Technology - Google News

Apple to Wait Until at Least 2020 to Release 5G iPhones - MacRumors
Verizon and Samsung to release 5G smartphone in the U.S. in first half of 2019 - Verizon Communications
NVIDIA officially unveils its flagship Titan RTX GPU - Engadget

Apple to Wait Until at Least 2020 to Release 5G iPhones - MacRumors

Posted: 03 Dec 2018 04:59 AM PST

Apple won't release an iPhone that can connect to 5G data networks until at least 2020, claims a new report out today.

According to Bloomberg's sources, Apple is planning to delay its support for the next generation of high-speed mobile services coming in 2019, just as it did for previous generations.

As with 3G and 4G, the two previous generations of mobile technology, Apple will wait as long as a year after the initial deployment of the new networks before its main product gets the capability to access them, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing the company's plans.

According to Bloomberg, Apple delayed support for previous mobile network upgrades because it accurately predicted that the first versions of rival smartphones would suffer from problems like poor coverage.

However, 5G advocates argue that delaying support for the upcoming network upgrade is a bigger risk for Apple, since it represents a much bigger speed boost over previous generations, making the leap from 4G to 5G significant enough to become a major selling point for new devices.

5G advocates believe the danger for Apple is that it will be left behind by rivals like Samsung, who could exploit the delay and attract more consumers to its Galaxy smartphones, which are expected to support 5G networks next year. Likewise, Chinese mobile makers Oppo and Huawei have also signaled that they plan to offer 5G phones.

Bloomberg suggests that Apple's decision to wait another year before supporting 5G could be related to the company's feud with Qualcomm, a leader in 5G-enabled chips, and it's partnership instead with Intel, which won't have 5G chips ready in time for 2019 phones.

Rumors late last year suggested Intel and Apple were already working on 5G chip technology for future iPhone devices. Intel is said to have thousands of people working on 5G tech to catch up with Qualcomm and win Apple's 5G modem contract.

Huawei and Samsung have the manufacturing infrastructure to build 5G modems, but Apple is said to be unlikely to use chips from its smartphone rivals, who could struggle to produce adequate supplies for the iPhone's huge volumes anyway.

Whatever the reason behind the delay, some analysts believe Apple's decision could have an impact on its iPhone customer base.

"Apple has always been a laggard in cellular technology," said Mark Hung, an analyst at Gartner who spoke to Bloomberg. "They weren't impacted in the past, but 5G is going to be much easier to market. But if they wait beyond 2020, then I think they'll be impacted."

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Verizon and Samsung to release 5G smartphone in the U.S. in first half of 2019 - Verizon Communications

Posted: 03 Dec 2018 04:11 AM PST

NEW YORK – Verizon and Samsung announced their plan to bring one of the first commercial 5G smartphones to market in the first half of 2019. The companies will unveil a proof of concept, powered by the upcoming flagship Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ Mobile Platform with the Snapdragon X50 5G NR modem and antenna modules with integrated RF transceiver, RF front-end and antenna elements, at the annual Qualcomm Snapdragon Technology Summit in Maui this week. This is the result of years of collaboration to deploy an end-to-end solution for commercial 5G services using Samsung network equipment and personal devices.

5G mobility service will provide massive bandwidth, greater opportunities for connectivity and improved network reliability. When fully implemented, it will offer capacity and download speed many times faster than today’s 4G LTE network. Along with network latency that is faster than the blink of an eye.

“5G will usher in a new era of mobile connectivity, allowing people to connect to data, experiences and other people in ways never thought possible,” said Brian Higgins, vice president, wireless device and product marketing at Verizon. “Together, Samsung and Verizon have made huge gains in bringing 5G commercial services to consumers in several cities. Now, we’re partnering to create a smartphone to put the power of 5G in the palm of your hand.”

Verizon launched the world’s first commercial 5G service in October when 5G Home went live in Houston, Indianapolis, Los Angeles and Sacramento.

Verizon 5G mobility service will go live in early 2019 and expand rapidly. Once available, Samsung 5G smartphone users will immediately benefit from the speed and capacity of Verizon’s 5G Ultra Wideband network, and over time, experience all the new and exciting services, games and features that will be available.

