mwc 2019
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Yesterday gave us a closer view of the Samsung Galaxy Fold. Of course, there were still a plate of glass, a security rope and a few feet between us and the device. Huawei, thankfully, was a bit more willing to grant us access to their own foldable, the Mate X, at a closed-door meeting earlier this morning.
There were still ground rules for the foldable. Namely, a Huawei rep was driving the whole thing. Limited interaction with the device itself was allowed, but he was doing most of the navigating and all of the folding. While the product is pretty close to final, there’s still some work to be done before bringing it to market, and in Huawei’s words, the company wanted to give us “the best possible experience.”

In this case, that mostly means knowing the limitations of what the near-final product can actually do. For now, that means web browsing, some photography and opening up Google Maps — which, to be fair, comprises a fairly large chunk of what people will actually be doing with the product.
That said, there’s a lot to account for with a new form factor. After all, phone makers have gotten really good at working with a defined two-dimensional plan a decade after the introduction of the first iPhone and Samsung Galaxy device. Folding, flipping and bouncing between screens presents all sorts of new challenges.

That said, in the demo at least, things seemed pretty smooth here. The device was pretty responsive in a less controlled environment than we’d previously seen it — or, for that matter, the Fold. There were a few moments and some blank screens for half a second or so, however, when the apps had to jump screens. All of which is to say the Mate X is real. I’ve seen it, and am so far pretty impressed with the execution.
The product design, too, is quite well thought-out. The product is surprisingly thin both folded and unfolded, and elements like the fold-over camera lip, which offers a place to grip (à la the lip on the rear of the Kindle Oasis) are nice touches.

The screen, too, looks quite nice at first glance. That said, as with all of the foldables we’ve seen to date, capturing a glare from overhead light picks up crinkles on the display, along with a large seam in the middle, where the device folds over. You can’t feel them with your finger as you glide over to touch, but it’s easy to imagine how messy all of this could ultimately look after a few years of use.
The system also works when folded at a 90-degree angle, which could prove useful for future executions that Huawei is looking into. It’s clear that this is just the beginning of not only the form factor, but practical applications. It’s going to be fun watching developers figure out all of the stuff they can do with the product.

