Intel has a disastrous history with smartphones. It fumbled a chance for its wares to be in Apple’s first iPhone, and then quit making its Atom smartphone chip to focus on modems.
But the company is now set to ship a groundbreaking modem that will deliver data-transfer rates many times faster than most wired internet connections.
The chipmaker will start shipping its first 5G modem for testing in the second half this year. Beyond mobile devices, the modem could also be used in autonomous cars, servers, base stations, networking equipment, drones, robots, and other internet-of-things devices.
In name, 5G is the successor to 4G in today’s mobile devices, but it’s significantly faster and more versatile. It will combine multiple wireless high-speed and low-bandwidth technologies and enable communications across an array of spectrum bands. New 5G networks are expected to be deployed starting in 2020.
The Intel 5G Modem, as it’s called, is designed to provide download speeds in excess of 5Gbps, which is five times faster than today’s fastest 4G modem. It’s also five times faster than Google Fiber, which offers speeds of up to 1Gbps.
But don’t expect the modem to be installed in smartphones immediately. It will be used mainly for testing on 5G network deployments. It will also be used to test possible 5G applications, still being explored in areas like automotive tech.
The benefits of 5G are enormous. Download and upload speeds will go up for devices like drones, robots, smart devices, and industrial equipment. Faster networks will help autonomous cars communicate over long distances about weather and road conditions.
The technology will improve mobile health-care services, which need reliable connections for patient monitoring. It will also help IoT devices remain in constant contact with servers running analytics.
Intel believes as wireless becomes ubiquitous, there will be more opportunities to put its 5G modems in devices. The 5G Modem is a big move for Intel when its mobile chip future was in question after many false starts.
Intel’s effort to put Atom chips into smartphones was a colossal failure, and the company wasted billions of dollars on the lost cause. Last year, it bailed out of the smartphone chip market and refocused on modems.
Apple will reportedly use Intel’s 4G modems in its next iPhone, and that’s a major win for the company. Apple also uses modems from Qualcomm, which is considered ahead of Intel in modem technology.
Qualcomm announced its first 5G modem, the Snapdragon X50, in October. Intel is slowly catching up, but Qualcomm also has the advantage by integrating high-speed modems inside its Snapdragon chips that power smartphones. Intel does not plan to offer Atom chips for smartphones anytime soon, though it has hinted that it could make such chips if opportunities arise.
Intel until now provided FPGAs (field programmable gate arrays) that could be programmed to mimic modems. But the 5G Modem will be needed to obtain results from real-world testing.
The new 5G technology will be important for autonomous cars, which may make driving decisions by consulting remote servers to recognize objects, signs, and lights, said Kathy Winter, vice president and general manager of the automated driving division at Intel.
Intel also announced autonomous vehicle development kits ready for 5G at CES. Intel is also building an autonomous car with BMW and Mobileye that could be ready to hit the streets by 2021. It’s possible that Intel will put its 5G modem in that car.
Intel’s 5G Modem supports the sub-6GHz band, where cellular networks typically operate. It also supports the 28GHz millimeter-wave band, which should enable deployment trials in U. S., South Korea, and Japan, Intel said. The 28GHz band allows for faster data transfers and is expected to be used for 5G networks.

© Source: http://www.computerworld.com/article/3154307/mobile-wireless/intel-puts-mobile-chip-failures-in-its-past-with-first-speedy-5g-modem.html
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Honor, the sub-brand of Chinese electronics company Huawei, has a new budget smartphone. The Honor 6X looks like a solid piece of hardware, offering some premium features at an easy-to-swallow price.
The Honor 6X features a 5.5″ 1080p display and is powered by Huawei’s Kirin 655 octa-core SoC. On the back of the phone’s 8.3-mm thick, all-metal body is a dual-camera system that pairs a 12MP camera with a smaller 2MP unit, which Huawei says should help with autofocus and allow for focal-point shifting. The handset’s backside also contains a fingerprint scanner—a rare sight on budget phones.
The 6X will be available in two variants: one with 32GB of internal storage and 3GB of RAM, and the other with 64GB of storage and 4GB of RAM. Both models pack a slot for a second SIM card and a MicroSD card for storage expansion. All of this hardware is juiced up by a 3340 mAh battery that Huawei says will provide the Honor 6X with 23 hours of airtime or let it sit for 600 hours on stand-by.
The phone ships with Android 6.0 Marshmallow hidden beneath Huawei’s Emotion UI 4.1. Huawei is promising an update to Android 7.0 in the second quarter of 2017. The Honor 6X is available for pre-order today on Amazon in the United States and Europe in grey, gold, and silver colors. Pricing starts at $250, and the handset should be in owners’ hands by January 10.

