The world’s top smartphone manufacturer, Samsung, has provided the first tantalizing glimpse of their very real, foldable phone at the Samsung Developer Conference 2018 in San Francisco. This advancement in display technology has been widely discussed throughout the year, and Samsung has finally revealed their highly-anticipated version of the technology called the Infinity Flex Display. “When it’s open, it’s a tablet offering a big screen experience. When closed, it’s a phone that fits neatly inside your pocket,” explained the senior vice president of Mobile Product Marketing at Samsung, Justin Denison, while demonstrating the device. The prototype boasts a 7.3-inch tablet display that can be folded over and over again without any signs of wear or degradation. The device is supported by the Android OS, allowing users to run up to 3 applications simultaneously, driving smartphone functionality to the next level. “The Infinity Flex Display represents an entirely…
The first 5G smartphones are expected to debut in 2019, however Apple is in no rush to jump on this technology train, according to a report by Fast Company. The tech giant is expected to launch their 5G iPhone in 2020, with an Intel 8161 5G modem chip installed to enable access to the cutting-edge network. This news does not come as a complete surprise, since Apple tends to wait for new technologies to become fully developed before adding these technologies to their devices, such as occurred with 3G or LTE enabled Apple gadgets. In the meantime, Intel has fallen out of favor with Apple, since the chip manufacturer seems to be unable to solve the overheating problem with their forerunner 8060 chip. While this issue is not serious enough for Apple to approach Qualcomm and initiate discussions about 5G modem chip development for the iPhone, there have been…
The Asian electronics manufacturer HTC has officially announced the pre-order of a product creating the latest buzz in the crypto world – their blockchain-enabled smartphone called Exodus 1. According to the Exodus website, the smartphone can only be purchased in cryptocurrency – for 0.15 Bitcoin or 4.78 Ethereum – which, at the moment, converts to around 960 US dollars. The expected shipping date is December 2018, making the Exodus phone the perfect end of year gift for blockchain enthusiasts. The new smartphone will have a 6 inch Quad HD+ display, 16 MP dual rear and 8 MP dual front cameras, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor, 6 GB of RAM and 128 GB of internal storage. Yet these usual specifications are not what makes this phone unique. The intriguing blockchain side of the phone will include a hardware cryptocurrency wallet called Zion, which was developed by HTC. To keep…
October 1st, 2018 will be remembered as the date when the first 5G broadband network went live, with the telecommunications giant Verizon launching its 5G network in parts of Houston, Indianapolis, Los Angeles and Sacramento. The company confirmed that it will be expanding its coverage shortly, pending the installation of new standards-compliant equipment. “The world’s first commercial 5G service is here. We’ve formed incredible partnerships with many of the world’s leading technology companies, the international technical standards bodies, public officials, developers and our own customers to drive the 5G ecosystem forward, faster than most had predicted. And now, actual customers. It’s been an incredible journey…and we’re just at the starting line,” the president of Verizon Wireless, Ronan Dunne, expressed enthusiastically. The very first user on this network, a resident of Houston, Clayton Harris, became one of the early adopters by setting up a “5G Home” service, an ultra-fast…
The Lithuanian mobile operator BITĖ has launched a new Smart call management service oriented towards its business customers, delivering full PBX services to mobile users. While cloud-based PBX services are now generic, BITĖ’s Smart call management service has fulfilled their specific and innovative requirement that the solution must be delivered over the standard mobile voice network, and should not require data services or the use of an app on the mobile device. The result is a seamless, simple-to-use, fully featured and high availability business voice service, accessible from any mobile device and being operating system agnostic. The solution architecture enables instant deployment of phone system extensions without any action required by the end users (business employees), eliminating the time and effort required by the business IT department and BITĖ’s customer service to configure, manage and support the service. “Phone calls constitute an essential and integral component of all…
A German mobile network testing company, Rohde & Schwarz, have announced in their recent press release the upcoming launch of the first commercially available 5G New Radio (NR) measurement solution. The product will be displayed at the Mobile World Congress Americas taking place from 12 to 14 September, 2018 in Los Angeles. This pioneering developer of test and measurement equipment for 5G will present their 5G NR network measurement solution, that allows 5G users and regulators to measure 5G NR network coverage accurately. In addition, users will have the ability to verify the correct operation of beamforming and interworking between 5G and other technologies. This new solution consists of a network scanner with 5G NR scanning software, and the unique R&S ROMES4 Drive Test Software suite. Users will have two options for the test scanners: the compact R&S TSME6 Drive Test Scanner, or the R&S TSMA6 Autonomous Mobile Network Scanner…
Google has officially announced that its next ‘Made by Google’ event will take place on October 3rd in New York City. While the company remains very secretive about the hardware that will be launched at the event, the key devices expected to be unveiled are the Google Pixel 3 and Google Pixel 3 XL smartphones. Thus far, the corporate giant has not yet made their major competitors Samsung and Apple tremble with envy nor fear with its previous versions of the Pixel phone, but the highly-leaked Pixel 3 devices might change that situation. If the rumors are true, the Pixel 3 XL device will have a controversially large notch, while both the Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL should sport dual front-facing cameras, an Android 9 Pie operating system and glass backs for wireless charging. Along with the new smartphones, the Google PixelBook 2, a new version of Pixel Buds,…
The Chinese equipment manufacturer Huawei recently expressed its intention to surpass Apple in the smartphone market in 2018, and it seems that these plans are becoming a reality. According to IDC, Huawei shipped 54.2 million mobile devices units in the second quarter and moved to the second position, only to be outpaced by the ultimate leader Samsung. Looking at the total market share from Q2, Samsung maintains a strong 20.9%, while Huawei controls 15.8%, closely followed by Apple’s 12.1%. “The continued growth of Huawei is impressive, to say the least, as is its ability to move into markets where, until recently, the brand was largely unknown,” commented the program vice president with IDC’s Worldwide Mobile Device Trackers, Ryan Reith. Huawei’s recent push into Europe, the Middle East and India has secured its position among the top smartphone manufacturers. And while the US carriers are still instructed by the government to…
5G will be available for trial in seven cities across the UK. Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester, and London were selected to run the tests on the upcoming network. Those new infrastructures will be running the new 5G at the end of 2018 between October and December. Earlier this year, Vodafone paid £378 million, to get 50Mhz of the 3.4GHz spectrum. Nick Jeffery, Vodafone’s chief executive stated, “We want to make 5G and new fibre broadband services available to consumers and business throughout the UK, delivering a Gigabit society for all. We will also be bringing ultra-fast 4G to several hundred sites in hard to reach rural areas this year, building on our position as the network that offers the best voice coverage in the UK.” Vodafone’s goal is to launch a full 5G service in the UK by 2020, when 5G devices will be available on the market.
The Swedish tech company expects 5G devices market to expand exponentially over the next 5 years. A report issued by Ericsson on Tuesday indicates that IoT (Internet of Things, that includes non-computer connected objects) will see its growth explode with 5G connections available, as they foresee that the connected devices’ market will be multiplied by five. As of today, this market represents 700 million units, and by 2023 their report see a size of 3.5 billion IoT devices. Last November, Ericsson’s expectations were of half this number. Patrik Carwall, head of industry marketing department at Ericsson thinks that among those 3.5 billion, 1 billion devices will use 5G. He added “We have been reporting on mobile industry development for a number of years. However, this report is probably one of the more exciting ones because we are at the start of a big change in the industry.” 5G will start…

