4 ways the Internet is getting faster

Qualcomm (QCOM) has announced plans to unveil a new technology that it says could triple Wi-Fi speeds in homes, offices and on public networks.

At the moment, Wi-Fi networks can only serve one device at a time, cycling quickly among different users. That creates slower speeds for everyone when more devices connect to the network.

The company's new approach, which follows seven years of research, allows networks to transmit data to multiple groups of people simultaneously thanks to algorithms that adapt on the fly to changes in usage. The technology is known as "MU-MIMO," which stands for "multi-user, multiple input, multiple output."