Carl Weinschenk

The Federal Drug Administration is in the process of expediting the approval process for digital health devices. Two important milestones were the release of the Digital Health Action Plan and the “Software Precertification (PreCert) Pilot Program,” which is a key element of the overall initiative. The goal is to transition approaches traditionally used for hardware-based […]

It is nearly impossible to overestimate the potential benefits that the Internet of Things (IoT) offers. There is another thing that is just as difficult to overestimate: The challenges the IoT presents to network engineers, planners and the organization for which they work. Two interrelated problems are high on the list of roadblocks for the […]

Technical innovations are known and understood by experts long before they become official. So, in a sense, it is no surprise that the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) has ratified the first 5G New Radio (NR) standard. It is news, however. The spec is important both as a milestone and what it makes possible. NSA […]

In general, complexity is bad. In the world of wireless networking, however, at least one type of complexity has an upside. It is a byproduct of the fact that there are an increasing number of choices. Each of these options offers unique advantages for a particular set of use cases. Many of these are from […]

The standards for 5G are well on their way to being established and the public is increasingly aware of and awaiting the technology. The sector is now focusing on actual deployment details. 5G will require a tremendous increase in base stations. This process, called densification, raises a challenge. The base stations that will be used […]

In mid-2015, Google search requests from mobile devices passed those from desktops. About a year later, Google said that it was testing mobile-first indexing. It was a bit of a no-brainer: Since mobile searches predominate, it makes sense to prioritize search approaches that work best for tablets and smartphones. The project is ongoing and the […]

One of the most frightening of the many scary things in the modern world of telecommunications and IT is the infiltration of critical infrastructure (CI) by hackers. An attack on high-level industrial systems was reported last week. In an advisory issued on Thursday, security firm FireEye said that malware was found that aims to “manipulate […]

Don’t be fooled by those who say that net neutrality stood in the way of investment. Removing it was about control, not money. This is how Stuart Carlaw, the chief research officer at ABI Research, put it in a press statement after the vote: The repeal of the net neutrality legislation will enable the communications […]

For years, a chronic complaint in the aftermath of natural or man-made disasters was that communications crashed. Time and again, fragile infrastructure simply couldn’t deal with the sudden onslaught of traffic. This often kept first responders from using the network. The September 11 attacks were the straw that broke the camel of inaction’s back. The […]

The nascent world of 5G is filled with cutting edge concepts and new technology. Much has been said about what the industry is trying to create and its promise. Comparatively little has been said, however, about how they plan to use test and measurement (T&M) to develop equipment and keep it all up and running […]

The smartphone started as a consumer device and gradually worked its way into the enterprise through informal use. It was gradually adopted either as bring your own device (BYOD) or through the use of company-owned phones. The same migration is happening for voice assistants such as Google Assistant, Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana and […]

The stunning capabilities of artificial intelligence (AI) may obscure the reality that we are only at the beginning of its evolution. It is bound to grow to be something that makes today’s capabilities look quaint. The Economist makes clear that the excitement no doubt will continue to build, painting the picture of an industry segment […]