Interview with Dror Bhat, VP of Marketing for Pelephone/Walla!
Technology, Lilian dialect
The great advantage of technology exhibitions is that they serve as a sort of compass for technology journalists and analysts: they give us and our readers a directional reading of where the world of technology is going?
What awaits us in the coming years?
The 2024 Barcelona Expo is no different in this sense.
Several sensational innovations were presented that show us the way and where technology will take us in the coming years.
Here are some trends I learned about from wandering the great halls of the Fira Grand Via in Barcelona:
The entrance to the MWC 2024 exhibition in Barcelona/Reuters
Death to smartphones: the new interfaces
Some extraordinary innovations that I also mentioned in my previous article from the conference, are trying to break the smartphone.
I'm not talking about physically breaking it, but rather offering an alternative to the small screens we've all gotten used to holding in our hands and looking down at (ouch, neck pain), with state-of-the-art wearable computing devices.
Then of course there is Humane, which I already told you about with the smart pin that includes a projector for the palm, and is completely activated with the help of a voice interface or gestures in the air, but without a screen, and also the similar interesting experiment of Deutsche Telekom.
But these, which are new and bold attempts, are also joined by a wave of smart glasses (and no, I'm not talking about the heavy scoundrel called Apple Vision Pro) with augmented reality, which are comfortable to mount on the nose, not heavy, and offer an interface that is, literally, in front of the eyes
True, they require a smartphone for processing the information and communication (unlike Humane which is a completely independent device), but - it stays in your pocket and not in your hand.
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The pin of Humane/Humane
At the same time, and as part of these new interfaces, the apps also lose meaning.
Humane, Rabbit in question and others actually say - wait, why do you actually need a dedicated application for booking and searching for flights, playing music or translating?
Just ask the smart assistant to do the chore, and it will do it for you.
Who needs an app?
Of course, all of this would not be possible without artificial intelligence built into all these devices, and this leads us to the next trend because...
Rabbit AI/Official website, Rabbit
Artificial intelligence is everywhere
I already saw this trend a month ago at the CES exhibition in Vegas, and its little European sister MWC is no different - artificial intelligence is now everywhere, but really everywhere: from satellite analysis of reducing carbon emissions, to a somewhat scary application I saw here that is able to analyze the emotions of passers-by In the mall and what is their approach just from random security photography, when this technology is for marketing needs or customer service.
And it doesn't stop there: artificial intelligence analyzes the quality of your sleep just by listening through a microphone, it activates smart robots that know how to react to changing situations, it knows how to create images on your smartphone or computer that don't exist in reality (like adding a sunset to a photo taken at 12 noon ), to help those with disabilities to live a more comfortable life, to optimize and analyze work processes in factories and I would say that the sky is the limit, if not such tools are and will be used in space as well.
Who said HAL 9000 and didn't get it?
All the things I mentioned, by the way, are the beginnings or applications that already exist and I saw here at the exhibition - this is not science fiction.
@nivlilien Google's new magic editor not only knows how to clean objects intelligently, it also knows how to fix backgrounds and turn a photo taken at noon into a sunset photo with a touch #mwc #mwc24 #בינהמלאכותיט #ai #pixel8 #pixel8pro #בינה_מלאכותיט #tech #techtok #theuplink ♬ original sound - nivli
Undoubtedly the hottest field in the industry today, entered the smartphone market as expected," Dror Bhatt, Pelephone's VP of Marketing, who also hosted us at the exhibition, told Walla.
"Samsung has already introduced AI applications to their latest flagship devices, and we expect to see the other players aligning themselves and even taking artificial intelligence to new areas for applications that we have never known. Artificial intelligence also stands out at the conference in the other end equipment such as the glasses, the ring and a variety of other developments that will be seen in the coming years ", says Bhatt.
WiFi is for old people
But with all due respect to the edge devices and artificial intelligence, and there is respect, the World Mobile Congress is first of all a mobile exhibition, and the entire halls dedicated here to network technologies, starting from the 5th generation core, through the 6th generation and going beyond technologies that are not radio waves at all - but light waves as a substitute for Wi-Fi, will testify Faye.
The Internet of Things, and the fact that almost every device we operate also connects to the network, from the washing machine, through locks to our smartphones and computers, has created an insane load on networks in the world, and that's even before we talked about smart, autonomous cars, smart roads, smart roads, smart signage, And in general, a lot of smart people.
At the Barcelona exhibition, solutions from various solutions were presented to meet the scope and requirements that will only grow and grow in the coming years, in billions of devices (just to clarify, one figure I heard speaks of a billion augmented and virtual reality devices, but this number includes tablets and smartphones...).
But beyond the cellular technologies, I came across a company with an amazing innovation: not WiFi but LiFi - data transfer using light.
The British company, PureLiFi, created an access point or router, which is able to transmit data not by radio waves, but by light signals.
These signals reach a small transmitter-receiver that knows how to decode these light signals, it can be integrated on the board with a computer or smartphone, and give us full and fast connectivity - up to a gigabit per second.
As the company people explained to me, the big advantage is that light is a part of the electromagnetic spectrum that does not require permits or licensing to use it (unlike radio waves and the existing WiFi frequencies).
Amusingly by the way, they started their way with the visible light range, but then realized that people don't necessarily want to have a light on at night just so the internet doesn't disconnect - and the company switched to using infrared light as a carrier wave for data in the air.
PureLiFi, has created an access point or router, which is able to transmit data not in radio waves, but in light/wave signals!
Technology, Lilian dialect
Similarly, the company presented another amazing solution - the connection of a fifth generation network into the house, also through the transmission of light, through the window.
On the outside of the window, a fifth generation receiver is installed, which knows how to talk to a router unit that sits on the inside of the window (the data passes through the glass with the help of light), and thus you have a home network with a cellular connection to an electric generation, without fibers, without drilling, without running cables into the residence
All you need is a window.
The Metaverse is dying but refuses to die
And another, last and amusing trend is the stubborn refusal of the Metaverse, the virtual universe, to die.
So it's true, we're not talking about the mixed reality universe that Meta bet big on - but there was still a high presence at the exhibition for Wayverse, the virtual universe of HTC and Valve, alongside other companies that make products and are still developing Metaverse, which seems to be dying but as mentioned, refuses die.
Who knows, maybe in a few years when I write a summary for the Barcelona 2029 exhibition, I will have to admit that Mark Zuckerberg was right.
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