Tis the season of 5G, the next-gen mobile data technology which promises to boost bandwidth and reduce latency. With 5G phones and networks slowly starting to become a reality, carriers would have you believe that the tech is going to radically change the world, and then some. But what does 5G actually mean for VR & AR?

As the cellular industry’s hottest new technology (and hopeful revenue driver), every stakeholder from cell phone makers to chip manufacturers is playing up 5G as the start of a revolutionary shift—and what better way to do so than to associate it with buzz-worthy technologies?

You can Google “5G” along with any other hot technology in the same query and you can find someone telling you that somehow and at some point 5G is going to revolutionize that thing. I’m not even joking. Let’s take a quick survey:

The list goes on and on, and it of course includes 5G + VR and 5G + AR, with terrible articles like this one that fundamentally butcher the relationship between the technologies with sentences like these:

AR and VR depend on decreased latency to run efficiently. The user experience will be amazing with a reduced lag time. With a better UX comes more opportunity. Telemedicine, virtual training environments for business and more will be the result.

In an effort to combat this hand-waving nonsense, let’s talk about what 5G could actually mean for VR and AR. The easy way to do that is to first understand what 5G actually brings to the table.

What Does 5G Mean For You

Quite simply: 5G promises greater bandwidth and lower latency than current mobile data connections offer. It also has the potential to make such high performance networks more accessible to more people.

Exactly how fast and what latency 5G will provide to individual end users won’t be clear until the technology is actually rolled out at scale, but mobile industry marketing would have you believe that 1Gbps download bandwidth and 1ms latency is possible.

To quickly put that into perspective, the average mobile and home connection speed in the US was 33Mbps and 112Mbps, respectively, in January 2019, according to internet metrics company Ookla. As for latency, 35ms for mobile and 5-15ms for home connections are common. Roughly speaking then, 5G could offer 30x and 9x the bandwidth of mobile and home connections, respectively, with 35x and 10x faster latency.

But what in the realm of VR and AR is actually enabled or enhanced with more bandwidth and less latency?

Immersive Video Streaming

Image courtesy NextVR

When it comes to streaming non-interactive 360 or 180 video content to VR and AR devices, one major misconception is that 5G’s low latency will be a huge benefit. In fact, the opposite is much more likely to be true—it’s 5G’s big bandwidth which opens the door to significantly improved quality which would not only improve the immersive video experience of today, but also offer a pathway for further growth as VR and AR displays become higher resolution.

The reason latency hardly matters for non-interactive streaming video content is that headtracking on VR and AR headsets is not coupled to the streaming latency. In most incarnations of 180 and 360 immersive streaming technology, the visual adjustments from the movement of the user’s head are processed locally on the device at a high rate, rather than sending the motion to some remote server and waiting to receiving an updated frame which corrects for head motion.

In fact, on today’s VR headsets you could be in the middle of watching a 360 video and then completely lose connection and the only impact would be that the video would freeze—moving your head would still respond just fine because the scene’s movement with regard to your head is processed right on the device.

There’s some nuance to this: some more sophisticated VR and AR streaming uses ‘view-dependent’ technology which optimizes the quality of the footage specifically in the area that you’re looking (in an effort to minimize the bandwidth bottleneck). High latency in this case could mean that if you turn your head quickly to a new part of the scene, you might notice that the video isn’t as sharp until the higher quality section of the video pops into view. In this case lower latency will make those transitions smoother, but it’s more of bonus than a radical shift in the experience.

When it comes to bandwidth however, 5G could significantly improve 180 and 360 video streaming quality. The most immersive footage—360 3D or full volumetric video—is also the most bandwidth intensive and is used sparingly today in a large part because most users don’t have sufficient connections to stream this kind of content in high quality.

Cloud-rendered VR and AR Gaming

Image courtesy Microsoft

When it comes to interactive VR content, 5G could make cloud-rendered VR and AR gaming possible, but this use-case is still largely hypothetical.

