Martí Puig and Leonardi |
Barcelona (EFE).- After an edition in which the metaverse was on everyone’s lips, this year’s MWC brings new advances in 5G technology, artificial intelligence (AI) or extended reality (XR), that encompasses both augmented and virtual reality.
The MWC will continue to be known as Mobile for many years, but at this congress, mobile phones are giving more and more prominence to technologies that go beyond telephony. Proof of this is that more than half of the attendees, according to the organizers’ calculations, do not come from the world of mobile telephony.
The 2023 fair is held under the motto “Speed, unleashing tomorrow’s technology today” and brings visitors closer to the future of video games, the industry or mobility.
5G technology acceleration
5G technology, which minimizes latency -the time that passes between an action being carried out and it being broadcast-, is increasingly a reality rather than a promise: it is estimated, in fact, that these networks will serve a third of the world population by 2025.
5G is a transversal element of the congress, since innovations related to health, automotive, aviation, industry or the most cutting-edge video games already incorporate this technology, which allow the device in question to respond to user movements with a unusual immediacy. And this is only the beginning, since 6G is already knocking on the door.
The future of transportation
A few years ago it was unthinkable to find stands of the Vueling airline, the manufacturer of Segway scooters or cars of various kinds at the MWC among the most diverse exhibiting companies. But now that of mobility is one of the outstanding axes of the congress.
Proof of this is that one of the attractions of the fair is being able to examine the interior of a Hyperloop, the “high-speed transport of the future”, whether for passengers or cargo, inspired by the low-pressure tube system that in its day dreamed up by tycoon Elon Musk.
It is still an incipient project, which the HyperloopTT company is trying to develop, but, for now, it already has a movie interior designed by the students of Elisava from Barcelona.
Sports events for the blind
The French Orange presents among its innovations a device designed so that blind people can enjoy sporting events in their maximum splendor: it is a tablet with a magnetic disk that moves in the same way that a soccer ball does on the field , in such a way that it is enough for the user to keep his finger on the disc to know where the game takes place.
Still in the testing phase, the intention is for this technology to be a reality for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. When it is fully developed, the device will be able to report the most relevant situations in the match: goals, fouls or actions of danger will be accompanied by a vibration of the disc.
The first test has been carried out at the Orange Velodrome, the Olympique de Marseille stadium, thanks to 5G and cloud computing (edge computing), along with artificial intelligence cameras. The device can be used for any sport with a playing field, such as tennis or rugby.
Kayaking in Antarctica
References to the metaverse have decreased considerably – it has lost steam after Meta, the former Facebook, made its big bet on this technology last year – but virtual reality is still there.
The Taiwanese manufacturer HTC has given the metaverse a twist and has renamed it “viveverse”. At its stand you can test various video games that use this technology combined with extended reality (XR) glasses.
You can kill enemies as if you were playing Call of Duty, although in this case standing up from the chair and with a controller as a pistol; Or you can go kayaking in Antarctica, if you manage to coordinate the movement of the real oar with the one that your glasses draw between the blocks of ice.
An exoskeleton to walk again
The Barcelona start-up company Able Human Motion has designed a robotic exoskeleton -a sort of frame as a supplementary skeleton- to speed up the clinical rehabilitation of those who have stopped walking, whether due to an accident or other type of misfortune.
That is to say, it is placed around the legs and with a support for the back and makes it possible for those who are still in a wheelchair to walk again. Its promoters emphasize that it is lighter and more accessible than other solutions of this type, while explaining that it has a series of sensors and algorithms that offer more stability and safety when walking.
travel through smell
One of the main protagonists of the congress is the Mobile World Capital Barcelona Foundation, the public-private initiative that seeks to promote digitization in society based on the MWC experience.
Among the novelties that it will exhibit are the possibility of traveling through smell, since six scents recreated by the fragrance company Puig will transport them to emblematic places in Barcelona such as Park Güell, Santa Maria del Mar, Les Rambles, Petritxol street, the from Barceloneta or the Camp Nou.
And it is that the initiatives presented by this foundation are framed under the motto “Fell the Technology” (Feel the technology). In each experience, one of the senses predominates: in the case of taste, the journey to the metaverse is led by the Roca brothers.