That “still early days” approach also applies to price point. Huawei acknowledges that the device is prohibitively expensive at ~ €2,200. That price includes the design to add 5G to the product — notably, there is no non-5G version planned, unlike the Galaxy Fold. That will no doubt make the Mate X even more of a niche product, until the next-gen cellular service rolls out for more users.
In a way, the Mate X is a proof of concept — albeit proof that the thing can be relatively mass-produced. At double the cost of a high-end flagship, I don’t expect the company plans to sell a lot of these, but the more it’s able to scale, the lower the price will ultimately be.
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Huawei’s rotating chairman Guo Ping kicked off a keynote speech this morning at the world’s biggest mobile industry tradeshow with a wry joke. “There has never been more interest in Huawei,” he told delegates at Mobile World Congress. “We must be doing something right!”
The Chinese company is seeking to dispel suspicion around the security of its 5G network equipment which has been accelerated by U.S. president Trump who has been urging U.S. allies not to buy kit or services from Huawei. (And some, including Australia, have banned carriers from using Huawei kit.)
Last week Trump also tweet-shamed U.S. companies — saying they needed to step up their efforts to rollout 5G networks or “get left behind”.
In an MWC keynote speech yesterday the European Commission’s digital commissioner Mariya Gabriel signalled the executive is prepared to step in and regulate to ensure a “common approach” on the issue of network security — to avoid the risk of EU member states taking individual actions that could delay 5G rollouts across Europe.
Huawei appeared to welcome the prospect today.
“Government and the mobile operators should work together to agree what this assurance testing and certification rating for Europe will be,” said Guo, suggesting that’s Huawei’s hope for any Commission action on 5G security.
“Let experts decide whether networks are safe or not,” he added, implying Trump is the opposite of an expert. “Huawei has a strong track record in security for three decades. Serving three billion people around the world. The U.S. security accusation of our 5G has no evidence. Nothing.”
Geopolitical tensions about network security have translated into the biggest headache for Huawei which has positioned itself as a key vendor for 5G kit right as carriers are preparing to upgrade their existing cellular networks to the next-gen flavor.
Guo claimed today that Huawei is “the first company who can deploy 5G networks at scale”, giving a pitch for what he described as “powerful, simple and intelligent” next-gen network kit, while clearly enjoying the opportunity of being able to agree with U.S. president Trump in public — that “the U.S. needs powerful, faster and smarter 5G”. 
But any competitive lead in next-gen network tech also puts the company in prime position for political blowback linked to espionage concerns related to the Chinese state’s access to data held or accessed by commercial companies.
Huawei’s strategy to counter this threat has been to come out fighting for its commercial business — and it had plenty more of that spirit on show this morning. As well as a bunch of in-jokes. Most notably a reference to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden which drew a knowing ripple of laughter from the audience.
“We understand innovation is nothing without security,” said Guo, segwaying from making a sales pitch for Huawei’s 5G network solutions straight into the giant geopolitical security question looming over the conference.
“Prism, prism on the wall who is the most trustworthy of them all?” he said, throwing up a colorful slide to illustrate the joke. “It’s a very important question. And if you don’t ask them that you can go ask Edward Snowden.”
You can’t use “a crystal ball to manage cybersecurity”, Guo went on, dubbing it “a challenge we all share” and arguing that every player in the mobile industry has responsibility to defuse the network security issue — from kit vendors to carriers and standards bodies, as well as regulators.
“With 5G we have made a lot of progress over 4G and we can proudly say that 5G is safer than 4G. As a vendor we don’t operate carriers network, and we don’t all carry data. Our responsibility — what we promise — is that we don’t do anything bad,” he said. “We don’t do bad things.”
“Let me says this as clear as possible,” he went on, putting up another slide that literally underlined the point. “Huawei has not and will never plant backdoors. And we will never allow anyone to do so in our equipment.
“We take this responsibility very seriously.”

Guo’s pitch on network trust and security was to argue that where 5G networks are concerned security is a collective industry responsibility — which in turn means every player in the chain plays a monitoring role that allows for networks to be collectively trusted.
“Carriers are responsible for secure operations of their own networks. 5G networks are private networks. The boundary between different networks are clear. Carriers can prevent outside attacks with firewalls and security gateways. For internal threats carriers can manage, monitor and audit all vendors and partners to make sure their network elements are secure,” he said, going on to urge the industry to work together on standards which he described as “our shared responsibility”.
“To build safer networks we need to standardize cybersecurity requirements and these standards must be verifiable for all vendors and all carriers,” he said, adding that Huawei “fully supports” the work of industry standards and certification bodies the GSMA and 3GPP who he also claimed have “strong capabilities to verify 5G’s security”.
Huawei’s strategy to defuse geopolitical risk by appealing to the industry as a whole to get behind tackling the network trust issue is a smart one given the uncertainty generated by Trump’s attacks is hardly being welcomed by anyone in the mobile business.
Huawei’s headache might lead to the industry as a whole catching a cold — and no one at MWC wants that.
Later in the keynote Guo also pointed to the awkward “irony” of the U.S Cloud Act — given the legislation allows U.S. entities to “access data across borders”.
U.S. overreach on accessing the personal data of foreign citizens continues to cause major legal headaches in Europe as a result of the clash between its national security interest and EU citizens fundamental privacy rights. So Guo’s point there won’t have been lost on an MWC audience packed with European delegates attending the annual tradeshow.
“So for best technology and greater security choose Huawei. Please choose Huawei!” Guo finished, ending his keynote with a line that could very well make it as an upbeat marketing slogan writ large on one of the myriad tech-packed booths here at Fira Gran Via, Barcelona.
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Until now, the Exodus 1 has, fittingly, only been available for purchase with cryptocurrency. Starting today, however, interested parties will be able to pick HTC’s blockchain phone up through more traditional means, including USD, which prices the handset at a not unreasonable $699.
One assumes, of course, if you’ve got enough of an interested in purchasing a blockchain phone that they’ve already got a bit of Bitcoin, Ether or Litecoin lying about. This move, however, is very clearly about helping growing the product beyond its initial soft launch. When the device was released last year, HTC was pretty clearly expecting to sell it in limited quantities to users who could essentially help beta test the product in the wild.