The pitch goes: users will own a simple inexpensive headset that streams high-end PC VR or AR graphics right from the cloud with no PC needed! It sounds amazing, but you aren’t going to see this happen until well after normal non-VR game streaming matures because VR demands significantly higher resolutions and lower latency than non-VR game streaming (which is still struggling to meet the performance needs of competitive gamers).

While latency isn’t really that important in the case of non-interactive video streaming, here it is crucial because what’s being rendered needs to change in real-time based on the actions of the user. So if 5G can truly offer up, let’s say realistically, 4ms or less latency, it really could unlock the cloud-rendered use-case of VR and AR.

But that’s a big if. Not because sub-4ms latency isn’t possible, but because you need that level of latency not just to your nearest connection in the network, but specifically to the location where your frames are being rendered.

If you run a network speed test right now, the test will very likely connect to a server that’s very close to you. Your latency is the round-trip time that it takes to get information to that server and back. If you test again and select a server that’s a few states over, you’ll find something very different. I just did this exercise and saw 10ms of latency to a server in my city and 35ms to a server that’s three states over.

This is to demonstrate that network latency increases as a function of your physical distance to the servers you are pinging. If you want to render VR and AR content in the cloud at low latency, the user needs to be physically close to the location where the frames are being rendered. This is much more difficult to achieve at scale because the frames of an interactive application have to be rendered on the fly.

When it comes to non-interactive video streaming, it’s relatively trivial to distribute the pre-rendered video files to servers across the globe ahead of time, and then serve them over the network as needed. Real-time rendering of VR content requires high-end GPU hardware in each data center from which cloud rendering would happen; each properly equipped data center can only deliver those frames with low enough latency to users who are within a certain physical distance.

That is to say that a single data center in the middle of the continental US, for instance, would have too much latency by the time it reaches the country’s coasts for a viable cloud-rendered experience. A distributed cluster of capable data centers (also known as ‘edge computing’) is the key to making this viable; 5G helps by expanding the ‘coverage’ of capable data centers by reducing latency, while high bandwidth makes greater quality imagery possible in this use-case (which will be increasingly important as the resolution of VR and AR devices increase).

Though it may take both 5G and edge computing to make this all possible, the good news is that cloud-rendered VR and AR services can piggyback off the same infrastructure that’s being deployed for non-VR game streaming services like Google’s Stadia and Microsoft’s xCloud.

Continued on Page 2: Telepresence and Remote Control »

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Ben is the world's most senior professional analyst solely dedicated to the XR industry, having founded Road to VR in 2011—a year before the Oculus Kickstarter sparked a resurgence that led to the modern XR landscape. He has authored more than 3,000 articles chronicling the evolution of the XR industry over more than a decade. With that unique perspective, Ben has been consistently recognized as one of the most influential voices in XR, giving keynotes and joining panel and podcast discussions at key industry events. He is a self-described "journalist and analyst, not evangelist."
  • JesuSaveSouls

    Jesusavesouls !

    • Trenix

      Can you stop being a mockery of the Christian religion? You’re not bringing awareness, you’re making people convert into Atheism.

    • Graham J ⭐️

      Jesus gobbles sausage

  • Graham J ⭐️

    Great article; nice to see some reality checking on 5G. I’m surprised you didn’t mention AR more though. While there’s probably even less reason to remotely render frames for AR than VR, it’ll likely be accessing large datasets such as point clouds. Also way more likely to be mobile.

    • dk

      fast internet connection for ar will be a must have if a lot of people want to see the same thing …especially when interacting with that thing ….like ar laser tag arena with 100 people with virtual obstacles and avatars and some skeleton npcs or whatever
      ….the old simple way with a few hololenses was one hololens is like the server coordinating everything and a few can join in with interactive app

      • Graham J ⭐️

        That’s a great point. If multiple people see an overlay at a static position then the latency of the apperence of the overlay would be the server to observer latency. But worse, if the overlay is over a remotely tracked object (like another user) there would be additional positional latency.

    • Andres Velasco

      Here a building burnt killing 75 people triggered by 5G

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igFNYM8RWZU

      • Graham J ⭐️

        That was caused by a kitchen fire and spread because of lax laws around building cladding. And it was in 2017. You’re a gullible fool.