© Source: http://techreport.com/news/31202/huawei-honor-6x-is-a-strong-punch-to-the-budget-phone-market
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Most UK games firms plan to expand their workforce in 2017, indicating potential growth in the industry.
According to research by the Tiga network for games developers and digital publishers, 88% of games firms plan to expand their teams over the next year – an increase of 16% from the same time last year.
Half of the UK’s games firms are also looking to invest in their business through research and development, training or by developing new titles over the year.
Richard Wilson, Tiga CEO, said the growth was being driven by an expanding consumer market, the increase in mobile and tablet devices and the new video games tax relief.
“The UK video games development and digital publishing sector is set to grow in 2017,” said Wilson. “The UK is the sixth largest market for games in the world and 31.6 million people in the UK play games. The spread of mobile and tablet devices, the new console generation, the popularity of PC games and the advent of virtual reality and augmented reality are prompting investment in games.”
The government’s introduction of tax relief around the development of games in the UK has helped to reduce the cost of games production, which is predicted to lead to the creation of 2,800 developer jobs over the next five years.
But 16% of games firms said a shortage of appropriate skills would be a barrier to future growth, alongside other barriers such as lack of funding, lack of diversity and regional challenges.
After the UK voted to leave the European Union, greater emphasis was put on home-grown tech talent, and Tiga thinks Brexit could put a strain on games industry talent.
About 15% of current UK games development staff are from the EU, raising concerns that, after Brexit, it will be more difficult to find skilled workers, especially in view of the UK’s current skills crisis.
The government has shown support for the games industry in recent years, and in 2015 the Department for Culture, Media and Sport announced grants of up to £25,000 to boost the UK’s growing games industry.
But funding is still a problem for developers. According to Tiga’s research, almost three-quarters of games firms think their costs are likely to rise this year, and 40% say prices for their customers may also increase – possible backlashes from Brexit. But many gave positive predictions for profit, with 64% of UK games firms saying they expect their profits to rise in 2017.

© Source: http://www.computerweekly.com/news/450410359/UK-games-industry-to-grow-in-2017-but-skills-are-a-concern
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TCL Communication has big plans for BlackBerry, even though it’s a brand that’s been written off by many.
The China-based electronics company recently acquired rights to design, manufacture and sell smartphones under the BlackBerry name with BlackBerry’s security and service software installed. The deal puts TCL in the driver’s seat on hardware and the first phone under the new deal was previewed on Wednesday.
While still in the final stages of development, the new handset sports the physical keyboard that propelled BlackBerry to the top of the smartphone market in the 2000s and is the first to combine that keyboard with the Android operating system.
A BlackBerry handset developed by TCL Communication is demonstrated on January 3, 2017.
TCL hopes that combination will reverse BlackBerry’s collapsing sales in North America during 2017 and return the brand to growth in 2018. That could be a tall order given the fierce competition in the smartphone market and TCL’s targets for grabbing market share.
“We will create a full portfolio that can manage to challenge both Apple and Samsung in the enterprise space,” said Steve Cistulli, president and general manager of North America for TCL.
Cistulli said he believes the brand still has a strong image among enterprise customers.
“When you take a look at which EMM, MDM solutions are really winning, you look at Mobile Iron, VMware and BlackBerry is certainly one of the top solutions being implemented globally,” he said.
TCL will be particularly focused on the U. S. and Canadian governments and the banking and medical sectors in each country—all areas that have stricter regulatory oversight than other businesses and where BlackBerry is widely used.
The phone’s launch will coincide with the early months of the presidency of Donald Trump, who has already been critical of large government contracts going to foreign companies, and comes amid continued reports of international hacking. But Cistulli says users can put the same trust in BlackBerry now as they did in the past.
Steve Cistulli, president and general manager of North America for TCL Communications, in an interview with IDG News Service in Las Vegas on January 3, 2017.
“The software development is still done by BlackBerry in North America,” he said, adding the security software on the phone is still signed by BlackBerry and not a foreign company.
The phone that was presented on Wednesday is still under development. More details on the device are promised for Mobile World Congress, the mobile telecom industry show that will take place in Barcelona in March.
Cistulli said TCL also plans to offer the phone to consumers through carrier partners.

© Source: http://www.pcworld.com/article/3154500/phones/tcl-targets-apple-samsung-with-new-blackberry-handset.html
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