Fast 5G Antennas

Fast 5G Antennas
Number	551
Broadcast Date	JULY 23, 2018
Episode Length	5:00
Hosts	Tom Merritt

Fast 5G antennas from Qualcomm, High-res low-light camera sensor from Sony and the world’s fastest Hyperloop pod.

Headlines

• Qualcomm unveils first mmWave 5G antennas for smartphones

Qualcomm announced the QTM052 mmWave antenna modules. The mmWave portion of the 5G spectrum offers the fastest speeds but has shorter range and requires beamforming to deal with interference from solid objects. The QTM052 helps beamforming and beamtracking work by combining 4 antennas in a module the size of a penny for multi-directional reception. Qualcomm says its X50 5G modem can support four of the modules for 16 antennas placed in 4 different parts of a phone, to reduce blocking. Qualcomm says the first hardware with the new antennas will arrive at the beginning of 2019.

• Snap is shutting down Snapcash, its payment service, on August 30th

Snapchat will shutdown its Snapcash payments service on August 30. Snapcash was launched in 2014 in partnership with Square.

• Uber and Lyft Drop Driver Who Livestreamed Passengers on Twitch

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported Friday that Uber and Lyft driver Jason Gargac had been live streaming his rides on Twitch without passenger's knowledge since March. The streaming was not against Missouri law but was a violation of Twitch's community guidelines. Gargac says he had a sticker on his car notifying passengers that the vehicle was equipped with audio and visual recording devices and consent was given by entering the vehicle. Uber removed Gargac from the service Saturday, and Lyft did the same on Sunday.

• Nintendo sues to shut down two big ROM sites

Nintendo has filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona against the operator of two websites that made ROMs of old Nintendo console games available for download. LoveRetro.com has been taken offline and LoveROMs.com has removed all Nintendo files from its directory. Nintendo's suit claims damages in the millions of dollars and asks for an injunction to give it control of the domains.

• Apple’s HomePod will reportedly be able to make calls soon

French site iGeneration has got hold of iOS 12 based software for Apple's HomePod and found functions that would let you locate an iPhone, diagnose WiFi problems, set multiple timers, and take phone calls on the HomePod from a paired iPhone. It's not clear when the HomePod might get this update or if all the functions noticed will be made available.

• Sony unveils world's first 48-megapixel smartphone sensor

Sony announced its 8.0 mm IMX586 CMOS sensor for phones with the industry's highest pixel count at 48 megapixels. The sensor uses Sony's Quad Bayer color filter array to combine pixels together for low light shooting with an effective 12-megapixels. Sony says the new IMX586 can record 4K video at 90 fps, and 1080p at 240 fps. First samples of the 48-megapixel chip will arrive in September 2018.

• Samsung plans to turn 'The Wall' display into a home TV

Samsung says in September it will begin mass-producing the 146-inch 4k MicroLED display called The Wall that it showed off at CES. Samsung also said that next year it will launch a thinner consumer version, 30mm vs. The Wall's 80mm. Samsung says MicroLEDs last longer and suffer less from burn-in that OLEDs.

• India threatens iPhone ban if Apple doesn’t accept regulator’s anti-spam app

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India now requires all phone makers in the country to offer its "Do Not Disturb" app that blocks spam calls and protects privacy. Apple however is not allowing the app in the app store because it requires access to call history and message logs in order to send reports to the agency. Apple has 6 months to comply. iOS 12 has new spam-reporting features for calls and texts but it's unclear if that is compatible with the new rules.

• Sign-language hack lets Amazon Alexa respond to gestures

The BBC reports that developer Abhishek Singh used TensorFlow to train a machine learning algorithm to recognize American Sign Language and turn it into speech that can then be used to activate an Amazon Echo. The Echo's responses are then translated into text. Singh believes Amazon could incorporate the algorithm into the Amazon Echo Show, which has a camera, to allow sign language control of smart speakers. Jeffrey Bigham, an expert in human-computer interaction from Carnegie Mellon University told the BBC that Singh's project is a great proof of concept but that computer vision and language understanding is not yet capable of fully recognizing sign language. At the same time, Amazon introduced Tap to Alexa for the Echo Show which adds shortcuts to the home screen as a replacement for voice interaction.

• New York's JFK airport will screen luggage with a CT scanner

The US TSA is expected to begin testing CT Scanners at JFK airport's Terminal 8 later this month. The scanners should allow agents to see the contents of bags more clearly and rotate images 360-degrees. That would mean a reduced need to remove liquids, gels and large electronics from bags. CT Scanners are also being tested in Phoenix and Boston airports.

• Hyperloop test pod sets speed record

The Technical University of Munich won its third Hyperloop competition setting a record for speed. It's Hyperloop pod traveled the 1.2 km test track at SpaceX in Hawthorne California, at 457 km/hour. All pods in the latest competition had to be self-propelled.

Links

• This episode on dailytechnewsshow.com
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• DTNS subreddit

Preceded by: "Big tech Teams up for Easy Data Transfer"

Fast 5G Antennas

Followed by: "Amazon Echo Gets New EQ Controls"