In the first post of our series on ways 5G can change our lives, we dug into socializing and shopping. But that was just a small sample of how our lives can be enhanced by this next generation of connectivity. Now, we want to show you more of what’s possible and what 5G can do for you.

For over a decade, Qualcomm Technologies has been working tirelessly to bring you 5G. We invent to help advance how the world connects, computes, and communicates — it’s what we do. And now thanks to our breakthrough technologies, such as mobile mmWave, 5G is finally here. We unveiled the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 Mobile Platform, the world’s first commercial multi-gigabit 5G mobile platform, at the end of 2018. And now, 5G devices, smartphones, and infrastructure will roll out this year. That means new mobile experiences are almost in hand.

Here, we’re looking at how 5G changes collaborating and watching.

The evolution of collaborating

Whether you’re editing a video or working with coworkers on a document, collaborating online today poses some challenges.

Multiple people can work on a document simultaneously, but they’re at the mercy of latency. If just one person has a slow connection, updates won’t sync in real-time, people may accidently edit over each other, and confusion can ensue.

Uploading and downloading files — especially larger ones like high-res 4K videos — can take longer than is ideal in your busy life. And because you need a reliable connection, you can’t always work when and where you want.

5G can help solve these pain points. For example, one member of a student film crew could capture high-res video using a smartphone, automatically uploading it to the cloud while still shooting. Meanwhile, other students could wirelessly receive the latest captures and edit the footage in real-time. Multiple student editors could work on the finishing touches of the same or different frames simultaneously, all while filming is still taking place. Edits made by one person can be visible to everyone else for virtually seamless, enhanced productivity. What’s more, this could happen outdoors over cellular networks. With the faster data speeds and ultra-low latency enabled by 5G, it’s possible.

The evolution of watching

The conversation about the changing ways we watch is already robust. We stream at our leisure instead of channel surf, and we’re watching on mobile devices more and more. Now with 5G, visual content and how we consume it is about to be flipped on its head.

With photorealistic boundless XR with 6DoF, or six degrees of freedom of movement, you’ll be able to actually go inside the worlds you could previously only experience on a screen. Unlike passively watching a soccer game on TV, boundless XR transports you to the best seat in the stadium — one you can’t even buy. You could identify the individual players and walk around the field watching the live content. This isn’t a distant idea, but rather a current reality — in fact, we showcased this very scenario with NextVR recently at our Snapdragon Tech Summit in Maui, Hawaii.

With 5G, watching can become not just more immersive, but more social too. For example, you could watch a football game remotely with a friend using a shared display. It could include a live feed of the game, player stats, additional multimedia content, and a video chat window, giving you more to engage with and a more advanced way to communicate. So when the touchdown is so close to the goal line that it’s questionable, you can see your friend’s reaction to the big play in real-time on the same screen while collectively dissecting the replay frame by frame.

The speed and latency improvements delivered by 5G, combined with AI, will open the door to brand new possibilities that can make the viewing experience smarter and more personalized.

Watching football on a shared multimedia display, AI could automatically switch between your favorite camera angles, zoom shots, and replays to show you every inch of the game. Thanks to 5G’s low-latency and high-bandwidth, intelligence is not just associated with a central cloud — it’s distributed to the devices that form the Wireless Edge. With all the mentioned scenarios and the many others that can soon be a part of our everyday lives, it’s the combination of these technological breakthroughs that can usher in the promise of 5G.

At Qualcomm Technologies, we invent in order to consistently push the boundaries of what’s possible. We make breakthroughs that lead to more innovative devices and communications. And 5G may be one of the industry’s greatest endeavors yet. It’s poised to transform the way we collaborate, watch, and so much more.

Stay tuned for the next instalment in the series on 5G-powered use cases, which will focus on communicating and gaming.

Qualcomm Snapdragon is a product of Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. and/or its subsidiaries.