        • Andres Velasco

          Yes it was aluminum. High frequencies and metals don’t do too well together on some scenarios or so that are the discussion. Lol. You are an absolutist. Dont be so obtuse

          • Graham J ⭐️

            Is that what the nutters are saying, that signals from a transmitter on top of the building interacted with aluminum in someone’s kitchen, starting a fire? And you believe that? lol

  • Andres Velasco

    I will stay away from 5G, but will pay attention how it’s used

    • bud01

      We are not going to be able to,

      Its been worked on for more than a decade yet there is not one serious study showing it is safe and in fact all public studys before the FCC clamped down on it being open to question showed it caused major and minor health concerns, it effects the blood brain barrier, it is bio active, ionizing, huge impact on the Circadian rhythm.

      See : https://www.theepochtimes.com/5g-is-the-stupidest-idea-in-the-history-of-the-world-says-professor-emeritus-from-wsu_2882838.html

      We are made of cells each which vibrate, any and all EMF cause stress and deplete reserves of vitality (if not worse, dna damage, mutations etc).

      Man needs both the benefits of 4G/5g but less of the downside related to mass EMF around what is organic material.

      Common sense comes into it at some point.

      Have consideration for both the technology, what it is doing and how it is doing it, and also have compassion consideration of what we are made of.

      5G Is The ‘Stupidest Idea’ in the History of the World, Says Professor Emeritus From WSU, there is a global army of scientists going crazy about this topic.

      If you listen to some one discuss this topic that knows it well, it is an open and shut case this could or should in no way be deployed.

      There needs to be a consideration of mass clothing availability for EMF shielding this was discussed here a littlle:
      https://www.coasttocoastam.com/show/2019/09/19

      Its getting rolled out regardless, even if gxd said to stop.

      4g doubled the myopia rate in children lets see if 5g can quadruple it

      Google keyword: Myopia increase in children

      You put a RX TX high powered Microwave transmitter by your eyes balls, sure there is no impact… this is what an entire generation behave as if, including getting into “trains” / “faraday cages” and stream content on mass, 10,20,30 units a train or more with all the considerations around harmonics, hot spots, totally no place…

      Its amusing as a previous radio engineer to see,
      At the very minimum you are mass dull the well being and vitality of a generation.

      Humanity and its technology’s are still evolving, this is very raw crude, like going back to Victorian hospital and watching the doctors working.

      • Jistuce

        You’re quoting some wild anti-science nonsense. Hell, your linked article calls cell phones “radioactive” in the opening sentence. It also swaps around between “proven harmful” and “never tested on humans” depending entirely on which stance is more supportive of the argument it is making. And uses the phrase “EMR poisoning”, which is a bad joke(poisons are chemical compounds. It is why people exposed to high levels of particle radiation have “radiation sickness” and not “radiation poisoning”).

        “4G” had no effect on myopia, and if you want to claim otherwise, you need to find a plausible mechanism by which 700-2100 MHz radio waves can cause nearsightedness as well as an explanation for why it only happens when using 4G data encoding(as the frequencies have been in widespread use for a long time).

        Also, cell phones are not high-power microwave transmitters. They are, in fact, quite low-power radio transmitters.

        • bud01

          See:
          CDPH – How to Reduce Exposure to Radiofrequency Energy from Cell Phones

          Google keywords:
          Prominent scientists warn that 5G could pose health hazards

          Enjoy the rest of your day.

          • aasdfa

            you can google ANY keywords and find crap articles supporting whatever you typed in. shit some are auto-generated….

            this is why anti-vaxing is a thing. Just because someone put it on a website doesnt make it true.

            Enjoy the rest of your life being insanely gullible to the point of destruction.

          • bud01

            Keyword
            The inconvenient truth about cancer and mobile phones.
            (Guardian)
            See
            Petition :26,000 scientists oppose 5g roll out.

            Just because some thing is available does not make it safe,

            Cars contaminate air which you walk by, this was and is insanity.

