Happy New Year

Happy Solar New Year everyone!

No. we’re not back yet, but we will be soon!

Mele Kalikimaka

Merry Christmas to all. Our offices will be closed until

after Christmas.

AT&T 5G Network

Squeaking in just under the wire for its promised “end

of 2018” 5G network launch, AT&T said this morning that

its network is now live in parts of 12 cities across the

United States, with the first mobile 5G device arriving on

Friday, December 21.

According to an AT&T spokesperson, the company’s 5G

network is already up and running in parts of the previously

promised dozen cities: Atlanta, Charlotte, Dallas, Houston,

Indianapolis, Jacksonville, Louisville, Oklahoma City, New

Orleans, Raleigh, San Antonio, and Waco. However, the

first consumer device that will be able to access that network,

Netgear’s Nighthawk 5G Mobile Hotspot, will become

available just ahead of the Christmas holiday.

New Lenovo Phone

While Lenovo continues to push the Motorola brand in

the West, it's also been busy doing its own thing back in

China. Just last month, the company brought us the Z5

Pro all-screen slider phone which, to our surprise, packed

mid-tier specs to woo the budget-conscious consumers.

That's all well and good, but surely such a special form

factor deserves the best specs available, right? This is

where the new Z5 Pro GT comes in.

Announced at the Beijing event today, this new Android

phone comes loaded with up to 12GB of RAM -- a new

record for smartphones -- along with up to 512GB of storage.

It's also the second smartphone confirmed to feature

Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon 855 chipset, though unlike

OnePlus' yet-to-be-named flagship device, Lenovo's slider

won't be packing 5G radio.

Lay's Advent Calendar

Advent calendar season isn't over yet—while most brands

drop theirs in October or November (looking at you,

Reese's and Bonne Maman) Lay's just entered the game

with a 12-day, potato chip-filled version of their own. Called

the "12 Days of Flavors" Countdown Calendar, it makes you

work for those snacks. Kind of.

There's a different bag of chips hiding behind each door, but

you can only unlock them by answering a series of riddles.

(Or you can just, you know, open the doors—they're cardboard.

But we're playing along here.) Some riddles are fairly obvious

("This 'mesquite-o' doesn't leave a bite..."), while others are a

bit more head-scratching ("A flavor that'll keep you warm

during the holidays" points to something spicy, for sure, but it

could be anything from Kettle-Cooked Jalepeno to Flamin'

Hot). There are even a few riddles written exclusively in emojis.

The limited-edition calendars aren't available in stores, but

Lay's is giving them away on Instagram (@lays) for free,

starting today. Just look out for the entry call on the Lay’s

InstaStory, submit a comment, and you have a shot. In other

Lay's news, the company is currently gauging public opinion

on both eggnog and gingerbread-flavored potato chips via

Instagram (so far, reactions are...mixed).

If sweet-filled advent calendars are more your thing, there are

still some options available. Bonne Maman's super popular

jam version is currently going for $59 on Amazon (up quite a

bit from its original $30 price tag) while Reese's has a month-

long calendar for $14 (getting caught up by eating two weeks'

worth of peanut butter cups is half the fun). Or, if you're a

coffee lover, you could pick up The Yawn Coffee Advent

Calendar from Yawn Coffee Co.—it comes packed with 24

different craft coffee sachets, each one containing exactly the

right amount of either ground or whole beans for one perfect

cup.

Apple to Get Around China Ban

Apple Inc, facing a court ban in China on some of its

iPhone models over alleged infringement of Qualcomm

Inc patents, said on Friday it will push software updates

to users in a bid to resolve potential issues.

Apple will carry out the software updates at the start of

next week “to address any possible concern about our

compliance with the order”, the firm said in a statement

sent to Reuters.

Earlier this week, Qualcomm said a Chinese court had

ordered a ban on sales of some older iPhone models for

violating two of its patents, though intellectual property

lawyers said the ban would likely take time to enforce.

“Based on the iPhone models we offer today in China,

we believe we are in compliance,” Apple said.

“Early next week we will deliver a software update for

iPhone users in China addressing the minor functionality

of the two patents at issue in the case.”

In a statement, Qualcomm’s general counsel Don

Rosenberg said “Apple continues to disregard and violate

the Fuzhou court’s orders” despite the planned software

Changes.

“They are legally obligated to immediately cease sales,

offers for sale and importation of the devices identified in

the orders and to prove compliance in court,” he said in

the statement.

Smart Speaker Prices

Signs that Apple’s HomePod smart speaker has been

less than a blockbuster are increasing–and the market

for lower-priced smart speakers is expanding.

