At Mobile World Congress, 6G and the Internet of the Senses Coexist with Outdated Designs and Ideas

Acceleration has been the most repeated concept in the pavilions of the Mobile World Congress, which took place this week in Barcelona, ​​with the participation of almost 90,000 people. Both large technology companies and governments or small businesses have repeated words from the semantic field of speed in their slogans. Everyone agrees that the digitization of the world must continue to accelerate.

That same month, a Chinese research group managed to send a terabyte of information in one second, breaking a record that would not last long. Asia, Europe and America are vying to be the first to move to the next gaming screen, ie 6G, the sixth generation of mobile connectivity. And for that they must generate persuasive speeches, good brands.

It is the basis of the collective faith that animates the sector. The energy that propels the future. This makes 6G more and more credible, even if 5G is not yet fully deployed and the only truly global structure is 4G. Most likely 6G will arrive at the end of the decade, but at this MWC it has already been a common currency. Because language generates reality if it accelerates economically, socially and technologically.

Henry Jenkins popularized the idea of ​​media convergence at the beginning of this century. Content travels through multiple channels, asserted the transmedia theorist, with the aim of converging in the consciousness of the viewer or reader or consumer. The competition is fierce. The same is true on a simultaneous plane: that of metaphorical convergence. It is necessary to impose at all costs certain brands, certain memes: the keywords that decide the power of a trend. Your success rate as possible reality.

Some of the most powerful metaphors were circulating at this year’s MWC, as well as 6G. metaverse. Cloud. Industry 4.0. The most poetic of all is the internet of the senses. After the connection of all things, the network of networks aspires to connect us sensorially with machines, with artificial intelligence and with other humans – through them. Many booths showcased devices that could not only see (with increasingly less cumbersome glasses) and hear (including immersive voices, like those from Nokia), but also feel touch on the hands, wrists or chest (through vests).

as he says Oscar Pena In metaverses. The great immersive revolution: among the new human-machine interfaces will be “body measurement sensors, neural implants, haptic devices, clothing made with new conductive materials”. At the congress, you could see, for example, bracelets that use electromyography to translate electrical signals generated by the body into commands. Uses range from surgery to video games. Or the kisses.

If this was the most theoretical edition of the MWC, as the experts say, I am not surprised that in the immersive installation of the spectacular Ericsson pavilion the concept of cyberphysical continuum. The more data that can flow in less time, the smoother the coexistence and interaction between physical bodies and virtual avatars will be. The constant transition between real and simulated environments. At the same table in a meeting or in the same classroom in a class, remote and on-site participants will be confused.

For this, a deployment of home automation is necessary, the center of which is the mobile or cellular telephone (remote control, cluster of sensors, communication node, self-control center). Sonsoles Hernandez Barbosa studied in his very interesting essay excited lives. Sensoriality and capitalism in modern culture how in the 19th century the wall clock, automatons, mechanical pianos, mechanical toys or music boxes invaded the house and domestic stimulation was born. In its 4.0 version, tablets, cameras and projectors, virtual reality systems, gigantic televisions, synthetic voice or surround sound, throughout the smart home and with a high degree of customization, monitor and capture the attention of subjects hyperstimulated. All of us.

The ultimate goal is, of course, to transform the Internet into a multiverse that occupies all layers and dimensions of reality, including the sensory. Both on the surface and those now exclusive to internal medicine. Through clothing, accessories or cameras that are in principle used to interact, data can be stored on subjects and buyers who resist the keyboard or cookies: heart rate, sweating, pupil dilation, nerve impulses.

The destiny of avatars is to become digital twins. And the Internet not only scans the surface of the world, but also its interiors. Although the psychiatric crisis we are experiencing after the pandemic reminds us that technology is incapable of reaching our abyss.

In this update of World Expos and monster shows which are technology shows, canine robots and self-driving cars tend to capture the attention of the public and the media. But smart cities are a small part of a business that happens mostly indoors, where 90% of our time is spent and where we consume 80% of data.

At MWC, you live the constant vertigo between the micro and the macro, between the user and the systems, the networks. The mobile has become the common thread that connects the different spaces through everyday experience. The rooms of the house, the means of transport, the workplace, the exteriors. It is therefore logical that the international meeting continues to be called Mobile. But cordless phones are conspicuous by their absence there. It is above all an exhibition of antennas, concrete devices and clouds, a complex and abstract logistics.

Walking through the corridors, one understands the conflict between telecommunications operators and Google, Meta, Netflix, Amazon or Microsoft, which occupy half of the world’s data traffic. Because all these abstractions are visible in the form of objects, people, pavilions. In the digital world, in the virtual universe, everything is analog. Macroservers, supercomputers, thousands of satellites, 1,200,000 kilometers of fiber optic cables. Human beings of flesh and bones.

That’s not the only paradox that’s becoming evident at MWC. It also becomes clear that the most advanced technology in the world is communicated through outdated design. The websites and apps are beautiful and very contemporary, but downloading them to the physical world was stuck at the time of the series. Stop and catch fire. With the exception of a few immersive installations, a few state-of-the-art pavilions and a few ephemeral architectures (such as the Daniel Ibanez there Vicente Guallard), almost everything references the 20th century in aesthetic and conceptual terms: the design of the official daily and most of the stands, the pins they give you, the overwhelming male presence.

Tech shows and conventions are global showcases of trends that are shaping the world. In them, not only new devices and technical innovations are known, but also political and social agendas are set. For this reason, a cultural shift in the tech industry is needed. A first step was the artistic and musical space Beat Barcelona, which is expected to grow. Although 90% of workers in the sector are men, MWC can also adopt a philosophy that promotes the visibility and relevance of women. They gave only 13 of the 34 major conferences.

It would be a question of infecting the communication of the structures that connect us to the aesthetic and philosophical spirit of our time. Try accelerating in parallel. After the internet of things we are heading towards the internet of the senses. But no new network really has a future if it does not welcome the progress of ideas. And it is reinforced with them.

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