“Samsung offers end-to-end solutions that are accelerating the wide scale adoption of 5G and help us realize our vision of truly connected living,” said Justin Denison, senior vice president, Mobile Product Strategy and Marketing at Samsung Electronics America. “We’re proud to work alongside innovative partners like Verizon and Qualcomm Technologies to deliver a smartphone that will fundamentally transform how people work and play.”

Samsung has partnered with Verizon on its 5G Home offering since the beginning of 2018 and has been a leader in the 5G space for even longer. Samsung has been an active contributor, with Verizon, to develop standards that make 5G deployment possible and was the first company to earn FCC approval for its 5G commercial products.

Verizon – first to 5G

Today’s announcement is the culmination of a year of 5G firsts for Verizon, including the opening of 5G Labs in New York, Cambridge, MA and Washington, DC, the first ever 5G NR call made on a commercial network, the first over-the-air data transmission on a commercial 5G NR network, and, most importantly, the launch of Verizon 5G Home – the world’s first 5G home broadband internet service.

Visit verizon5gmedia.com to learn more about Verizon’s plans for bringing 5G technology to our customers.

About Samsung Electronics America

Headquartered in Ridgefield Park, N.J., Samsung Electronics America, Inc. (SEA), is a recognized innovative leader in consumer electronics, mobile devices and enterprise solutions. A wholly owned subsidiary of Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., SEA is pushing beyond the limits of today's technology and providing consumers and organizations with a portfolio of groundbreaking products in appliances, home entertainment, Internet of Things, mobile computing, smartphones, virtual reality, wireless infrastructure and wearables, in addition to offering leading content and services related to mobile payments, 360-degree VR video, customer support and more. Samsung is a pioneering leader in smartphones and HDTVs in the U.S. and one of America's fastest growing home appliance brands. To discover more about Samsung, please visit http://samsung.com. For the latest Samsung news, please visit http://news.samsung.com/us and follow us @SamsungNewsUS.

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NVIDIA officially unveils its flagship Titan RTX GPU - Engadget

Posted: 03 Dec 2018 06:39 AM PST

Shortly after teasing it, NVIDIA has officially unveiled the its top-end GPU, the Titan RTX. As expected, it has 72 Turing RT and 4,608 CUDA cores, up from 68 and 4,352, respectively, over the RTX 2080 Ti. However, this isn't so much a consumer card (unlike last year's Titan XP), but more in the family of the Titan V compute GPU. As such, it comes with a whopping 24GB of GDDR6 VRAM and packs a $2,500 price tag, both more than double that of the RTX 2080 Ti.

The Titan RTX is aimed at AI researchers, workstation users and gamers with deep pockets. However, it strongly resembles the RTX 2080 Ti, albeit with a lot more memory. It's also got full-fat TU102 GPU, much like NVIDIA's $6,300 workstation-oriented Quadro RTX 6000, and has the same number of CUDA, Tensor and RT cores and identical 24GB of GDDR6 VRAM.

Should that not do the job, you can get the $80 Titan RTX NVLink Bridge (below), letting you join two Titan RTX cards together with double the VRAM and 100 GB/s of total bandwidth.

NVIDIA Titan RTX GPU officially launched

With the last generation of GTX cards, NVIDIA had a consumer Titan XP card that cost $1,200, but it has shifted strategies since the Titan V. The Titan RTX is thus aimed more at AI researchers and other users who might want to take advantage of the tensor cores, which deliver real-time ray-traced graphics. The extra memory will also make it possible for scientists to run much larger simulations than you could with the RTX 2080 Ti's 11GB of memory.

Considering it matches the specs of the Quadro RTX 6000 card almost to a "T," it might also be an interesting card for the 3D animation, motion graphics and video editing set. It costs less than half the price, and apart from graphics drivers and OpenGL (used in very few apps these days), should offer similar performance.

All that said, raw gaming speeds should be 10 to 20 percent better than the RTX 2080 Ti. And unlike the $3,000 Titan V -- which used pricey HBM2 memory and had an awkward relation to other GeForce cards -- the Titan RTX closely resembles its gaming-oriented RTX siblings. So, expect this to be a card that will be purchased by certain types of gamers for whom the $1,200 RTX 2080 Ti just won't do.

NVIDIA Titan RTX graphics cards