Download a movie in six seconds. Watch more immersive sports broadcasts. Enjoy sophisticated game play with only a few milliseconds of latency. Smart movie theater, smart home, smart car, smart personal devices … all will be connected by the new 5G networks, claim the experts. Qualcomm’s chief legal officer Donald Rosenberg told the World Economic Forum that, “we’re on the verge of a new age of interconnectedness, when the daily lives of people across the planet will be more closely intertwined than ever.” Continue reading 5G Networks Will Impact the Media & Entertainment Industry

CES 2019 in January will highlight discussions about what we can expect with 5G next year and beyond. Fifth-generation mobile communications brings faster speeds, lower latency and the ability to connect more devices, meaning it will not simply speed up mobile phones but power nascent digital technologies from VR and IoT to autonomous vehicles and smart cities. CES 2019 offers a Wednesday 5G summit, and the first 5G products will be sprinkled across the show floor. The ETCentric team will be in Las Vegas reporting on a number of companies in this space. Continue reading CES: Understanding the 5G Ecosystem in 2019 and Beyond

A future untapped market for media and entertainment is the time gained in our days thanks to the freedom provided by self-driving cars. As the world’s population increases, travel times also continue to grow. When we no longer have to focus on the road while in our vehicles, all that time becomes a perfect opportunity to provide content. Audi and Disney have partnered to create what the German automaker is calling a “new type of media” to fill that time. The fruits of this partnership are scheduled to be revealed at January’s CES in Las Vegas. Continue reading Audi, Disney to Demo Media for Autonomous Vehicles at CES

Canadian company D-Wave Systems launched the Leap Quantum Application Environment, a web portal that aims to offer public access to quantum computing for “any and all developers.” D-Wave R&D executive vice president/chief product officer Alan Baratz says Leap will provide such developers “immediate, free, real time access to a live quantum computer.” Quantum computing, which is expected to dramatically improve the ability to manipulate and analyze data, has thus far had a very limited user base. Continue reading D-Wave Offers Free Real-Time Quantum Computing For All

In a roving two-hour presentation, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang unveiled a raft of products, partnerships and performance achievements at CES 2018. Focusing mostly on the automotive industry, Huang showed off the GPU giant’s new autonomous driving software stack powered by Xavier, a system-on-chip (SoC) for artificial intelligence-empowered car platforms, and touted partnerships with more than 320 car and truck companies. Huang also showcased a large HDR display for giant-screen, PC gaming and streamed an AI-generated motion picture theme composed in the style of “Star Wars” by John Williams. Continue reading CES: Nvidia Stakes Claim to Automotive and Entertainment AI

While autonomous and connected vehicles have been getting much of the press attention this year, there has also been a push toward electric cars. General Motors recently announced that it is ending its gas and diesel efforts to focus on an all-electric, zero-emissions future. The American automotive icon plans to roll out two new fully electric vehicles in 2017 and at least 18 more electric models by 2023. GM is not alone in this pursuit. Aston Martin, Jaguar Land Rover and Volvo are among the auto manufacturers that have made similar announcements in recent months to eventually phase out gas- and diesel-powered vehicles. GM, which sold 10 million vehicles in 2016, is one of the world’s largest automakers.

Continue reading General Motors Promises an All-Electric Future for its Vehicles

Despite an overall slowdown in U.S. productivity, tech companies currently lead the charge in overall spending on research and development, a key factor in measuring productivity of an economy. According to data about companies in the S&P 500 collected by analytic software firm FactSet, Amazon spends more on R&D than any other company in the U.S., followed by Alphabet, Intel, Microsoft and Apple. Other tech companies on the Top 20 list include Oracle, Cisco, Facebook, IBM and Qualcomm. Continue reading Amazon Now Spends More on R&D Than Other Companies