It’s gotten pretty easy to buy a HomePod for well under

the official $349 retail price. B&H Photo is selling it for

$250, a hundred-buck discount. So is Target, although

its website says the device is currently out of stock.

Best Buy has HomePods for $280.

It’s not just third-party retailers. Apple itself has been

sending promo codes out to Apple Music subscribers in

the U.K., offering a roughly 20% discount on a HomePod.

Google Apps

Google has recently removed 22 Android apps from the

Play Store. The apps were removed for abusing Android

devices to load and click on ads behind the users' backs.

The Google Play Store has been plagued by an adware

epidemic these past few months, as ZDNet detailed in a

previous article.

What made this particular Android adware campaign stand

out wasn't the fact that the infected apps clicked ads behind

users' backs, but the fact that the apps disguised the

Android device as an iPhone in the eyes of online

Advertisers.

The reason for this highly unusual behavior is that ad

networks value traffic from Apple devices more than

Android, Linux, or Windows. This particular adware

gang appears to have noticed this small detail and

reacted accordingly.

MSFT: We're Number Two

Microsoft has once again asserted that 1.5 billion PCs

around the world run on Windows.

It posts the figure in its newly updated Microsoft by the

Numbers website, which also shows off that Cortana has

been asked 18 billion questions, facts about the company's

artificial-intelligence activities, donations, and its carbon

Footprint.

The number is consistent with figures that Microsoft has

previously set out about Windows adoption. Apple has

about 1.3 billion active iOS devices, while Google reports

about two billion active Android devices.

Microsoft in July said just under 700 million PCs are running

Windows 10, up from 500 million in May. Last week, the

company boasted that more than half of Windows devices in

the enterprise are running Windows 10.

Alexa Update

In a big Alexa update today, Amazon doles out a ton of

new smarts for its voice assistant, including location-

based routines, reminders and discovery; Wait Actions

and more controls over timers; app notifications; and the

ability to read and summarize your email vocally with

voice-to-text replies.

For instance, you can now set up routines and reminders

that trigger when you enter or leave an area. When you're

out of reach of your smart speaker, it will send a notification

via the Alexa app. It can also use your location to find and

call nearby businesses.

Time-based capabilities in routines introduce Wait Actions --

for example, a Night routine of  "Alexa, turn off the lights 30

minutes after entering Do Not Disturb" -- oh, and there's now

a Do Not Disturb available within routines, too. You can set a

music sleep timer, and control all timers via voice (including

adding and subtracting time for an existing timer).

Samsung Driverless Technology

Samsung is collaborating with the Korea Transportation

Safety Authority (KOTSA) to develop mobile network

infrastructure for autonomous vehicles at the recently

opened K-City test facility.

K-City, for the uninitiated, is one of a number of “fake cities”

that have emerged as test beds for the latest smart city

technologies. Google parent company Alphabet last year

offered a glimpse into Castle, a key test hub for its driverless

car subsidiary, Waymo. Incidentally, Waymo launched its first

commercial self-driving car service in Phoenix just yesterday.

And Russia opened a tech-focused “town” called Innopolis

back in 2012, where Yandex recently kickstarted tests for its

autonomous taxis.

5G Not Ready For Prime time

This week has seen the hype for 5G, the creatively titled

successor to 4G mobile internet connectivity, go from a

simmer to a boil as Qualcomm, AT&T, Verizon, and

Samsung rattled off a series of launch plans for early

next year, while Apple was reported to be sitting out

the technology until at least 2020. As much as I love the

excitement surrounding the introduction of the new cellular

networking standard, I’m inclined to think that Apple has it

right: none of us should be factoring 5G into our phone

purchases in the coming year.

It’s not that 5G isn’t hugely promising. Samsung today

issued a press release saying it’s achieved a throughput

of 1.7Gbps with a combination of Verizon’s spectrum and

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X50 5G modem. That’s the best-

case scenario, but even Qualcomm’s real-world modeling

suggests a still-impressive jump to speeds of around 490

Mbps, an order of magnitude improvement from the 4G

LTE networks we have today that typically offer connections

of around 20Mbps to 50Mbps.

But pay attention to the circumstances here: both Samsung

and Qualcomm are telling us about their lab results. No

carrier or manufacturer is walking around cities with actual 5G

devices yet and giving us truly real-world measurements. At

Qualcomm’s big 5G get-together in Hawaii yesterday, my

colleague Sean Hollister was only shown one Samsung 5G

phone, which he wasn’t allowed to touch, a 5G Moto Mod,

and a couple of chunky 5G mobile hot spots, and none of

those devices exhibited speeds higher than 140Mbps.