            Aspartame is in the food chain, a known neurotoxinL.
            tobacco has several unhealthy additives.

            When the guy pushing for Galaxion looks at something sideways that is tech related, best to ask questions as an open cup.

            Measure twice cut once, don’t cut once then measure.

            Health implications or concerns no place in the progression of this is a finger print clue of pro / negative .

            Do your own research.

          • care package

            Just because someone put it on a website doesn’t make it untrue either.

          • Jistuce

            Which is why one must read with a critical eye.

            (The anti-vaccination crap is exceptionally galling, since it is literally killing people.)

          • care package

            Everyone thinks they read with a critical eye, yet we all disagree. Why? Because no one gets past their bias, or what they want to believe. You either have a love for truth or you don’t. Most don’t.

          • care package

            Anti-vacc’ers don’t have a problem with the vaccination. They have a problem with the toxic shit in them like the mercury. Supposedly they don’t use mercury any more in reg vaccs, but flu shots still do. You couldn’t pay me to take a flu shot. That whole thing is nothing but a con. I go years without getting sick, and the flushots are ineffective by the time they are released because what is going around isn’t that any more.

          • Jistuce

            Right. Sure. Uh-huh.

          • care package
          • Jistuce

            For godssake, the whole vaccine-autism link was fabricated by a known con-man who used it as leverage to scam people out of large sums of money, and has done massive amounts of harm to the world through outbreaks of diseases that were once virtually extinct.
            And the producer of this video is the PR guy for the snake-oil thief responsible.

            Vaccines do not cause autism, but measles causes death. And ignorant tools like you are the only reason measles exists in the US. You’ve set public health back an entire goddamned century with your anti-science scaremongering. Politely fuck off and go to hell.

          • care package

            lol I love it when humanist tools try and play the science card with no clue as usual. You don’t know the world you live in.

          • Jistuce

            I know that we don’t live in a just world because if we did, that asshat would be in prison for manslaughter.

          • care package

            You’re a typical extremist liberal. Justice should fall on everyone else but me, except in your case it’s death to all who don’t agree with me.

          • Jistuce

            No, I just think that when you conspired to murder children, you should go to prison, not get rich.

          • care package

            I’m supposed to believe you care about children now. Let me guess, you support abortion at the same time am I right?

          • Jistuce

            I find abortion to be a rather complex issue that can’t readily be boiled down to a binary yes or no response. As you would expect from my extremist liberal humanist background. I am, however, 100% against post-term abortions.

            You’re making an awful lot of assumptions about my beliefs based on the documented facts that 1. all evidence that vaccines cause autism was manufactured of whole cloth, 2. measles and polio kill children, and 3. a significant rise in both measles and polio worldwide can be attributed to the antivax movement that this asshole started and continues to fan the flames of.

            And also the documented fact that 5G uses the same radio frequencies at the same power levels as 4G before it and 3G before that and thus CANNOT cause health issues that were not already blatantly evident(which is, you may recall, how this whole thing started months ago).

            I’m very sorry that an ability to look up readily-available facts offends your crazy conspiracy theory sentiments, but maybe you should figure out why facts stand in direct opposition to them instead of calling names. (Hint: They don’t align with facts because they are not rooted in reality and were sold to you by snake-oil peddlers.)

          • care package

            lolz. Great attempt at trying to smooth it over. Like I said, you don’t know the world you live in, with great faith in men.

          • Jistuce

            As was covered waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back at the beginning of this idiocy, the 5G the world is getting is the same spectrum as 4G, and 3G. And is in the same frequency range as communication satellites have been shooting through us for as long as there have BEEN communication satellites.

            Yes, microwaves pass through the blood-brain barrier. They also pass through bone. In fact, they pass right through every part of the human body mostly unimpeded.
            Just like every other frequency of radio wave. It is the reason your cellphone still works while you’re holding it, and why a Walkman in your pocket didn’t cut out when you were between it and the broadcast tower.
            Just because a radio wave can touch your insides doesn’t mean it can MANIPULATE your insides. They’re very low-energy photons.

