The iPhone or Apple Watch could warn users of dangerous gases in the air or warn diabetics of high or low levels of blood sugar in the future, with Apple considering ways to add the ability for its mobile devices to "smell" the local environment, as well as to detect extremely fine dust particles or pollution.
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Scott Moritz (Bloomberg) -- Verizon Communications Inc., in a tight race with AT&T Inc. and Sprint Corp., has claimed bragging rights as the first U.S. carrier to offer fifth-generation mobile-phone service.
Starting Wednesday, Verizon customers with unlimited data plans in parts of Minneapolis and Chicago can get speeds of up to 1 gigabit per second on a limited number of phones for an extra $10 a month. The initial launch is part of a 30-city goal for 5G service this year.
Carriers are in a rush to sign up early adopters of the next-generation wireless technology. They eventually hope to hook consumers and businesses on a vast trove of new services, including home-TV service, connected appliances and self-driving cars, generating billions in new revenue.
The race has had some awkward moments. Lacking actual 5G phones, Verizon is only able to offer the service to customers who own a Motorola Z3 handset and pay $50 extra for a snap-on 5G module. Similarly, AT&T’s first 5G service was to hot-spot devices called pucks. And to confuse the issue, AT&T is calling its upgraded 4G service “5G E.” That claim was challenged in court by Sprint, which called it fake and deceptive.
Manufacturers including Motorola and Samsung Electronics Co. are expected to deliver more 5G phones later this year. Apple Inc. is sitting out the race this year and is expected to hold off on introducing a 5G iPhone until at least 2020.
The development of 5G has also been framed as a global battle for tech supremacy. President Donald Trump has viewed 5G expansion as a key technology arms race with China.
“Verizon customers will be the first in the world to have the power of 5G in their hands,” Chief Executive Officer Hans Vestberg said in a statement.
From precision GPS to batteries for one of the world’s first commercial all-electric airplanes, NASA technology turns up in nearly every corner of modern life. The latest edition of NASA’s Spinoff publication features dozens of commercial technologies that were developed or improved by the agency’s space program and benefit people everywhere.
“NASA works hard, not only to develop technology that pushes the boundaries of aeronautics and space exploration, but also to put those innovations into the hands of businesses and entrepreneurs who can turn them into solutions for challenges we all face here on Earth,” said Jim Reuter, acting associate administrator of the agency’s Space Technology Mission Directorate. “These are sometimes predictable, like the many NASA technologies now adopted by the burgeoning commercial space industry, but more often they appear in places that may seem unrelated, like hospitals, farms, factories and family rooms.”
In this issue of Spinoff, the agency shares new stories of how:
“A man’s life may have been saved by taking an Apple Watch ECG just days after the feature launched in Europe,” Sean Keach reports for The Sun. “An Apple Watch owner was reportedly able to detect signs of Atrial Fibrillation – a heart illness that can cause deadly strokes – using the gadget.”
“Dr Michael Spehr, of Germany’s FAZ newspaper, received an email from a reader explaining that the Apple Watch correctly alerted him to his previously undiscovered condition,” Keach reports. “In screenshots of the email, the customer explains that he initially thought the feature was ‘for hypochondriacs’ but decided to ‘try it out, just for fun.’ But the Apple Watch was ‘constantly’ reporting Atrial Fibrillation. ‘Never noticed anything before,’ the customer wrote. ‘Also a doctor friend said: do not worry, probably just a measurement error! But nevertheless I visited my physician, a 12-channel ECG was taken, the physician weighed his head deliberately and said: ‘The watch is right.” This allowed the doctor to prescribe beta blockers to the customer as a method of treating his AFib.”
Read more in the full article here.
