Tuesday 28 February 2017

who wants it, who’ll pay?

The hot topic at Mobile World Congress this year is not a new phone - apart from the Nokia 3110, they all look the same.
Nor is it a new technology like virtual reality - compared with last year, there seem to be fewer VR headsets around.
No, the biggest thing in Barcelona is something invisible that doesn't yet exist, 5G.
The hype about the potential of the next generation of mobile networks has reached new heights, with every major company exhibiting here eager to explain how it will be at the cutting edge of the coming 5G revolution.


Governments too have decided it is now technologically correct (can I coin the term TC?) to rave about the importance to the economy of being 5G-ready.
On the UK stand, the Trade Minister, Greg Hands, told me funds would continue to pour into 5G research post-Brexit.
Over at the Intel stand, they had gone as far as to build a prototype 5G network to give us a feel of what this new connected paradise would be like.
There was an autonomous car, a connected home, and a smart lamppost all talking to the network at breakneck speed.
Visitors were invited to don a Microsoft HoloLens headset for an augmented reality display of seas of data flowing round the stand and up into the sky.


It was easy to forget there was still no agreement on exactly what constitutes 5G, and most countries still had to work out what spectrum would be needed and how they would allocate it.
More important, perhaps, there is no sense that consumers know anything about it or have any sense that they want it - in fact my sense is that most would prefer to see a bit more of the 4G vision realised before the next revolution comes along.
But Intel's Aicha Evans did a good job explaining why we should be excited about the promise of 5G.
She told me: "Think about what was life like without smartphones - start there," and then explained that just as that revolution had connected people, so this next one would allow everything else to get connected, enabling all sorts of advances in the way we live.

The second was a chief technologist at a major networking equipment company - one that could stand to benefit from the 5G rollout.
But he described the hype around the technology as "irrational exuberance" - the same term used by an economist warning in the late 1990s about the dot-com bubble.
He believed that current advances in 4G - what's known as Gigabit LTE, which enables much faster data rates over existing networks - offered a more practical and affordable solution.


Nevertheless, he said, there was such a head of steam behind 5G that it was likely to happen, just as the dot-com bubble had led to vast and unaffordable investments in fibre networks.
But the result was likely to be another radical reshaping of the telecoms industry,
So the 5G revolution is coming.
But who will benefit and who will end up going bust as a result of it is far from clear.

compiled by Thomas Okundi

Monday 27 February 2017

Thomas Okundi: Blackberry revives classic keyboard phone

Thomas Okundi: Blackberry revives classic keyboard phone: A new Android-powered Blackberry with a physical keyboard has been unveiled by Chinese phone-maker TCL Communication. The company no...

Blackberry revives classic keyboard phone


A new Android-powered Blackberry with a physical keyboard has been unveiled by Chinese phone-maker TCL Communication.
The company now licenses the brand for its devices, after Blackberry decided to outsource the development and manufacture of its smartphones.
The device was unveiled ahead of the start of the Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona.
TCL's Nicolas Zibell told the BBC's Chris Foxx that he hoped to revive the brand with "strong products".

'22,000 hackable webcams in Barcelona'


A leading security company says it has discovered 22,000 hackable internet-connected baby monitors and other types of webcam in Barcelona.
Avast carried out the check to coincide with the first day of the Mobile World Congress trade show in the city.
In addition, it said it had found more than 470,000 other types of vulnerable smart devices.
The firm warned that unsuspecting owners could be spied upon as a consequence.
"If webcams are set to livestream for example, hackers or anyone can connect making it easy for cybercriminals to spy on... oblivious school pupils, workers or citizens nearby," said the firm's chief executive Vince Steckler in a statement.
"[But] what is far more likely is the possibility of a cyber-crook hijacking an insecure webcam, coffee machine or smart TV to turn it into a bot which, as part of a wider botnet, could be used in co-ordinated attacks on servers to take down major websites."
Avast used the connected-objects search engine Shodan to identify the devices.
It said to qualify they needed to either:
  • Have outdated firmware with a known vulnerability
  • Be streaming content to the internet in an unencrypted form that can be eavesdropped on
It carried out the study to help promote its own security tools.
But another independent expert said he thought the public needed to be aware of the threat.
"This research underlines just how easy it is to locate potentially vulnerable 'smart' devices and how they might be compromised," said Ken Munro, from the cybersecurity testing specialists Pen Test Partners.
"That's not to say that all internet-connected devices can be easily compromised; for example some more recent kettles, coffee machines and fridges are much harder to hack than earlier models.
"But consumers should exercise caution with smart devices. Ask yourself first if you actually need that device, then think about what data it might collect about you and expose.
"For example, baby monitors with video and two-way audio would obviously be more concerning than a simple audio-only device."
Compiled by Thomas Okundi

