On February 22, the first American operator, AT&T, closed its 3G network in favor of 4G and 5G.

It was written since 2019, AT&T closed its 3G network on February 22 in the United States. T-Mobile and Verizon are expected to follow later this year. This decision taken by operators to focus on 4G and especially 5G networks does not please everyone. Several devices, risk not working anymore, across the Atlantic we even talk about an “alarmaggedon”.

According to AT&T, 1% of mobile data traffic goes through 3G

This barbarism reflects the alarm industry’s concern. One industry group estimates that two million devices are at risk of failing. In another area, Axios is relaying an alert from The School Superintendents Association that 10% of public school buses will lose their GPS and communication systems.

In San Francisco, transit riders have been informed that all 650 real-time bus shelter displays will cease to function.

AT&T tried to reassure everyone. The operator claims that less than 1% of mobile data traffic goes through 3G. Two million free or discounted 4G LTE phones have been distributed to replace 3G devices. The company insists, the country’s phone coverage will not be affected.

On the subject of “alarmaggedon,” AT&T is more offensive. The carrier reports that the nation’s largest alarm company has successfully updated all of its devices, including a device it designed. For those who didn’t manage to do so, the pandemic would be a good thing, because they preferred to install new ones than to update the old ones.

The US authorities are keeping an eye on things, but they are letting it happen

Nevertheless, when contacted by Axios, a senior White House official said he was monitoring the operators’ transition plans and shared “concerns about the potential impact of these plans on the function of home security and medical alert devices.

The alarm industry’s communications committee asked the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to delay AT&T’s plan until December, without success. The agency in charge of communications probably has no intention of throwing a wrench in the works after successive postponements of the 5G rollout because of the disruption to aircraft.

FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, a Democrat, said Feb. 18, “I think we’re on track to make this transition happen with limited disruption.” T-Mobile has scheduled its 3G network to shut down on July 1 and Verizon by the end of the year without further details.

In Europe, too, the 3G network is approaching its twilight. Germany and Denmark have put an end to it and other countries are expected to follow. The website 01net has looked at the French case. It appears that the French operators are reluctant for the moment, because there are still many 2G and 3G users in France.

The object of many rumors for several years, Apple’s virtual reality headset would gradually begin to materialize internally. According to information from the media DigiTimes, this future product has already passed its “second phase of validation and technical testing (EVT 2)”.

At this stage, and if DigiTimes is right, Apple is no longer working on prototypes, but on a headset that is gradually approaching its final version. As ArsTechnica points out, “EVT 2” indeed refers to a stage in Apple’s journey in designing new devices. The firm starts by working on prototypes before moving on to the first EVT (engineering validation testing) phase, followed by the “EVT 2” phase, which interests us today.

This is an important marker for the progress of Apple’s work on this headset: after the engineering validation (EVT), comes the design validation, followed by the production validation… which allows, as its name indicates, to start the mass production of a finalized product.

A VR headset expected at the end of 2022

Still according to DigiTimes, the Apple headset could enter the production phase in August or September, for a launch in late 2022. Note that Mark Gurman, journalist for Bloomberg, had however evoked a delay of the device somewhere in 2023.

The analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, for his part, had maintained that a marketing in 2022 was still possible. We will have to wait a few months to know for sure.

In any case, the first Apple headset should mix virtual and augmented reality by relying on advanced components. We’ll find 4K screens, multiple sensors and an M1 processor that develops a computing power equivalent to that of the latest MacBook Pro.

The idea would be to make this product very powerful and autonomous (it would not need to be connected to another device to work) in order to target the professional world, at least at first.

The American e-commerce giant announced on Tuesday, March 8 that none of its products will be delivered in the country of Vladimir Putin.

Jeff Bezos’ company is the latest major American technology company to take sanctions against Russia and Belarus. While not necessarily a major player in the country, Amazon decided to suspend deliveries and block registrations to its cloud service, Amazon Web Services.

No more delivery or cloud in Russia

Over the past few days, there has been one disengagement after another from many US technology companies. Most Silicon Valley companies have cut their ties with Russia. Oracle, Intel, Apple, Google, Airbnb, Microsoft and AMD have decided to suspend their activities on Russian territory. Measures taken in line with the sanctions imposed by the U.S. government.

It is now Amazon’s turn to comply with government directives. The e-commerce giant announced on Tuesday March 8 that none of its products will be delivered in Vladimir Putin’s country.

A decision taken in response to the invasion of Ukraine, which forced the group to “take additional measures in the region”. In its press release, the company of Jeff Bezos explains that it has “suspended the shipment of retail products to customers based in Russia and Belarus. The Seattle firm even decided to go further by suspending the accounts of its streaming service Amazon Prime, to all Russian subscribers. Amazon adds that “we are no longer taking orders for New World, which is the only game we sell directly in Russia.

Amazon has never really tried to develop the Russian market

It is important to note that Amazon’s business is much smaller in Russia than in the European Union. It does not have a logistic site in Putin’s country, as it is the case everywhere in Europe, nor a website, but the company still delivered to Russian customers who placed orders from other websites. In Russia, there are other major retail players. Local competitors like Wildberries or Ozon. Indeed, the high import taxes make Amazon’s products uncompetitive in Russia.

Same thing for Amazon Web Services, the company’s cloud service. The American firm specifies that “we have no data center, no infrastructure or office in Russia. Our policy has long been not to work with the Russian government. Most AWS customers in the country are in fact local subsidiaries of international groups.

This decision to stop all the group’s activities also follows a request from the Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, who asked Amazon to suspend access to AWS services in Russia, to “support a global movement of governments and large companies opposed to the invasion of Ukraine.