Las Vegas (United States) (AFP)
At the high mass of hi-tech gagdets in Las Vegas, 5G is on everyone's lips, but on very few devices. The Consumer Electronic Show (CES) will nevertheless bring fuel to the imagination, the new generation of mobile telephony having the potential to deeply modify our ways of circulating, producing or treating us.
Non-exhaustive inventory of current and future applications of 5G.
- Entertainment in mind -
Around the world, around twenty countries have deployed 5G networks, according to Qualcomm. The US chip maker estimates that 2.4 billion subscribers can theoretically use 5G, depending on where they are - and whether they have a suitable phone.
"Many 5G smartphones will be unveiled at CES, as well as laptops and tablets," said Mikako Kitagawa, analyst at Gartner. "But it may have to wait until spring or summer for them to be available."
Video game and series fans will be the first winners: downloading a 4K movie will take seconds, even without wifi.
"In the short term, videos will gain in resolution. Then 5G will create more immersive content. In the long term, it can help achieve holograms that will be more interactive," said Jefferson Wang, specialist in 5G at Accenture.
In South Korea, the most advanced country in the world using 5G, subscribers "can for example have a virtual meeting with a K-pop star (Korean pop, editor's note)", he mentions .
- No more nausea -
"5G is entering a commercial phase," said Steve Koenig, vice president of the Consumer Technology Association, which organizes the annual show. "There will be a lot of compatible devices, like augmented reality glasses."
Augmented reality, which consumes a lot of bandwidth, allows you to project images onto a real place, such as a virtual piece of furniture in your living room or makeup on your face, via a smartphone.
5G should also take off virtual reality (VR). So far, immersive headsets have not conquered mass consumption, especially because of their price and the problems of nausea.
"5G will reduce latency and therefore nausea, multiply the possibilities in terms of applications and allow the connection of several devices at the same time," said Wang.
But it will still be at least two years before these augmented or virtual realities take shape in our daily lives, according to experts.
- Health, mobility, data -
5G is the promise (or threat) of everything connected, with an explosion in the flow of data, in terms of volume and speed.
It should facilitate the development of driverless cars, which will be able to exchange data between them - and potentially with street furniture - without going through the servers.
SK Telecom, a South Korean operator, plans to present a mapping service to CES that collects and analyzes traffic information in real time, using sensors installed on cars. The goal is to build the infrastructure necessary for the proper functioning of autonomous cars in Seoul.
On the health side, "5G allows very sophisticated things, such as remote surgery, which requires very high speed and ultra low latency," said John Smee, vice president of Qualcomm responsible for 5G research.
"But we also see doctors with tablets and soon augmented reality to have all the information at hand when decisions have to be made. It's the best of both worlds," he adds.
- "Post-smartphone" world -
The Internet of Things is already materializing, but 5G must bring it another dimension. "We are going to witness a proliferation of connected devices, beyond the smartphone," predicts John Smee.
At CES, the Korean start-up Linkflow offers to test its latest "camera-collar", which allows you to film your vacation in 360 °, or even broadcast it live, via 5G.
Another exhibitor, Innowave, equipped its miniature tracker with a 5G chip, which can be used to "locate your car in the parking lot or your moving child".
According to Jefferson Wang, we are going to move from the era of convergence, where the smartphone serves as a computer as well as a music player, to that of divergence, where other connected objects and accessories keep us from constantly looking at it. screen in our hands.
"The smartphone will always be essential, but certain functions will be able to be extracted from it and embodied by new products," he analyzes. "They will take us to a post-smartphone world."
© 2020 AFP