

7 January 2019 by Steve Blum
, , , ,

Lg rollable tv 7jan2019

The big benefits of 5G technology and networks will be old benefits, just more of them. 5G will be sold to consumers as a way to watch high bandwidth video and play fast twitch games. Judging from LG’s opening press conference at CES in Las Vegas this morning, 5G service is all about 8K video streaming, instant 4K video downloads and low latency multiplayer gaming.

This limited focus might be industry-wide. The 5G announcements were made by a Qualcomm executive, Jim Tran, vice president of product management.… More

Five consumer technology challenges will decide who owns the future

6 January 2019 by Steve Blum
, , , ,

Vegas cocktail

The innovation capital of Earth is Las Vegas for the coming week, as hundreds of thousands of technology makers and breakers, and buyers and sellers converge on the event formerly known as the Consumer Electronics Show. Most of what’s on display is as boringly mainstream as clock radios and console televisions were at the first CES in 1967.

But there will be a handful of technologies and prototypes amidst the chaos that will offer clues to what our world will be in 2067, and that’s what I’ll be looking for…

  • New smartphone form factors – It’s an accident of history that networked, pocket-sized super computers are called phones.
… More

Merry Christmas! Because that’s what today is

25 December 2018 by Steve Blum
, , , ,

Christmas vacation

Thank you, Gentle Reader, for the best Christmas present a writer can wish for: an audience. If you’re reading this on Christmas morning, you are doubly valued and thrice blessed. And you might even be interested in a blog post about the blog. If you aren’t, please forgive me and be assured my usual rants insights typing will resume tomorrow. If I were reading this, I’d just click here and listen to Jimmy Buffet and Linda Ronstadt instead.… More

Wireless charging is less fussy, but still a work in progress

24 February 2018 by Steve Blum
, , , ,

One of my goals for CES was to see if wireless charging technology is ready for mainstream consumer adoption. The answer is yes if you’re making contact with a charging pad, but only maybe if you’re not.

Charging pads, of one kind or another, were easy to find at CES. Near field charging – putting a gizmo in direct contact with a wireless charging device – appears to be a maturing technology. Although the Qi standard is gaining – Samsung, LG and Apple support it in some of their models – compatibility is still an issue.… More

4K TV will be in half of U.S. homes by end of 2019

22 February 2018 by Steve Blum
, , ,

The consumer adoption rate of 4K television sets blew past last year’s expectations, climbing to 25% of U.S. households by January 2018, according to the Consumer Technology Association (CTA). My rough estimate that ultra-high definition 4K sets would be in 20% of U.S. homes by the end of 2017 was low. The adoption rate grew even faster, amidst falling prices, increased content availability and 4K’s status as the default standard for large screen TVs (50 inches and larger).… More

Self driving cars will need wireless broadband, but not for heavy duty computing

21 February 2018 by Steve Blum
, , , ,

There will be a flood of bits swirling through self driving cars, and virtually all of that data will be processed by onboard computers, even where 5G networks are deployed.

“Autonomous vehicles are software defined”, said Deepu Talla, vice president of autonomous machines at Nvidia, a high end chip maker, speaking at CES. That software will run on onboard computers, and won’t be processed served from the cloud via mobile broadband networks, he said. There are four reasons for that:

  1. Latency.
… More

Santa Cruz techies get to CES the hard, fun way

10 February 2018 by Steve Blum
, , , ,

Four thousand companies brought their products to CES last month, but only one was brought by its product. A five person team from Santa Cruz – Jane Campbell, Elai Dankner, Nicola Hopwood, Cade Vlacos and Christian Shaw – rode 300 miles from Palm Springs to Las Vegas on a Onewheel+ XR, the new, extended range version of Future Motion’s single wheel, electric powered board.

“It was the most epic journey I’ve ever done”, said Campbell. “You feel so free.… More

Governors agree scrapping net neutrality was wrong, but differ on role of states

16 January 2018 by Steve Blum
, , ,

The end of network neutrality and broadband’s status as a common carrier service doesn’t sit well with a pair of western governors. Speaking during the National Governors Association summit held alongside CES in Las Vegas last week, Nevada governor Brian Sandoval and Montana governor Steve Bullock both thought it was a bad decision by the Federal Communications Commission, but had different views on whether net neutrality is something that can be addressed at the state level.… More