Artificial Intelligence and Mobile Technology

How AI is Transforming Mobile Technology The average individual looks at their phones for more than 2.5 hours each day. Many people rarely put them down in a typical day — they carry them with them, even from room to room in their homes and offices.

IBM has defined mobile technology as technology that goes where the user goes. It consists of portable two-way communications devices, computing devices and the networking technology that connects them.;It is inclusive of our phones along with any tech device that goes where we go (e.g., tablets, smartwatches, fitness.

The world market is saturated and everyone who wants a smartphone has one. Handset manufacturers need a reason for customrers to replace their phones with new models, but the changes aren't yet compelling enought. The developers are tying to put  together the best possible microprocessor hardware and AI software to lure customers away from their competitors. AI is seen as the new game changer.

The average smartphone has around a dozen sensors – everything from accelerometers, to GPS, to a microphone, cameras, and so on. For years phones have been gathering data on us through the many sensors on a phone. Now AI/ML is learning to use the data they produce.

">The smartphone industry is being revolutionized by and built around the promise of AI. The big opportunity, for now, in AI is to help in guessing what it is we want next. Often, when AI is at it’s best, we users may well not realize that it’s working, things just seem to run a bit smoother.

The user interface is of such fundamental importance to the success of phones that each of the major handset manufacturers is investing heavily to ensure they offer the best experience they can and using AI to drive the field forward. We will come to love our smartphones, even more, when they eliminate some of those 35,000 decisions we make each day.And this is only the beginning, as these mobile-appropriate microprocessor chips doing the AI calculations will become cheaper over time and they’re likely to find their way not just to every phone, but every connected device in the world through a 5G connected Internet of Things. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) is enhancing the hardware and software within mobile phones making our lives easier with every update.  Artificial Intelligence (AI) is already playing a part of how you use your mobile tech. And the support you receive is about to increase dramatically.

For manufacturers, the ultimate goal is to improve the experience you as a user have on their device. 

AI is already a huge part of your phone experience, whether you realize it or not

Smartphones have microprocessors dedicated to AI tasks

The contribution AI already makes to good on-device experiences, and the strategic importance of the field to staying current in a market which has reached peak smartphone has seen each mobile manufacturer accelerate their investments into the field of AI-based user experiences.

Just take a look at how the two concepts – AI/ML and Mobile – are being connected in reality. Huawei’s Mate range, Samsung’s Galaxy, Google’s Pixel phones, and Apple’s iPhones all now contain special hardware, designed to conduct AI-based tasks more efficiently. The capability was in only 3% of phones in 2017 – was part of up to 35% of all handsets sold by  2020. (See chart.) Every indication is that we will come to think of the term AI as synonymous with cell phones, just as other terms did such as AI is already in the camera of most high-end smartphones, more than anywhere else. AI algorithms help identify whether you’re snapping a panorama or a person – and adjusting the type of filtering used to give you the best results. It’s likely AI also helps you by finding the right lens for the light conditions. Virtual Assistant capabilities which are improving rapidly. Some speech recognition now offers better levels of comprehension than a human listener, even in noisy environments. Virtual assistants are likely to become a much larger part of our interface with our phone, over time and the natural human language you provide is interpreted by AI.

Used to allow more human searches of images: Many phones already automatically improve images (for example, removing red eye where it is found) and assist in sorting images you’ve taken and stored in your gallery in a human way – according to friend’s names, for example. Some gallery software automatically pieces together a story of how your weekend went in the form of pictures taken on the day, animations, and music.

AI key contributor to Augmented Reality experiences: The targeted AI processors (often called Neural Processing Engines or something similar) that are found in these dedicated smartphone chips are also used by on-device Augmented Reality experiences, for example, Apple’s Animoji.

Day to day operations: More fundamentally, AI is behind Google’s core search engine, every time you search from your phone and is being adapted to work behind the scenes in applications as battery life management and security.

Facial recognition for security: AI is also behind the facial recognition you might use to get into your iPhone which, again, uses images from the onboard cameras. (In fact – ‘True Depth’ creates a 3D image of your face authenticates for payment services like Apple Pay, and can log you into apps). The camera’s AI and ML algorithms are capable of recognizing its owner’s face even if they wear or take off glasses, put on makeup, or grow facial hair.

Think of AI as a way of helping computers to ‘learn’ by example from large datasets – also known as Machine Learning (ML).  AI and ML let computers acquire information and rules in the sort of way a human does, without being programmed with particular ‘rules’ for every possible eventuality.

Artificial intelligence (AI) continues to expand to power everything from security and facial recognition software to autonomous vehicles and mobile apps.

Every marketing manager’s purpose is to identify customer needs and deliver a product (even if the development of a new one is required) that fits those needs. Mobile technology, especially mobile phones, offer previously unavailable insights into people’s true behaviors, and reveals truths that have previously never been available. AI automates the sifting of that data for insight. The result is a clearer understanding of customer needs and a vivid target for marketers to deliver against.

 For example, distributed intelligence—that is, AI spread across channels to power applications such as real-time language translation.

Qualcomm Cloud AI 100 inference accelerator is sampling with multiple customers and is poised to reshape the future of the datacenter, 5G edge appliances, and 5G infrastructure.  availability of the Qualcomm Cloud AI 100 Edge AI Development Kit which is a 5G edge box that is sampling early next month.  the development kit also houses the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 Modular Platform along with the Snapdragon X55 Modem-RF, taking full advantage of Qualcomm Technologies’ offerings for application processing and 5G connectivity.   The accelerator is also powered by the Qualcomm AI Cores, which are the driving force why Qualcomm Technologies’ offers the highest performing AI inference product to date.  the impact they will make in the field of personalized recommendations, pedestrian safety, transportation, and communications will be profound in the years to come.   Qualcomm Cloud AI 100 solutions have an array of predictive applications including deep learning solutions.

The Cloud AI 100 Edge Development Kit operates around the clock thanks to low power and high performance capabilities. AI can protect a shop from theft by identifying high-risk areas then notifying security of suspicious activity, as well as hazards such as spills. A system like this could also generate reports based off of trend in shopper behavior plus gives recommendations in order to improve the shopper experience.

Real-time translation of posts on your feed, the ability to filter explicit content using natural language processing and AI processing, to provide more relevant content suggestions to all users.

Syntiant is a leader in providing end-to-end solutions for edge AI. They are deployed globally, powering speech, audio, sensor, and vision applications across a wide range of consumer and industrial use cases, from earbuds to automobiles.

Always-on Voice (AOV)Supportsmodern voice interfaces like the Amazon Alexa and OK Google as well as custom wake word and commands offering object detection, classification, and tracking in complex environments. 

If you think Mobile devices have reached a wall, AI says “you ain’t see nothing yet”

 

By Dr. Rob Longwell, Editor and Tara Tabib, freelancer