Carl Weinschenk

President Trump has elevated Ajit Pai from commissioner to Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). He will officially replace Tom Wheeler, who resigned as of the end of the Obama administration. Pai is the senior Republican FCC commissioner. Interestingly, he was appointed by Barack Obama in 2012. Pai was the most vocal opponent of […]

Infosys has released a large survey on the impact of artificial intelligence (AI). The major takeaway from the survey is that the companies that have enjoyed financial success recently are those likely to be ahead in AI deployment. The implication is that smart companies think that AI is a winner. The survey, Amplifying Human Potential: […]

A McKinsey Global Institute report on automation suggests that by 2055, about “half of all the activities people are paid to do in the world’s workforce could potentially be automated by adapting currently demonstrated technologies.” That, the report says, could save almost $16 trillion in wages. The report is food for thought for a wide […]

Biometrics is an increasingly valuable option for businesses. The advantage? No more reliance on the workforce to change the default or use easily compromised passwords, such as the employee’s birthdate or kids’ names. The heavy lifting isn’t done by employees; it is done by their bodies. It is a complex realm. Todd Thibodeaux provides a […]

2017 and Beyond: How Digital Innovation Will Impact the World The evolution of antenna technology is a significant enabler of the increasing speeds of LTE, nascent 5G networks, and the Internet of Things (IoT). Antennas, historically, have been passive, but no longer. Dermot O’Shea, the co-founder and joint CEO of antenna vendor Taoglas, has four […]

Today, the MulteFire Alliance released version 1.0 of its specification. The spec, according to the consortium’s press release, is based on Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) releases 13 and 14. Release 1.0 enables LTE to operate in unlicensed, shared spectrum. Essentially, as I wrote last week, there are two kinds of spectrum: licensed and unlicensed. […]

One of the many frightening cyber threats making headlines is the possibility that terrorists or an enemy nation will create chaos by cracking the industrial control system/ supervisory control and data acquisition (ICS/SCADA) systems that run utilities and other large infrastructure entities. This, of course, could be catastrophic. Richard Clarke, who was the U.S. National Coordinator […]

Enterprise Mobility Management Myth Busters: Users vs. IT Reality The most useful way to distinguish pieces of radio spectrum used for wireless communications is simply asking whether they are licensed or unlicensed. Licensed spectrum is leased from the government, which raises money through auctions. Unlicensed spectrum is free. That difference in cost has led to […]

The technology that is necessary to enable vehicles to sense what is around them and react quickly enough to amass a stellar (though not perfect) driving record is impressive. Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) is similar to radar. Radar, which was a potent tool in World War II, works by bouncing radio waves off an […]

One of the key techniques being developed for 5G is network slicing. Hopefully, the development path will lead to success, since it seems unlikely the heady promises of 5G can be delivered upon without it. Network slicing will enable the creation of completely independent virtual networks that sit side by side. The best way to […]

Ransomware: The Rising Face of Cybercrime Ransomware made a lot of (bad) news in 2016, and the year ahead is expected bring more of the same. The security sector is reeling as the year begins. Rick Orloff, the vice president, chief security officer and chief privacy officer at Code42, began a column by reciting the […]

AT&T is almost half way toward its goal of virtualizing 75 percent of its network by 2020. It software-enabled 34 percent of the AT&T network last year, according to Fierce Telecom. Chief Strategy Officer and Group Vice President John Donovan told attendees of the 2017 Internet, Media & Telecommunications Conference that the hardest part is […]