            I don’t know what you think I’m trying to smooth over, because I’m really not trying to smooth anything over. I just think you’re an ignorant twit armed with a lot of conspiracy theories and pseudoscientific bullshit who for some reason keeps coming back to annoy me month after month. Also that you’re a shill for a disgusting monster that murders children, but whatever.
            But that you think there’s actually a raygun that puts voices in people’s heads is just so preciously stupid that I’m going to laugh at you with open mockery instead of thinly-veiled mockery.

          • care package
          • Jistuce

            *sigh*
            I don’t have the patience for your insane gibbering anymore. Congratulations, after A HALF A YEAR of pestering me, you’ve become the first and only resident of my block list.

          • care package

            Waaa…pussy.

          • care package
          • Jistuce

            O NOES 5G CAUSED TEH CORVID-19!

          • care package

            You’re a humanist with great faith in men is what it all boils down to. I just linked videos is all. Whether I agree with them or not I didn’t comment. The real war going on is a spiritual one. Like I said before, you have no clue of the world you live in. Spoiler alert: The Star Trek Socialist utopia is not coming.

          • Jistuce

            No, let’s be clear here. You aren’t linking videos you don’t agree with or are uninterested in. You also haven’t been relevant to the discussion for a while.
            You “just linked videos” by a known con-man who trades on fear and ignorance and has built his fortune on the CORPSES OF CHILDREN. You are doing nothing more than advertising for a CHILD MURDERER.

            Men like him are one of the reasons a Star Trek utopia can’t exist. They are also a large part of why I DON’T have great faith in men. And men like you who lick the boots of monsters like him are little better.

            In point of fact, since you keep bringing up Star Trek, Gene Roddenberry believed that in the future, it would be literally impossible for men like him to exist, because humanity as a whole was fundamentally and unalterably good. Gene Roddenberry was very naive, but he had a beautiful dream.

            I do find it interesting that you think “actually knows some facts and has the ability to do research” is directly equivalent to “naive head-in-the-clouds idealist”

        • care package

          Just as there is always someone non trusting, on the other side of the coin you’ve the complacent humanists that refuse to think anything other than the Star Trek utopia is slowly on it’s way.

          • Jistuce

            There’s a difference between thinking that everything and everyone is inherently good, and thinking that crank pseudoscience should be pointed out for the snake oil that it is.

            I can very confidently say that 4G did not cause myopia, there is no such thing as EMR poisoning, and cellphones are not high-power transmitters of ANYTHING without also being naive and trusting of everything with the word science attached to it.

          • care package

            Sounds like you are just talking out your ass really. This isn’t about 4G.

          • Jistuce

            In part it is. I was replying to a post ranting, among other things, how 4G made kids go blind(but 3G didn’t, despite existing at the same power level and frequency).
            And half of 5G(the half you’re going to see in the wild) is on the same frequencies as 4G, so anything applying to 4G also applies to that.

        • Jonathan Winters III

          Jistuce, report back to us when you get cancer in a few years, and start thinking about “why”.

          • Jistuce

            If I were going to rapidly develop cancer from radio exposure in the 700-2100 MHz range, it would’ve already happened. In fact, humanity would be DEAD from cancer, as that range has been saturated for several decades now. Cell phone frequencies have not changed since the rise OF the cell phone, and exist in the same region as FM radio and analog television(to say nothing of communication satellites and WiFi).

            In point of fact, any cell-phone frequency exposure that showed any sort of mutations in less than ten years would not be the stuff of conspiracy theories and questionable pseudo-science. It would be blatantly obvious, and an epidemic of catastrophic proportions.

            My potential future cancer is far more likely to be due to second-hand tobacco smoke, hooray for having a lot of family members that smoked like chimneys. But tobacco-related cancer has a lead time of decades, not months.

            And I stand by my statement that 4G data encoding is not biologically different than 3G data encoding on the same frequency radio waves at the same power levels(and power levels are capped by legal regulation in my country, as well as most others).