HTC Decentralized Chief Officer Phil Chen calls the product the company’s 1.0 solution. In fact, it’s planning to create a formal bounty program to discover and patch potential exploits.
But HTC has long held that a device like this will play an important role in the future of a company struggling to find its way as it feels the burn of a stagnating mobile industry. As project head and Chen told me on stage at a TechCrunch event in Shenzhen last year that HTC is “as committed as they are to the Vive. I don’t think it’s number one of the priority list, but I would say it’s number three or four.”

When I spoke to Chen again this month, just ahead of today’s Mobile World Congress announcement, he told me that HTC currently has 25 engineers committed to the project. It’s perhaps not a huge number in the grand scheme of a company the size of HTC, but it’s a sizable chunk of manpower, considering the fact that the product is mostly built using existing HTC hardware. The company has also brought in outside help like blockchain security expert Christopher Allen to make sure things are as secure as possible.
And indeed, I’ve been carrying an Exodus One around for about a week now, and it feels like a pretty standard HTC handset, both in terms of hardware and Android software, right down to the inclusion the size-squeezing Edge Sense.
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Mobile World Congress is underway, which means there are a handful of brand spankin’ new 5G phones hitting the market soon.
How ever will you decide?
Here’s a look at all the 5G phones announced thus far:
The Mate X is a foldable 5G phone with one 4.6-inch screen, another 6.6-inch 2480×1148 screen and (when unfolded) an 8-inch 2200×2480 display.
Some other specs:

Aside from its unbearably long name, the LG V50 ThinQ 5G’s claim to fame is a new biometric security measure called Hand ID, which reads the veins in your hand to authenticate your identity. Plus, the new LG flagship has a dual-screen case, which effectively turns the phone into a foldable.
Some other specs:

The Galaxy Fold is likely to be the most talked-about phone out of MWC because 1) it folds and 2) it’s made by the biggest phone maker in the world. The handset, with a 7.3-inch 1536×2152 Super AMOLED unfolded display and a 4.6-inch cover display, will be available April 26.
Some other specs:

The Samsung S10 5G is exactly what you would expect it to be. It’s packed with all the bells and whistles that might appeal to the customer who wants the top of the line phone regardless of price. It sports a 6.7-inch 1440×3040 AMOLED display.
Some other specs:

Interestingly, Xiaomi opted to leave 5G out of its flagship phone for the year, the Mi 9. That said, the 5G Mi Mix 3 has a handful of its own interesting features, including a sliding front-facing camera that results in a 93.4 percent screen-to-body ratio. It also has a dual-camera system that offers the ability to shoot slow-mo videos at 960 frames per second.
Some other specs:

The Axon 10 Pro 5G doesn’t have many tricks, like a folding display, but it does come with a triple-camera system and what appears to be an in-display fingerprint reader. It also sports a 6.7-inch 1080p display. The phone will definitely launch in Europe and China, but no word on whether it will make its way stateside.
Some other specs:

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The European Commission’s digital commissioner has warned the mobile industry to expect it to act over security concerns attached to Chinese network equipment makers.
The Commission is considering a defacto ban on kit made by Chinese companies including Huawei in the face of security and espionage concerns, per Reuters.
Appearing on stage at the Mobile World Congress tradeshow in Barcelona today, Mariya Gabriel, European commissioner for digital economy and society, flagged network “cybersecurity” during her scheduled keynote, warning delegates it’s stating the obvious for her to say that “when 5G services become mission critical 5G networks need to be secure”.
Geopolitical concerns between the West and China are being accelerated and pushed to the fore as the era of 5G network upgrades approach, as well as by ongoing tensions between the U.S. and China over trade.
“I’m well away of the unrest among all of you key actors in the telecoms sectors caused by the ongoing discussions around the cybersecurity of 5G,” Gabriel continued, fleshing out the Commission’s current thinking. “Let me reassure you: The Commission takes your view very seriously. Because you need to run these systems everyday. Nobody is helped by premature decisions based on partial analysis of the facts.
“However it is also clear that Europe has to have a common approach to this challenge. And we need to bring it on the table soon. Otherwise there is a risk that fragmentation rises because of diverging decisions taken by Member States trying to protect themselves.”
“We all know that this fragmentation damages the digital single market. So therefore we are working on this important matter with priority. And to the Commission we will take steps soon,” she added.
The theme of this year’s show is “intelligent connectivity”; the notion that the incoming 5G networks will not only create links between people and (many, many more) things but understand the connections they’re making at a greater depth and resolution than has been possible before, leveraging the big data generated by many more connections to power automated decision-making in near real time, with low latency another touted 5G benefit (as well as many more connections per cell).
Futuristic scenarios being floated include connected cars neatly pulling to the sides of the road ahead of an ambulance rushing a patient to hospital — or indeed medical operations being aided and even directed remotely in real-time via 5G networks supporting high resolution real-time video streaming.
But for every touted benefit there are easy to envisage risks to network technology that’s being designed to connect everything all of the time — thereby creating a new and more powerful layer of critical infrastructure society will be relying upon.
Last fall the Australia government issued new security guidelines for 5G networks that essential block Chinese companies such as Huawei and ZTE from providing equipment to operators — justifying the move by saying that differences in the way 5G operates compared to previous network generations introduces new risks to national security.
New Zealand followed suit shortly after, saying kit from the Chinese companies posed a significant risk to national security.
While in the U.S. President Trump has made 5G network security a national security priority since 2017, and a bill was passed last fall banning Chinese companies from supplying certain components and services to government agencies.
The ban is due to take effect over two years but lawmakers have been pressuring to local carriers to drop 5G collaborations with companies such as Huawei.
In Europe the picture is so far more mixed. A UK government report last summer investigating Huawei’s broadband and mobile infrastructure raised further doubts, and last month Germany was reported to be mulling a 5G ban on the Chinese kit maker.
But more recently the two EU Member States have been reported to no longer be leaning towards a total ban — apparently believing any risk can be managed and mitigated by oversight and/or partial restrictions.
It remains to be seen how the Commission could step in to try to harmonize security actions taken by Member States around nascent 5G networks. But it appears prepared to set rules.
That said, Gabriel gave no hint of its thinking today, beyond repeating the Commission’s preferred position of less fragmentation, more harmonization to avoid collateral damage to its overarching Digital Single Market initiative — i.e. if Member States start fragmenting into a patchwork based on varying security concerns.
We’ve reached out to the Commission for further comment and will update this story with any additional context.
During the keynote she was careful to talk up the transformative potential of 5G connectivity while also saying innovation must work in lock-step with European “values”.
“Europe has to keep pace with other regions and early movers while making sure that its citizens and businesses benefit swiftly from the new infrastructures and the many applications that will be built on top of them,” she said.
“Digital is helping us and we need to reap its opportunities, mitigate its risks and make sure it is respectful of our values as much as driven by innovation. Innovation and values. Two key words. That is the vision we have delivered in terms of the defence for our citizens in Europe. Together we have decided to construct a Digital Single Market that reflects the values and principles upon which the European Union has been built.”
Her speech also focused on AI, with the commissioner highlighting various EC initiatives to invest in and support private sector investment in artificial intelligence — saying it’s targeting €20BN in “AI-directed investment” across the private and public sector by 2020, with the goal for the next decade being “to reach the same amount as an annual average” — and calling on the private sector to “contribute to ensure that Europe reaches the level of investment needed for it to become a world stage leader also in AI”.
But again she stressed the need for technology developments to be thoughtfully managed so they reflect the underlying society rather than negatively disrupting it. The goal should be what she dubbed “human-centric AI”.
