Current cities are dominated by microcity clusters, defined as dense aggregations of economic and social life. There are nearly 13,000 active microcities around the world. While COVID-19 has exposed the vulnerability of these clusters, their role as engines of economic growth will remain unchallenged hotbeds for urban technology innovation and the focal points of urban living. 

The 5G smartphone market is now outperforming its predecessor generations on nearly every metric. Between the number of mobile devices, subscribers, and networks available at launch, 5G is the most accelerated mobile technology generation ever launched. Technical challenges, new features and functionalities, as well as new radio elements for supporting new radio bands and combinations will continue leading to substantial changes in the design of mobile devices. This complexity level is not just limited to the high end, as the availability of 5G smartphone models will become more diverse, brought to market quickly at a wide variety of price points, democratizing the 5G experience.

2021: Year of the Cold Chain

With COVID-19 vaccine production complete and distributors urgently looking for ways to transport it safely, all eyes are on the effectiveness of the cold chain. Early vaccine candidates require ultra-low temperatures, as much as -70 degrees Celsius©, or -94 degrees Fahrenheit. This is influenced by a lack of data storage specifications and shelf life for these new types of Messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines. The containers to store and transport them are not widely available and not required for common vaccines. Constant temperature control is needed E2E from the manufacturing site to the inoculation sites.

As we unfold what smarter connectivity looks like in the future, consider the following stats:

As the smartphone market continues its speedy transition to 5G, it becomes increasingly obvious that the design of Radio Frequency (RF) systems and the choice of appropriate RF Front End (RFFE) components will become key for Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) to differentiate their products.

Growth of the Internet of Things (IoT) Advanced Analytics Market is accelerating, due in no small part to the emergence of enterprise data as a major factor. Out-of-the-box and off-the-shelf machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) solutions are making it easier to process and transform data. In addition, vendors are now easing access to ML and AI toolsets by expanding availability through deployment options that include the edge, on-premises, cloud, Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). In just six years, the IoT ML and AI market is expected to grow from US$1.09 billion this year to US$10.6 billion in 2026.

The collection of data in digital mapping is done through several methods, among them: participatory mapping, image interpretation, and utilizing Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers. These large amounts of data require a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) platform to aggregate, display, visualize, and analyze. The APIs and SDKs (Software Development Kit) of these platforms provide developers with the flexibility to create their own maps and applications.