            Unless you can propose a mechanism by which data encoding affects biological activity, you can stop lobbing your pseudo-science scare spiels at me. And if you CAN propose such a mechanism, you probably should find somewhere more productive to demonstrate it than internet comment threads

        • Harry

          Bro I can understand you. It’s hard to explain something technical to someone with no common sense

      • MasterElwood

        Troll or idiot? Hmmm… Well – doesn’t matter. Blocked.

        • bud01

          From the generation that will have the major buying power in the worlds markets in five years reading this is scary.

      • Andres Velasco

        Yes, I agree with you. Most people that down vote the dangers are people that are mainly on their selfish desires for gaining some form of benefit, while disregarding any dangers

        • bud01

          Actually that’s not the case, its the opposite. The leaders in insurance and leaders in telecoms at the European and American fund level are asking a lot of questions, there are a lot of quality people out there, you would be surprised, they are informed and when they are not they know it and are proactive in reaching out for correct information from ALL source not just BB FT, Reuters .

          Insurance people in particular are a little worried to the point of just laughing about it as unbelievable with a fearful look on their face, dear in the headlights. BIAS or preference means little when professionals look at some thing and high quality choice has to be made.

          The ideal would be roll out 5g, stuff like IOTA, whole internet up to ipng (v6) man kinds progress at accelerated pace since it was stunted, but if people start getting massively impacted, not just blurry eyes, dulled sense of well being, mental focus, slight impact on cellular vitality, but actual full bore major health impacts which are directly measurable. That’s not going to work, the internet enables mass information sharing and communication, 5G already has a red flag over it, the data is going to be being watched closely, you tube will exploded with a million videos, face book,

          People like to go strong both directions of like recommend and other side of the stick.

          With are beings which are electrical first then chemical.

          If 5G has to roll out it has to roll out end of story, but people will need options to alleviate or remove any major or minor irritation.

        • Graham J ⭐️

          And then there are people who actually understand the science and form their worldview based on evidence instead of crackpot theories.

          You don’t know “most people”.

      • care package

        Were all f’d with out without 5G.

        • Graham J ⭐️

          Welp, might as well kill yourself then.

          • care package

            Great Idea Graham, but not my life to take.

          • Graham J ⭐️

            Oh I see, you’re a god nutter. Figures.

          • care package

            Oh I see, you’re a god hater. Explains why you love death, and a wanna-be know it all. Figures.

          • Graham J ⭐️

            I cannot hate something that does not exist.

          • care package

            Your belief has no effect on reality nor will it save you from eternal hell. Life coming from nothing/no life is whats never existed. Everyone knows life is a creation. Some just choose to be in denial. If one could not hate what they don’t believe in, then anti-theists pretending to be atheists wouldn’t exist.

          • Graham J ⭐️

            No one’s beliefs have any effect on reality; why would they? Life formed because conditions were amenable to it but that is irrelevant because the universe existed for billions of years before that. Some choose to make up reasons for the universe being the way it is but rational people follow the evidence.

          • care package

            Your rational, just ask you lol. Nice job preaching your belief system/religion there though. There is no evidence the earth is billions of years old, nor is there regarding your fantasy ‘life formed because conditions were amenable to it’. That takes more faith than believing life was a creation.

          • Graham J ⭐️

            Of course there is evidence. Learn science. You’re the one preaching a belief system.

          • care package

            Love it when evo’s just play the ‘science’ card. Evolution has nothing to do with science. Science is observational, and as far as the ‘science’ behind ‘billions of years’ radio dating methods are all extremely flawed. Results are always all over the place and the preferred one is cherry picked. Science is also repeatable, which radio dating is too inconsistent to be reliable. Its still all pushed because most in this world hate truth.
            As far as preaching hell yes I am, and so does every evo proclaiming their faith.

          • Graham J ⭐️

            Who said anything about radioisotope dating? Although I love the irony of someone who believes the universe was created by some magical sky being complaining about the accuracy of measurement tools, all one needs is a telescope. Or do you not believe in refractive optics or the speed of light either?

