Rollable OLED’s Moment Is Near. Flexible smartphones and more

Good news, I suppose! So a smartphone morphes into a smart watch? Will they finally become a lot cheaper that is the question?

"The Mobile World Congress (MWC), a technology convention held each year in Barcelona, placed a spotlight on rollable phones like the Phantom Ultimate, a scroll-like concept from Tecno Mobile, and Motorola’s Adaptive Display Concept, a phone that can wrap around your wrist like a smartwatch. They were followed by a new patent filed by Samsung that hints at a future smartphone or tablet that rolls up like a newspaper [in the digital age ???]. ...
The Royole FlexPai, released in 2018, was the first smartphone with a foldable OLED display. It wasn’t well-received, however, and Samsung’s popular Galaxy Fold stole the spotlight. ...
The LG Signature Rollable OLED TV R, released in 2021, was the only consumer device to ever ship with a rollable OLED display. It was priced at US $100,000. ..."

Rollable OLED’s Moment Is Near - IEEE Spectrum Experts think flexible phones “could come up quick”

Motorola exhibited a concept rollable smartphone that wraps around the wrist and bends in multiple positions, at the Mobile World Congress 2024 in Barcelona

After Drones, Smartphone Apps Are Ukraine’s Next Secret Weapon

Good news! They say wars drive innovation feeding back into civilian life. We will learn more about in coming months!

"Ukraine vowed to become a fully digital country just months ahead of Russia’s full-scale invasion and has continued working towards that goal even as the war intensified. The Ministry of Digital Transformation led the way through its Diia mobile app portal, which now allows more than 21 million Ukrainians to access over 70 government services and to store and access 14 essential digital documents.

The same ministry, headed by Mykhailo Fedorov, has been the driving force behind a whole range of technological innovations. Its work on unmanned aerial, ground and seaborne vehicles – drones – has grabbed the headlines as they are considered to have transformed the way a modern war is fought.

Yet the work his ministry and others have done on mobile apps to support military functions, while much less sexy than drones that sink ships, are just as essential for the protection of the country.

Smart phones for smart air defense

One such area is the use of mobile phones and purpose-built apps to support the air defense effort to counter the ongoing onslaught against Ukraine’s cities and infrastructure by Russian missiles and kamikaze drones. ...

The project developers said the aim was to enlist “the entire population” in helping to spot incoming attacks in what he described as an example of “web-centric war.” As more users registered the aerial targets, an accurate track pattern could be compiled to warn Ukraine’s air defense to engage and destroy the target. ...
Without giving the details of the project, he revealed that it is based on an app that puts an acoustic sensor on the mobile phone. The data acquired by the phone is then fed into Ukraine’s “Virazh” national air defense command and control network, which combines input from around 40 separate kinds of sensors to detect, identify and track incoming aerial threats. ...

The basic idea is now being expanded both in scope and in the technology being used. The next generation system known as Zvook, which is being manufactured by Ukrainian firm Ajax Security Systems, will aim to deploy more than 12,000 sensors in the border regions of Ukraine on likely Russian missile approach routes.

Zvook will use micro-computers, rather than cell phones and is thought to be able to detect drones at a distance of 5 kilometers (3 miles), cruise missiles at 6 kilometers (4 miles), and ballistic missiles at 10 kilometers (6 miles). ..."

After Drones, Smartphone Apps Are Ukraine’s Next Secret Weapon

Turn the beat around: Sony brings 3D sound to livestreams

Sounds interesting! Will there soon also be a 3D hearing aid? 😊👂

"Popstar Hikaru Utada performs Jan. 19 at an online event that Sony bills as the world's first livestreaming to use full object-based spatial sound technology in real time. ..."

Turn the beat around: Sony brings 3D sound to livestreams - Nikkei Asia J-pop star's concert showcases new tech for smartphones and cars

Lessons from Digital India

Very recommendable! An amazing success story!

India, a sleeping giant awakens! India is catching up rapidly! What is truly amazing is how many Indian female professionals are involved and excelling in this digital technology and IT progress.

"Over the past five years, India has experienced an unusually rapid expansion of digital connectivity and access to services. This has had a positive impact on the inclusiveness of economic growth; on efficiency and productivity in retail, supply chains, and finance; and on entrepreneurial activity.
India’s engagement with digital technology dates to the late 1980s. Major investments in computer science and education were made under Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s administration (1984-89). And with the expansion of internet access in the 1990s, India became home to many major outsourcing companies in IT administration, business processes, and customer service. ...

Then, in 2010, when much of the country’s existing service offerings were still in 2G and 3G, IBSL, a small telecoms company, purchased spectrum in an auction that included rights to much faster 4G frequency bands. IBSL was then acquired by billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s energy conglomerate, Reliance Industries, which thus gained the 4G spectrum rights.

Over the next five years, the resulting new subsidiary, Reliance Jio, invested heavily in building the fiber-optic infrastructure to support broadband access and a national mobile-internet system. During this period, Reliance Jio was granted the right to use the same spectrum for voice services, in addition to data, allowing it to introduce highly affordable smartphones with extremely low-cost data plans. Reliance Jio mobile phones and voice and data services were launched in 2016.

The result was explosive growth in the number of Jio subscribers (which reached 400 million in 2020) and smartphone users across the country. Data costs in India went from being among the highest in the world to the lowest – from roughly $3.50 per gigabyte before Jio to less than $0.30 cents per GB after its entry and expansion. ..."

Lessons from Digital India by Michael Spence - Project Syndicate Over the past five years, India’s mobile-internet and digital-services ecosystem has grown rapidly, owing to the pioneering efforts of large private-sector players. Although this industry-led growth is somewhat unusual, it offers a model that could benefit other developing countries.