Alphabet is launching Glass Enterprise Edition, a new version of Glass, its head-mounted computer. The first version, aimed at consumers, drew widespread concern about privacy, since it could record in public places. This second Glass, targeting corporate customers and training, has been tested at 50 corporations, including Boeing, General Electric and Volkswagen. Designed as a device that snaps on to eyeglasses, Glass allows workers to view instructional content, including video and images, and even broadcast what is viewed to others for real-time instruction. Continue reading Alphabet Resurrects Google Glass for the Enterprise Market

Celebrating its 50th anniversary, CES opens in Las Vegas this week with 3,800 companies showcasing their latest products across almost 2.5 million square feet of exhibit space. Broad but logical thematic lines distribute the exhibits across three venues: Tech East at the Las Vegas Convention Center (LVCC), Tech West at the Sands and Venetian Complex, and Tech South at the Aria. Fifty years after 117 exhibitors dazzled 17,000 visitors with transistor radios and small-screen televisions, CES presents itself as the place “where tomorrow is on display.”  Continue reading How to Navigate 2.5 Million Square Feet of CES Exhibit Space

Until now, people risked a lawsuit if they reverse-engineered their cars, PCs or even insulin pumps. Now, there’s an exemption to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that protects those who want to hack a device they own, without fearing that the manufacturer of that device will sue them. More specifically, the exemption covers security research on consumer devices, and digital repair of vehicles. The Library of Congress’ Copyright Office enacted the exemption in October 2015, but implementation was delayed for a year. Continue reading Copyright Act Exemption to Reverse Engineering Takes Effect

CES keynote presentations by Netflix CEO Reed Hastings and YouTube’s chief business officer Robert Kyncl highlight the increasing importance of entertainment to the vast consumer technology market. The scheduling of Netflix as the opening session, a time slot usually occupied by hardware companies, helps to underscore the Consumer Technology Association’s expanding universe of products and services. So, too, does the presence of two auto manufacturers, GM and VW, and tech giants Intel and IBM. Samsung is the lone hardware keynote. Continue reading CES: Keynotes by Netflix, Intel, IBM, YouTube, and Others

Nowhere at CES does more applied innovation come together than in the North Hall automotive exhibits. That is not something that could have been said just a few years ago when the hall was more about sound systems and aftermarket gizmos. The car is now a rolling precursor of the connected/IoT future, redefined mobility, and even the development of smart cities. GM and VW keynotes will showcase new electric cars and two companies, Faraday Future and Rinspeed, promise dazzling concepts, including one with a drone landing pad.

Continue reading CES: Mobility, Connection and Intelligence Drive Automotive

As social media has become a ubiquitous medium for interacting with our closest confidants and broader audiences, we have become accustomed to digitizing all sorts of personal info, from contact lists to our current mood. The 2015 CES looks poised to showcase the evolution of this digitization process, with eyes firmly fixed on our personal surroundings. In addition to the cultural effects of the anticipated “sensorization” revolution, other tech is striving to make it a reality at home, on the road and everywhere in between. Continue reading CES: Digitizing Your Environment via the ‘Internet of Things’

Tom Wheeler met this week with Andy Berke, mayor of Chattanooga, Tennessee, to discuss the power of networks in driving economic growth. In an FCC Blog post titled “Removing Barriers to Competitive Community Broadband,” Wheeler writes about Chattanooga’s history and Berke’s recognition that tomorrow’s economic growth will be reliant upon effective high-speed networks, which is why the city “invested in building out one of the nation’s most robust community broadband networks.” Continue reading FCC Chair Tom Wheeler on the Power of Community Broadband

General Motors released prices for its first vehicles equipped with built-in LTE 4G, essentially turning the cars into rolling Wi-Fi hot spots. The automaker will launch its 2015 models in the next month, and plans to release more than 30 new vehicles with LTE broadband connectivity, as well as numerous new communications, safety, and navigation services. The communications service will be provided by AT&T, and the cars will come with a free, three-month trial with three gigabytes of data. Continue reading GM Scheduled to Launch Cars Equipped with 4G LTE Service