The New World Opened up by the 5th Generation Mobile Communication System (5G) - Making what is in the realm of imagination a reality

New iPhone products are announced every year. Although the technology used in smartphones has matured to the point where we no longer see amazing advancements compared to the past, I am sure that many people still look forward to these presentations every year. I am one of them, and I always get excited when the presentation is approaching, wondering what surprises are in store for me this year. (I am not an iPhone user, though.)

Looking back, on January 9, 2007, at the Macworld Conference & Expo 2007 keynote speech at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, Steve Jobs said
"Today, Apple is going to Today, Apple is going to reinvent the phone."
It has been more than 10 years since he announced the iPhone to a thunderous ovation from the audience.
True to his words, the iPhone and other smartphones quickly became popular around the world.

Even on a commuter train, if you look around you, you will see almost everyone with a smartphone in their hands.
Smartphone ownership in Japan has reached 56.8%. (As of 2016, from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications' "White Paper on Information and Communications, 2009 Edition")

I am ashamed to admit that when the iPhone was first announced, I felt that it would not be accepted in Japan.
At the time, cell phones, or "gara-kei" as they were called, were in their heyday, and exchanging email with a gara-kei was a common method of usage. Young people (especially high school girls) were typing text at breakneck speed using the numeric keypad on their mobile phones, and I felt that people accustomed to this kind of usage would not accept text input using a touch panel like the iPhone.
However, high school girls quickly became adept at using the touch panel for flick input, and inputting text at a speed no less fast than with a Galapagos. High school girls, you should be afraid of them.

From the first iPhone to the latest models, there are many features that have evolved, one of which is the camera function.
Even when visiting tourist spots, the number of people taking pictures with digital cameras has dwindled to a few, and most people are using smartphones.
In addition to improved pixel counts, some models are now equipped with dual or even triple cameras, which can be combined to take blurred background photos like SLR cameras, bright photos even in dark places, and optical zoom functions. Another advantage of taking pictures with a smartphone is the ability to upload pictures directly to social networking services.

The first cell phone with a camera was a Sharp handset released by J-Phone in November 2000. Although the pixel count was only 110,000, the so-called "Sha-Mail," or taking a picture with a cell phone and sending it as an attachment to an e-mail, exploded in popularity.

At that time, the electronics company I worked for was also developing solid-state imaging devices (CCDs) for cell phones.
This CCD had a structure that was not conducive to high pixel counts, but was advantageous in terms of miniaturization and power savings. The ability to reduce size and power consumption was a major advantage for use in cellular phones, and it was adopted in some cellular phones.

At the time, I had a chance to talk with the person in charge of CCD development, and I still remember his words well.
He said, "It is difficult to increase the pixel count of this CCD, but the number of pixels in a cellular phone camera will never exceed 1 million pixels. This is because the larger the pixel count, the larger the file size, which cannot be sent over the cell phone's communication line."
In reality, however, as you know, cameras in cell phones and smartphones are becoming increasingly pixel-intensive, and the new iPhone has a 12-megapixel camera. In addition, some models are now equipped with 40-megapixel cameras.
The person in charge of development I mentioned above is not an unpredictable person, but developers often focus only on the advantages of the products they are in charge of and fail to calmly judge the disadvantages, thus misjudging the world's trends. I had many such experiences when I was an engineer.

[Pixel count and memory capacity of smartphone cameras (iPhone case study)

Cell phone communication systems have changed from 2G in the era of the first iPhone to 3G, 4G, and now 5G (5th generation mobile communication system) is scheduled for commercialization in 2020.
5G will not only realize high-speed communication at 10Gbps, but also increase the number of terminals that can be connected simultaneously by more than 100 times and reduce latency (connection delay) to less than one-tenth. (See the table below [Comparison of 4G and 5G])

[Comparison of 4G and 5G]

This has led to high expectations for the advancement of IoT, telemedicine, and self-driving cars.
When applied to automatic translation, this technology is expected to dramatically improve the accuracy and speed of translation by providing a huge translation memory in the cloud and instant access to this memory to realize automatic translation that understands the context of the translation.

Japan has been repeatedly hit by natural disasters in recent years, such as Typhoon No. 21 and the massive earthquakes that hit the Kansai and Hokkaido regions.
Watching the news, we see foreign tourists stranded at airports and train stations, at a loss for what to do. What they are most worried about is not being able to obtain information in their native language.
If automatic translation functions evolve with 5G, this kind of anxiety will probably be eliminated.

When I was a child, there was an animated program called "Super Jetter" that I used to watch every week with great excitement. (It was broadcast from 1965 to 1966, so I guess I am getting old.)
) What I particularly remember is when Jetter called out to his wristwatch, "Meteor, come in! and an unmanned "Air Car" arrives. It was a dream at the time, but now it is technically feasible.
It is exciting to think what kind of products and services will be realized when 5G begins to spread in the future. I feel that there are truly infinite possibilities hidden in technology.

I will conclude by quoting the following words.

What is now proved was once imagined.
（What is now proved was once imagined.)
- William Blake (English Poet and artist, 1757 - 1827)