Google brings Assistant to more Android phones


Google's voice-activated digital assistant will soon be available on smartphones running the latest versions of the Android operating system.
Until now, Google Assistant had only been available on the firm's own Pixel phones.
The service, like Siri on iPhones, allows users to interact with apps and ask questions.
LG was one of the first smartphone makers to reveal it would feature the assistant on its new device, the G6.
Google's update will starting rolling out this week to users with Android 6.0 Marshmallow or 7.0 Nougat installed.
"With this update, hundreds of millions of Android users will now be able to try out the Google Assistant," said Gummi Hafsteinsson, product lead for Google Assistant, in a blog post.
But other virtual assistants are out there. At the Mobile World Congress tech show in Barcelona, Lenovo Moto revealed that Amazon's Alexa assistant would be coming to the Moto Z phone.
This will happen via an alternative back - known as a MotoMod - that Amazon will sell for the Moto Z later this year.
And at the CES tech show in Las Vegas last month, Chinese tech giant Huawei announced it would include Amazon's rival Alexa assistant on its phones.

'Natural step'

Google Assistant differs from its competitors slightly in that it is designed to prompt conversations with users and respond to follow-up queries.
"It is a natural step for Google to offer Google Assistant to as many smartphones as possible because AI is at the heart of Google's strategy, said tech analyst Ian Fogg at IHS Technology.
"With the machine learning that underpins Google Assistant AI, the more people that use Assistant, the smarter it will become."
Initially, Assistant will be available to English-speaking users in the United States.
English-speaking users in Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom will receive the update next.
Support for other languages will follow, Google said.

compiled by Thomas Okundi

Nokia 3310 mobile phone resurrected at MWC 2017


Nokia's 3310 phone has been relaunched nearly 17 years after its debut.
Many consider the original handset iconic because of its popularity and sturdiness. More than 126 million were produced before it was phased out in 2005.
The revamped version will be sold under licence by the Finnish start-up HMD Global, which also unveiled several Nokia-branded Android smartphones.
One expert said it was a "fantastic way" to relaunch Nokia's phone brand.
"The 3310 was the first mass-market mobile and there's a massive amount of nostalgia and affection for it," commented Ben Wood from the technology consultancy CCS Insight.
"If HMD had just announced three Android devices they would have barely got a couple of column inches in the press.
"So, the 3310 is a very clever move and we expect it will sell in significant volumes."
The announcement was made ahead of the start of the Mobile World Congress tech show in Barcelona. LG, Huawei and Lenovo are among others to have unveiled new devices.
Nokia no longer makes phones itself, but manufactures telecoms equipment, Ozo virtual reality cameras, and health kit under the Withings brand.

Long life

The new 3310 qualifies as a "feature phone" rather than a smartphone as it only provides limited internet facilities.
It relies on 2.5G connectivity - which has slower data speeds than 3G or 4G - and is powered by the S30+ operating system, which allows web browsing but has a much smaller range of apps than Android or iOS. Its single camera is also restricted to two megapixels.

However, its advantage over more powerful handsets is its battery life. HMD says the colour-screened phone has up to a month's standby time and delivers more than 22 hours of talk time.
It also comes with the modern version of the classic game Snake preinstalled.
Its launch price is €49 ($51,75; £41.51).
"It's almost like a digital detox or a holiday phone," HMD's chief executive Arto Nummela told the BBC.
"If you want to switch off to an extent but you still need to have a [mobile] lifeline, it's a brilliant solution.
"Why wouldn't you buy this like candy? If you see this hanging on the shelf at the checkout in a [see-through] package, then you'd just buy it as an accessory."

compliled by Thomas Okundi

MWC 2017: Sony launches slow-mo Xperia XZ Premium phone

Sony's latest smartphone is capable of filming smooth slow-motion footage at four times the rate possible on Apple and Samsung's top-end models.

The Xperia XZ Premium captures video at up to 960 frames per second (fps).
The achievement was made possible by a new type of image sensor that has built-in memory of its own.
Sony's smartphone market share is small, but it usually makes its sensors available to rivals about six to 12 months after they debut.

Apple, Samsung, LG and Xiaomi are among those to have used its technology in recent handsets.
The new phone was unveiled alongside several lower specification devices on the first day of the Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona.

"Despite this being one of the best devices at MWC, I don't see it changing Sony's fortunes," commented Francisco Jeronimo, from the market research firm IDC.
"If you go through Sony's financial statements you can see it now makes more money from selling phone cameras to its competitors than selling its own smartphones, which is quite remarkable
"So, its phones are a way to show off its capabilities, and the new camera is outstanding - not just the slow-mo but also the picture quality."
Sony shipped about half as many smartphones in 2016 as the previous year and has about 1% share of the market, according to IDC, putting it in 17th place.
Sony calls the new technology Motion Eye.


It uses a three-layer stacked sensor fitted with one gigabit of dynamic random-access memory (DRAM). Doing so lets the component temporarily store a rapid burst of video data locally before it is transferred to other memory components, which takes more time.

Compiled by Thomas Okundi