This Day, That Year

Item from Nov 23, 1991, in China Daily: A videophone, made by the Electron Tube Factory of East China, recently passed quality checks in Nanjing, Jiangsu province.

The development of communication technology has evolved over time.

With the rise of internet and mobile devices, people can access and share information anywhere and anytime, in a way not possible, or even imaginable, for previous generations.

Take the WeChat instant messaging service for example. There are 980 million monthly active users of the app, according to its developer Tencent. The all-in-one communications app can provide services including text messaging, voice and video calls, Moments, photo sharing, financial transaction and games.

According to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, every mobile internet subscriber accounted for 2 gigabytes of data traffic in September, up 140 percent year-on-year.

Data services have become a major source of revenue for the country’s mobile service operators, the ministry said.

Online messaging has become part of daily life for most people, and this boosts the development of chatbot programs which allow artificial intelligence programs to engage with internet users in casual conversation.

Huawei Technologies Co, the world’s third-largest smartphone manufacturer, jumped onto the voice-based technology bandwagon, hiring more than 100 researchers to work on developing a Siri-like assistant.

In the near future, you may text and call robots as often as your friends.