            Science isn’t a card, it’s the study of reality. I guess it’s no surprise you don’t understand it.

          • care package

            I said something about radioisotope dating, or did you not catch that. I brought it up because that’s what evo’s use for billions of years, and their best argument for evolution is homology. Of course you finish with an “i just don’t understand it’ jab. So far, all you’ve done is express your opinions and preached your religion offering zero actual insight. good job.

          • Graham J ⭐️

            No one uses dating to determine the age of the universe. You’re on crack. And you don’t understand science.

          • care package

            While you fail to offer any insight still, and continue to make claims. Go ahead then Graham. How do they determine it then.

          • Graham J ⭐️

            So let’s get this straight. You believe that some magical being snapped its fingers and created the universe, waited ~13.7 billion years for it to gel and expand, then snapped its fingers again to put all life on Earth as it is today.

            And you think that is easier to believe than life coalesced from the same processes that created the mind bogglingly vast array of celestial phenomena we we can easily see with a telescope?

            We know how galaxies form. We know how stars are born. We how how planets are formed. We know the components that make up life. We’ve found remains and DNA all up the homonid chain. Why would you choose to believe in fairies rather than the awesome complexity of reality?

            You insult the struggle of humanity by attributing to myth that which we have observed, considered and measured for millennia.

            When we first crawled out of caves and looked at the stars we made up stories because we could not comprehend them.

            Now we can.

            Evolve your beliefs.

          • care package

            Easier to believe life is a creation than believe life came from no life, and genetics somehow all arranged itself intelligently, without any intelligence whatsoever, yes. What can be observed today is life only comes from life, and genetics don’t build up on itself by itself. It certainly decays though.

            “We” don’t know jack. Your relating complete conjecture with ‘knowing’. We’ve never witnessed a star being born or a planet being formed. No human/ape hybrids have ever been found. You’re the one on crack buddy. Good job preaching your belief system again. Don’t hold your breath for that Star Trek godless socialist utopia. You don’t know the world you live in, but you’re going to soon find out.

          • Graham J ⭐️

            We do know. It’s hilarious that you would use a computer – something that can only exist due to scientific discovery, observation and application – to hand-wave away all human knowledge.

            We have probes on other planets. We can and have verified our theories about planet formation. We can look out at the universe and use what we see to verify our theories about out there, too.

            You have been brainwashed to disbelieve that which can be seen.

            I do know the World I live in, as best I can. You deny the truth.

          • care package

            Oh btw, I let the author know you think he’s on crack

            https://www.livescience.com/32321-how-is-earths-age-calculated.html

          • Graham J ⭐️

            News flash: the Earth is not the same age as the universe. We’re talking about the age of the universe, which we can measure, remember? Try to follow along.

  • Immersive Computing

    This graph from Sridhar Sunkara at Ebiz demonstrate cloud computing very well; the take away is that laptops, smartphones, iot sensors, etc. are the Edge layer.

    One possible future is a move to “home hub” local compute (think Nas with AI) operating your IOT home infrastructure and acting as your Edge layer.

    Security, power, heating, water, internet, media server and serving high bandwidth low latency immersive computing content through 5G across your premises – removing need for PC, console, etc. in each room.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f4f3eb0e0fa70b08fd4fc0b7590bf17291c2a4c9e4ee0e4a3b11481fbc97c2ce.png

    • Graham J ⭐️

      That’s not what edge means.

  • Miguel Arjona Villanueva

    Nice article but I have to disagree in one point regarding Cloud Rendering. Your are right when you say that latency increases with the distance, but alternatively you can use Edge Computing (or you will) to ensure that latency from the sever is less than 10ms (should be enough). We have demonstrated it in the last Vodafone 5G European Forum trasmittting a high quality of digital twin of a real factory in real time from the Edge through 5G to an Oculus Quest headset

    • benz145

      Edge computing and 5G go hand-in-hand:

      That is to say that a single data center in the middle of the continental US, for instance, would have too much latency by the time it reaches the country’s coasts for a viable cloud-rendered experience experience. A distributed cluster of capable data centers (also known as ‘edge computing’) is the key to making this viable; 5G helps by expanding the ‘coverage’ of capable data centers by reducing latency, while high bandwidth makes greater quality imagery possible in this use-case (which will be increasingly important as the resolution of VR and AR devices increase).