“When we talk about AI and new technologies development for us Europeans it is not only about investing. It is mainly about shaping AI in a way that reflects our European values and principles. An ethical approach to AI is key to enable competitiveness — it will generate user trust and help facilitate its uptake,” she said.
“Trust is the key word. There is no other way. It is only by ensuring trustworthiness that Europe will position itself as a leader in cutting edge, secure and ethical AI. And that European citizens will enjoy AI’s benefits.”
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OnePlus promised us a 5G handset this year. At Mobile World Congress this week, the company kind of, sort of delivered. Unlike the sea of other 5G devices unveiled at the show, however, the company’s offering is still very much in the prototype phase — like, behind protective glass with all of the interesting bits obscured, as it isn’t officially official.
The product appeared at Qualcomm’s booth this week, since OnePlus’ presence at the show has been mostly limited to closed-door events. For the chipmaker, it was an opportunity to show yet again how ubiquitous its tech has become in the vast sea of Android devices.
“At Qualcomm Technologies’ booth, OnePlus simulated a futuristic setting of 5G cloud gaming where players would only need a smartphone and a gamepad,” Qualcomm explains. “Through the powerful capabilities of cloud processing as well as the throughput and responsiveness of 5G, players can play large sized games online that are generally only playable after downloading onto the PC first. Utilizing Snapdragon elite gaming features and optimizations, players were able to experience high definition and low latency cloud gaming like never before.”
Based on past release schedules, we can likely expect OnePlus to officially debut its next handset in the summer. Past release cycles have also seen a point upgrade later in the yea,r as well, though the company has been shifting things around a bit, as it continues to grow and figure out where it best fits in the broader handset market.
This particular device, likely the OnePlus 7, is due out in Q2, though, sadly, its 5G variant won’t be released in the States in 2018.
The addition of 5G in 2019, meanwhile, finds OnePlus taking a more cutting-edge approach to its release cycle, rather than holding back in order to lower the price tag on technology.
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Today at MWC Barcelona the SD Association unveiled microSD Express, which will allow future mobile devices to consume and create content at even faster speeds. This new microSD card platform boosts incredible transfer speeds while consuming less energy used by previous formats.
The new format will be available in the flavors of microSDHC Express, microSDXC Express and microSDUC Express.
Like SD Express, microSD Express taps the PCIe interface to hit a maximum data transfer rate of 985 megabytes per second (MB/s). This is possible through the PCIe 3.1 and NVMe v1.3 specifications that live on a second row of pins. The SD Association expects the faster cards to consume less energy than traditional memory cards while still being backward compatible.
The fast data speeds could lead mobile device makers to rethink how they equip devices. Read and write speeds have long been a limiting factor for expandable memory, but with this new format, which is backward compatible, the data transfer happens nearly as quickly as built-in memory. With 5G data and cameras pumping out huge files, expandable memory could make a comeback.
Want more technical information about #microSDExpress? Learn more in our newest whitepaper: https://t.co/SyVdzdwGbN pic.twitter.com/3kmsdvjJhh
— SD Association (@SD_Association) February 25, 2019
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There’s another name to add to the ever-lengthening list of 5G phones hitting Barcelona this week. ZTE just announced the Axon 10 Pro 5G, which is due out in the first half of 2019 — in China and Europe, at least. The States are a different question altogether, of course. ZTE hasn’t been quite the same political flash point as Huawei in recent years, but the company’s been subject to its own scrutiny from U.S. authorities.
Also like Huawei, ZTE’s got the marked benefit of building its own 5G networking equipment, which puts the Chinese smartphone maker ahead of much of the competition in terms of testing. At present, it’s working with carriers to ready its phone for the imminent arrival of the next-gen wireless tech.
In fact, the company used the kickoff of MWC today to showcase some of its own 5G tech, including a live presentation executed alongside Qualcomm. From this morning’s release:
The demonstration over 5G NR radio utilizes a real-world end-to-end 5G NR network built with ZTE’s commercial core network and radio base station equipment, as well as a ZTE 5G smartphone powered by the world’s first commercial 5G mobile platform—the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855Mobile Platform paired with the Snapdragon X50 5G modem, as well as Qualcomm Technologies’ RF transceiver and RF front-end solutions.
The forthcoming device also sports three rear-facing cameras, a U-shaped hole-punch bezel and what appears to be an in-display fingerprint reader. ZTE also launched the Blade V10 today. That handset features a 32-megapixel front-facing camera, because you can never have enough high-resolution selfies.
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Samsung decided to forgo the Mobile World Congress pomp and circumstance, instead opting to unveil its new products through its own party last week in San Francisco. I’ve been carrying around a Galaxy S10 for a few days now, so more on that soon. In the meantime, here’s the device everyone is really interested in.
As promised, the Galaxy Fold was on display at the company’s booth this morning, but it was protected by security rope and thick panes of glass, like so many carbonited Han Solos. Not folding and unfolding — just static, playing videos while throngs of reporters elbowed one another, jockeying for a bit of space.

