The smartphone revolution is poised to go onto the next level \u2014 with \u201csuperphones\u201d equipped with artificial intelligence now on the horizon.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
By learning their owners\u2019 habits, these new phones will be able to carry out tasks even when they\u2019re offline.<\/p>\n
During a first phase only high-end smartphones will use the technology, like the new models unveiled by China\u2019s Huawei at the Mobile World Congress, the phone industry\u2019s largest annual trade fair, which opened Monday in Barcelona.<\/p>\n
But the technology is quickly gaining ground.<\/p>\n
More than 300 million smartphones \u2014 or roughly a fifth of units sold worldwide \u2014 will have the function in 2017, according to Deloitte.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is one of the key areas we are investing in. After the smartphone, we will have the \u2018superphone\u2019 thanks to artificial intelligence,\u201d said Vincent Vantilcke, marketing director for Huawei in France.<\/p>\n
South Korea\u2019s LG and Finland\u2019s Nokia both announced in Barcelona that they would use Google\u2019s voice assistant \u2014 which uses artificial intelligence to answer users\u2019 questions \u2014 in their newest handsets.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery big company in the sector is investing all their research and development on this,\u201d Gartner analyst Annette Zimmermann said.<\/p>\n
Today most smartphones run their applications by consulting data stored in external servers, known as the cloud.<\/p>\n
But the arrival of faster processors will allow smartphones to use data already stored on the device \u2014 much like a human brain does to translate words or recognise images.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou teach a computer to analyse specific data, make sense of this data and act on it,\u201d Zimmermann said.<\/p>\n
In the future \u201csmartphones will almost make a decision before you do. When you go somewhere, it knows where you want to go\u201d based on your usual habits, said Dexter Thillien, an analyst at BMI Research.<\/p>\n
California-based start-up Neura has developed a system of artificial intelligence that can decode a smartphone user\u2019s daily patterns of behaviour.<\/p>\n
To do this it combines data gathered by the handset\u2019s GPS tracker, the speed at at which the phone owner is walking and other elements with algorithms.<\/p>\n
It then generates insights about users\u2019 past and present actions and predictions about what they will do next.<\/p>\n
Neura says its technology can be used to enable smarter healthcare, cars, music services and homes by constantly updating their portraits of user behaviour patterns.<\/p>\n
With the new technology, a smartphone will be able to know whether its owner is \u201crunning to catch a bus or because he is jogging\u201d, said Neura head Gilad Mieri.<\/p>\n
The phone can then wait for the right moment to send its user a notification \u2014 for example a reminder to take medication.<\/p>\n
Machine-learning enhanced phones will focus mainly on voice recognition, translation and image recognition, said Ariane Bucaille, a tech specialist at Deloitte.<\/p>\n
This will enable a smartphone to give a user directions without an internet connection, she said.<\/p>\n
Smartphones with artificial intelligence \u201cwill play an even more crucial role in people\u2019s lives. It is another revolution\u201d, Bucaille said.<\/p>\n
At the moment, the new technology is still being developed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere the profit comes from, that\u2019s still a big question,\u201d Gartner\u2019s Zimmerman said.<\/p>\n
Further down the line, tech firms plan to use AI in other products, such as driverless cars, Thillien said.<\/p>\n
However, privacy concerns may throw up a roadblock to the technology.<\/p>\n
A new European Union data protection law which comes into effect in 2018 contains \u201cvery restrictive\u201d rules to prevent algorithms from making decisions on their own, Thillien said.<\/p>\n
But Bucaille argues that smartphones with AI are actually safer because they do not store information on external servers.<\/p>\n
This may ultimately act as a disincentive for tech firms to develop AI for smartphones, as their business models so often rely on gathering and using data from users, said Mouloud Dey, director of innovation at SAS in Paris.\u2014AFP<\/p>\n
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