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Nokia CEO says 6G will be here by 2030 — but you might not access it via your smartphone
Headquartered in Finland, Nokia builds telecoms networks that enable phones and other internet-enabled devices to communicate with one another.
Asked when he thinks the world will move away from using smartphones to using smart glasses and other devices that are worn on the face, [Nokia CEO] Lundmark said it will happen before 6G arrives.
[...] "By then, definitely the smartphone as we know it today will not anymore be the most common interface," he said. "Many of these things will be built directly into our bodies."
He did not specify exactly what he was referring to but some companies, such as Elon Musk's Neuralink, are working on producing electronic devices that can be implanted into the brain and used for communication with machines and other people. On a more basic level, chips can be implanted into people's fingers and used to unlock things.
6G may be here in the next 8 years or so, but I believe the suggestion of implanted devices being commonplace is a totally unrealistic statement. We have not yet reached the stage where 'implanting things into the brain' has become a simple and low risk proposition. But even if we had, who is going to be performing these operations and at what rate? Who would pay for such medical treatment?
However, let us put these problems aside for a moment. What do you see as the future of personal communications? Let's discuss some realistic or even 'off-the'wall' ideas. What effect would such devices have on our privacy and freedoms? In Star Trek the communicator device, which appeared on our (television) screens around the mid 1960s, does not look too different from some of today's smartphones although at that time it was pure science fiction.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 31 2022, @11:50AM (2 children)
Fuck you
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 31 2022, @01:40PM (1 child)
Agreed. I recently went a good six months without a working cell phone due to AT&T's 3G fuckery (combined with my own apathy and laziness, of course), and it really got me thinking on the LoRa messengers [hackaday.com] I had been watching for some time. I ended up purchasing a satellite messenger to play with (Spot X [findmespot.com]), mostly because it tied into the traditional SMS network so I would not have to convince friends and family to carry around a hodgepodge pcb to communicate with me. These things are getting better though, hopefully the Precursor [crowdsupply.com] gets a LoRa expansion or at least inspires more projects. In the meantime, I backed another project in this space (FreedomText [kickstarter.com]) as I am really more interested in this space as a working product than a hobby project. I suppose I should also mention the goTenna [gotenna.com], another product in this space that I purchased years ago, but I never used because their terms of service for the Android application had a reverse engineering prohibition that I refused to agree to. Would have been a great platform if they were more open to others leveraging their product.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday May 31 2022, @10:05PM
I resisted the monthly cellular bill for years, used it as a justification for a couple of mobile triband HAM handhelds which were pretty good substitutes in certain situations. However, there is no substitute for the ubiquitous cellular network and I eventually broke down and got first one, then shortly after another cell phone around 2002. They remained dumb or flip phones until about 2013 when we moved to a metro area and were no longer obliged to choose Verizon or no coverage at home.
In the 2007-2012 timeframe, iPhones with tiny screens were all the rage. My prediction at the time was that larger screen phablets were the future, if for no other reason than the positive correlation between presbyopia and disposable income. That prediction, dismissed by my sharp eyed younger colleagues who insisted 3.5" was all anyone would ever need, and why carry anything bigger?
I believe that same presbyopia correlation is a strong headwind for phone watches, although I might entertain the idea of a freestanding (no candy bar tethered) phone watch, perhaps coupled to one of those walking tool Bluetooth earpieces for higher audio quality. If it weren't for the Tx power so close to the head, a standalone earpiece with its own SIM card would be cool for phone use.
But it's not about phone functionality anymore, it's more about a video camera and web browser these days, the phone (and music player, compass, GPS, flashlight, etc.) is just along for the ride. More better bandwidth isn't likely to open up too many new applications. Maybe if embedded laser projectors come down in cost we will start carrying them along too.
I don't believe communication implants are going to be popular in this decade, but maybe the plethora of WiFi connected devices we have today might become more freely placed if they start communicating directly with the cell towers?
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