    • Larry

      AFAIK there are zero real world 5G tests showing sub 15 ms latency.
      All of the real world tests show 20 to 30 ms which is far too slow for
      VR. 4G latency in the US is 40 to 60 ms, it’s impressive they managed to
      cut that in half.

      Yes, there are lots of demonstrations and lab experiments with low latency 5G, but that’s not the real world.

      If you have data showing real world tests, please post it.

      • Miguel Arjona Villanueva

        Using Edge Computing the XR Rendering Server is installed a close as possible to the final user (even a few kilometers) so you can get latencies under 10 ms. Of couse, Edge Computing from Teclco is under development but the tests in real environment shows that it is (or will be) possible. In the image you can see a digital twin of a factory sent to an Oculus Quest with the same quality than HTC Vive using 5G https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8b01a6c6b5a6815c1bee35becc655eba4ffec4aaff83ddfa53ab201edf51ac48.png

        • Larry

          Like I said, that’s a very nice demo. Nobody is going to finance and build and operate billions of dollars worth of edge computing hardware for a very small market of a few million VR users.

          • Miguel Arjona Villanueva

            Maybe NVDIA in thinking on it: NVIDIA CloudXR (in Cloud but applicable to Edge)

  • Larry

    Real world latency testing on 5G is showing 20 to 30ms. Better than the 40 to 60ms typical in US cities but nowhere near as fast as claimed (not a surprise) and obviously far too slow round trip times for any VR application or edge rendering. The claims of sub 5ms latency on 5G are just fantasy.

    As the article says, the idea of VR + 5G is mostly overhyped marketing. VR has enough challenges without being lumped in with 5G.

    • benz145

      It depends what you’re testing. The super low latency claims are to the ‘edge’ of the network (the nearest node). That’s why edge computing is such a key part of making this possible.

      • Larry

        Yes, that’s the vision Intel pushed when they were in the 5G space. What they don’t say is that deploying that level of computing to the ‘edge’ will cost many billions and require data centers everywhere. It’s also completely backwards to the current model of data centers which is to put them centrally where power and real estate is cheap. VR itself is niche enough with only a few million users, no company is willing to invest billions in edge rendering on the very small chance that this will suddenly appeal to consumers. If VR was so compelling, more people would be buying the Quest etc.

        • benz145

          Yup, that’s a central point here; edge computing is necessary and the economics need to make sense too. Granted, it looks like there’s a lot of money being poured into non-VR game streaming services, and these will need to make use of edge computing too if they’re going to take off with hardcore gamers; VR and AR cloud-rendering will likely benefit from those investments.

      • Baldrickk

        When Steam link over local wired gigabit at only 1080p isn’t fast enough to not overcorrect in flat screen racing games, there’s no way an internet based streaming service is ever going to be low latency enough to support VR.

        Just isn’t going to happen.

  • Rodgerroe

    Hyped for the wireless VR improvements 5G will bring. No way I’m putting up with a cable again.

  • dota

    It means this:
    u will be able to play games at very fast speed
    u will get very fast game streaming
    but
    at the same time it will cook ur brain & other organs till
    u become a zombie or cancer ridden

  • Jeremiah Tothenations

    If the UK goes with the Chinese variant of 5G then count me out.

  • Ardra Diva

    From what i’ve read WiGig is way more important in the short term. It has massive bandwidth but short range, but perfect for streaming from your PC.

  • ShaneMcGrath

    Look, No matter how much they want to sell and push this “cloud” anything, I don’t want it!
    Rather have it at home to use when I want.
    Just had ISP issues last week(yet again) no internet for 4 days,May as well have been the stone age,No online banking,No news,no nothing.

    90% of my games were unplayable, Luckily I still had some offline and GOG games to keep me going.
    Screw cloud gaming and subscription based gaming!