MOBILE PHONES POISED FOR LEAP
GSMA, the association of mobile operators, is bullish on the mobile sector, projecting a big leap in smartphone numbers in 2020.
Mobile is a global platform that today supports two-thirds of the world’s population, delivering the connectivity and infrastructure that is powering new digital economies and addressing socio-economic challenges. Mats Granryd, GSMA director-general
barcelona — The smartphone revolution is poised to go onto the next level — with ‘superphones’ equipped with artificial intelligence now on the horizon. By learning their owners’ habits, these new phones will be able to carry out tasks even when they’re offline.
During a first phase, only high-end smartphones will use the technology, like the new models unveiled by China’s Huawei at the Mobile World Congress, the phone industry’s largest annual trade fair, which opened on Monday in Barcelona.
But the technology is quickly gaining ground. More than 300 million smartphones — or roughly a fifth of units sold worldwide — will have the function in 2017, according to Deloitte.
“It is one of the key areas we are investing in. After the smartphone, we will have the ‘superphone’ thanks to artificial intelligence,” said Vincent Vantilcke, marketing director for Huawei in France.
South Korea’s LG and Finland’s Nokia both announced in Barcelona that they would use Google’s voice assistant — which uses artificial intelligence to answer users’ questions — in their newest handsets.
“Every big company in the sector is investing all their research and development on this,” Gartner analyst Annette Zimmermann said.
Today, most smartphones run their applications by consulting data stored in external servers, known as the cloud. But the arrival of faster processors will allow smartphones to use data already stored on the device — much like a human brain does to translate words or recognise images.
“You teach a computer to analyse specific data, make sense of this data and act on it,” Zimmermann said.
Smartphones will almost make a decision before you do. When you go somewhere, it knows where you want to go based on your habits
In the future, “smartphones will almost make a decision before you do. When you go somewhere, it knows where you want to go” based on your habits, said Dexter Thillien, an analyst at BMI Research.
Start-up Neura has developed a system of artificial intelligence that can decode a smartphone user’s daily patterns of behaviour.
To do this, it combines data gathered by the handset’s GPS tracker, the speed at which the phone owner is walking and other elements with algorithms. It then generates insights about users’ past and present actions and predictions about what they will do next.
Neura says its technology can be
Dexter Thillien, analyst at BMI Research
used to enable smarter healthcare, cars, music services and homes by constantly updating their portraits of user behaviour patterns.
With the new technology, a smartphone will be able to know whether its owner is “running to catch a bus or because he is jogging”, said Neura head Gilad Mieri. The phone can then wait for the right moment to send its user a notification — for example a reminder to take medication.
Machine-learning enhanced phones will focus mainly on voice recognition, translation and image recognition, said Ariane Bucaille, a tech specialist at Deloitte. This will enable a smartphone to give a user directions without an Internet connection, she said.
Smartphones with artificial intelligence “will play an even more crucial role in people’s lives. It is another revolution”, Bucaille said.
barcelona — While smartphones get top billing at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, it’s the quirky, under-the-radar products that are getting a lot of the visitors’ attention.
Here’s a glimpse of some of the gadgets and apps displayed by start-up companies this week at the fair, the world’s largest for wireless technology.
Cute robot
Living in Seoul, Jong-Gun Park looked around him one day and decided his fellow South Koreans needed some help expressing their emotions.
“We are so busy these days, always running to and from work, taking our kids to school, studying, that we no longer find the necessary time to interact with each other,” said Park, CEO of the company Circulus.
Enter Pibo, the friendly dinner table ice-breaker. Pibo is a charming little robot whose goal is to get you and your loved ones sharing your daily life more. “Are you tired?” he asks, “I will play music without boredom.”
Sure, he still needs to hone his English, but he’s always eager to ask about your day or provide updates on weather conditions.
Still a prototype, Pibo comes in a case, should you wish to take him along on vacation. He is, after all, a member of the family. For an expected $490 a pop.
Just add water
Growing your own veggies may become possible even for urbanites with tiny studio apartments.
Start-up Living Box offers a modular, unfoldable, solar-powered little greenhouse that you can use to harvest anything from tomatoes to tea and herbs.
“We have a slow release water system for irrigation, with a novel liquid nutrient solution and bacteria to avoid the use of pesticides, as well as an app prototype updating weather conditions and other relevant data right to your smartphone, so you don’t have to monitor it,” explained Nitzan Solan, CEO of the company.
The idea was to create a sustainable, affordable and simple mobile farming system that could be operated by anyone around the globe.
As of now, Living Box is testing in 50 sites around the US and Nigeria and aims to try locations in Spain and Fiji. It is
If we make our own project, people who are visually impaired can walk outside using our glasses Junghoon Cho, Samsung senior engineer
expected to carry a market price of $300.
Cool hang
The hang, a metal percussion instrument shaped like a flying saucer, is loved by street performers the world round and often associated with meditation practices like yoga. Now it comes in a fully digital version.
When delicately tapped, the Oval can reproduce the sounds of a hang as well as other instruments, like drums, trumpets and even violins.
Musicians Ravid Goldschmidt and Alex Posada, the co-founders of the Spanish start-up that makes the Oval, say they sought to start a “revolution of percussion” with this instrument.
Already on the market, the Oval is aimed at all kinds of consumers, with about 40 per cent estimated to be amateur or professional musicians. It goes for about $950.
To see or not to see
Samsung’s Relumino headset aims to do nothing less than help the blind see. The gadget, shaped like virtual reality glasses, recasts images of the world in a way that someone with vision problems can see more clearly.
The glasses are still in a developmental stage and, although it’s still too early to venture a market price for them, Samsung senior engineer Junghoon Cho hopes to compete with other more expensive visual aids out there.
Besides correcting blurred images, the headset can eliminate blind spots and improve peripheral vision.
“If we make our own project, people who are visually impaired can walk outside using our glasses... We want to help them have a better social relationship with other people,” said Cho.
Shopping vision
Worried the new couch might not squeeze through door?
Sri Lanka-based start-up Liveroom is trying to solve your angst. Its virtual reality technology aims to give shoppers a live look at how products in online stores would fit into your home.
This is how it works: you shoot an image of the space in question via a live view button and then consult their catalogue on the app for the item you want. The item will pop up on your tablet or smartphone set in the image of your home. You can move and rotate the item and change its colours, fabric and material.
“If you’re buying online, via ecommerce, you have only images. You have to visualise the product in your mind and maybe the dimensions and the colours are wrong,” said founder and CTO Sameera Nilupul. “With this technology, you can see exactly how the products look in your own home.”