It’s not a production device just yet. And honestly, it’s not the kind of display that engenders a lot of faith that the product will be coming to market in just under two months. At least it’s a step ahead of where we saw it late last year.
In the meantime, there’s this new video from Samsung. It’s a highly controlled “demo,” devoid of soundtrack (with some ASMRy sound effects). It shows more of the Fold than we’ve seen so far — which, granted, isn’t a particularly high bar, as far as these things go. You can, however, see folding and unfolding, and the same Wireless PowerShare feature you’ll find on the S10 and DeX functionality for bringing contact to an even larger screen via USB-C.

You can also catch glimpses of the App Continuity feature, which picks up your workflow where you left off, even as you switch between screens. But again, how that sort of thing plays out in person versus a video shot and edited by Samsung is a different question altogether. The positioning of the product at MWC leaves one wondering whether the company has worked through all of the software kinks.
At least we can see that the hardware exists in the world. We know there are four of these things in the world, each of which was on display behind glass (two with the screen facing out and two with the rear). We also know that, like Huawei’s device, the fold crease is highly visible when the light catches it. How much of an impact that will ultimately have on, say, the movie-viewing experience is another one of those open questions.
But Samsung is a big company with a lot of resources, and it’s got roughly two months to make sure everything is in working order on the device. Given the $1,899 starting price, it no doubt wants to get everything right. The clock is ticking.
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Qualcomm today announced new 4g and 5g chipsets for connected vehicles. The chip maker sees the advanced communication platforms powering the next wave of in-vehicle experiences and telematics features including advanced automotive safety features and self-driving cars. Qualcomm says vehicles equipped with these chipsets are planned for production in 2021.
The Qualcomm Snapdragon Automotive 4G and Qualcomm Snapdragon Automotive 5G Platform feature C-V2X direct communications, high-precision multi-frequency global navigation satellite system (HP-GNSS) and RF Front-End (RFFE) functionalities — basically, the chipsets will give vehicles next level positioning capabilities.
Along with improved positioning, vehicles equipped with these Snapdragon platforms gain vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communications.
The Snapdragon Automotive 5G chipset is the first in the industry announced with support for dual SIM dual active — or DSDA, for short.
Qualcomm says it intends to give automakers the ability to test the platforms with a reference design kit in the second half of 2019.
It’s through chipsets like these that vehicles will gain autonomous driving capabilities. Without advanced, reliable connectivity, vehicles will not have access to the data needed to navigate across the ever-evolving urban landscape. While current systems are being used to some level of success, improved connectivity is ultimately needed to make good on the promise of self-driving cars.
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