Chinese firms catch up with smart homes, driverless cars: expert
The year 2016 is expected to be a milestone for artificial intelligence (AI) technology, analysts said Thursday, a day after Google announced a series of smartphone apps and home devices that are able to interact with humans.
Leading IT companies like Microsoft and Facebook have also announced the development of similar products earlier this year. Applauding the US giants' impressive progress in this field, observers in China said Chinese companies still have a long way to go, though some argue that they have been catching up.
Google unveiled its answer to Amazon's Alexa virtual assistant along with new messaging and virtual reality products at its annual I/O developer conference in the Silicon Valley city of Mountain View on Wednesday, doubling down on artificial intelligence and machine learning as the keys to its future, Reuters reported.
Google introduced Google Assistant, a virtual personal assistant, along with the tabletop speaker appliance Google Home. It also unveiled Allo, a new messaging service that will compete with Facebook's WhatsApp and Messenger products and feature a chatbot.
Google Home can recognize voice orders, search the Internet, get answers and execute tasks such as changing restaurant bookings. The Google Assistant can also merge with Chromecast and smart home devices to control televisions, thermostats and other products.
Google's other big announcement was a virtual reality platform called Daydream designed to work with the Android mobile operating system.
"Humans have been dreaming and researching artificial intelligence for decades, but 2016 is destined to be a milestone year for this technology," wrote technology writer Zheng Jun of China's news portal Sina. "It's not just because Google's AlphaGo beat the best human Go player, it's also because Microsoft, Facebook and Google have launched AI products."
Microsoft has created the Cortana artificial intelligence, while Facebook has been testing a virtual assistant called M in its popular Messenger application for smartphones.
Zheng said Apple is likely to use AI as one of the core iOS selling points during its Worldwide Developers Conference in June in San Francisco.
Zhu Dalin, an industry analyst with the market research firm Analysys International, said AI is an inevitable trend of global Internet development, and as an Internet giant, Google is certainly trying to take the lead.
Google's self-driving car leads the global pack for this technology, he said.
Zhao Yang, an analyst at the Beijing-based CCID Consulting firm, said AI is a complicated technology which is based on big data and cloud computing, which Google has the advantage.
Closing the gap
Zhu said many Chinese companies are talking about the concepts of smart homes and artificial intelligence, but their technology levels on average are still far below those of the world leaders.
China's leading smartphone maker Xiaomi, for instance, has launched a series of so-called smart home appliance products such as TVs, routers, air filters, scales and lightbulbs.
"Chinese companies may have been promoting their use of AI, but the real-world experience of their products is way behind those of Google," Zhu said.
However, Xin Haiguang, a senior IT commentator, told the Global Times on Thursday that Chinese companies have been closing the gap with the world's leading companies.
"In the past we were light-years away, but now we lead in drone technology, and companies like Baidu, Alibaba and JD.com are also involved in AI technology. They are heading in the right direction," he said.
Baidu, China's top online search company, started a self-driving car project in 2014 and claimed a successful road test late last year. On Monday, it signed a deal with the government of Wuhu, Anhui Province to build a self-driving car operation zone, announcing its first step of a self-driving commercial operation.
