Smartphones: Moving from a communication tool to a personal information terminal

In the past few years, Nokia, Motorola, Sony, Ericsson and other traditional handset manufacturers have been a lot of trouble, even some of these manufacturers even survive has become a problem. The general point of view will be the positioning of products, corporate governance issues or the accuracy of the market to grasp the problem. In fact, all of these problems reflect a huge industry change: smartphones are no longer just a communication tool, they have become a terminal for personal information, most importantly software, operating systems, and applications.

Mobile interconnection brings mobile cloud and related application development opportunities to the domestic industry. A large amount of data and information exist in the cloud, which need to be mined through data mining and business intelligence to explore its value. With the popularization of 3G, 4G and next-generation Internet communication Protocols (IPV6), everyone can have a separate IP address, and mobile phones will become omnipotent tools-Weibo, social, shopping, and even personal computing, personal communications, personal control and Personal entertainment Center (pc3+e). Therefore, the mobile phone interconnection industry will far exceed the desktop interconnection industry. Analysts at Morgan Stanley think the Internet is 5 times times larger than the desktop, and I think it underestimates its potential, perhaps 10 times times, or more.

In addition, the application of augmented Reality (AR) technology based on mobile interconnection is worthy of attention. Through the mobile internet in smartphones, sensors, AR technology, the physical world and the virtual world will eventually be combined to eliminate the real and illusory boundaries. Recent Microsoft Research has done a technical demonstration that can be used to identify faces and the environment through mobile phone cameras. For example, you see a person, familiar but can not remember the name and when you have dealings with him. Then use the camera to look at him, do not need to take a picture, you can immediately through the cloud to find out his personal information, as well as whether they have seen the face and so on.

The second trend is cloud computing. The desktop and mobile interconnect functions in the cloud will be combined by huge data, information, intelligence, and search with PCs, smartphones and tablets. Therefore, in the past few years, I have been stressed that cloud computing is actually "cloud + end" of the calculation and integration, both strong cloud, but also a diversified end. "Cloud + End" is very important to maximize the balance of a variety of parameters, that is, maintain the balance between computing, storage, communication bandwidth and energy consumption.

For the domestic industry, the biggest opportunity for cloud computing is to develop a social network platform that is above the cloud and end, and to launch diversified applications covering search, advertising, social and business. We see that the attempt to digitize, network and commercialize real social relationships has already begun, just as Facebook, Twitter and Sina Weibo are successful companies in this area. But so far, the degree of digital reality is not enough, really beyond the national, ethnic and cultural barriers to the social network platform has not been completed, which is also a major opportunity for China's IT industry.

The final important trend is that the natural user interface will dominate human-computer interaction in the mobile internet age. Since the 780 's, we have seen a variety of natural user interface technologies and products that are now most popular with consumers as they have sold 18 million sets of Kinect game control systems. The formal release of the Kinect for Windows Suite will further spark a natural user interface development spree outside the game host.

In addition to Kinect, the wide range of product and application of voice-interactive technology, input and output technology based on any object surface and intelligent learning capability will bring great opportunities to the Chinese industry.

The first is the voice interaction technology. In this field, including speech recognition, speech synthesis and many other research topics, but the most difficult one is the real-time voice translation between different languages. An English-speaking Indian engineer and a Mandarin-speaking Chinese engineer successfully demonstrated an experiment in real time conversations through Windows Phone at an in-house staff meeting at Microsoft's Asia Pacific Development Group (ARD) last April. This application can be extended to a number of life situations, if the two people because the language is difficult to communicate, this interactive system can help them to eliminate communication barriers.

The second is the technology of input and output based on the surface of any object. Smartphones are powerful, but the input and output modes are still a bottleneck--no matter how big the screen is, virtual keyboards don't always seem to be enough. In this regard, the new technological advances can make the surface of any object-whether it is desktop, wall, paper, or even skin surface, can be used as input and output interface, truly natural input and output.

Finally, the intelligent learning ability. This capability is partially implemented in the currently listed Windows Phone. Under the new Metro interface, all information is organized around you, including your friends, music, videos, and shopping. It can be said that it will not only "understand" your assistant, but also become a "prediction" of your preferences and action partners.

Over the past 30 years, the wave of information technology, marked by personal computers, the Internet and graphical interfaces, has swept the globe, making it an innovative, legendary, energetic industry that fundamentally changes the work and lifestyle of billions of of people. In the next ten years, if Chinese enterprises can follow the internal law of IT industry development and conform to the trend of industry, we will hold the hotspot of cloud computing, mobile interconnection, natural user interface and so on, and work together with global industry partners to create a better tomorrow for mankind.