A Lenovo smartphone unveiled last Thursday will be clever enough to grasp your physical surroundings — such as the room's size and the presence of other people — and potentially transform how we interact with e-commerce, education and gaming.
联想公司于上周四发布了一款新型智能手机。这款手机可以准确地获悉你所在的周边环境信息，比如感知房间大小及其他人的存在。这可能改变我们与电子商务、教育、游戏的互动方式。Today's smartphones track location through GPS and cell towers, but that does little more than tell apps where you are. Tapping Google's 3-year-old Project Tango , the new Phab2 Pro phone will use software and sensors to track motions and map building interiors, including the location of doors and windows.
现在的智能手机通过GPS和信号塔跟踪定位，但这只是让手机应用定位你在哪儿而已。Google开发Project Tango长达3年时间，而Phab2 Pro将采用软件和传感器来实现运动追踪和探测地图建筑物内部情况，包括门窗的位置。That's a crucial step in the promising new frontier in "augmented reality," or the digital projection of life like images and data into a real-life environment.
这对具有前景的“增强现实”技术或数字投影到生活（就像是图像和数据应用到现实生活）是关键的一步。
If Tango fulfills its promise, furniture shoppers will be able use the Phab2 Pro to download digital models of couches, chairs and coffee tables to see how they would look in their actual living rooms. Kids studying the Mesozoic Era would be able to place a virtual Tyrannosaurus or Velociraptor in their home or classroom — and even take selfies with one. The technology would even know when to display information about an artist or a scene depicted in a painting as you stroll through a museum.
Tango技术应用若符合预期，购买家具的顾客将可以使用Phab2 Pro下载沙发、椅子和咖啡桌的数字模型，以便观察家具尺寸是否符合客厅实际尺寸。孩子们在学习中生代时期知识时，可以将虚拟的暴龙和迅猛龙放在家中或教室，甚至可以和这些恐龙自拍合影。这项技术甚至可以在你参观博物馆时显示艺术家信息或画中描绘的场景信息。Tango will be able to create internal maps of homes and offices on the fly. Google won't need to build a mapping database ahead of time, as it does with existing services like Google Maps and Street View. Nonetheless, Tango could raise fresh concerns about privacy if controls aren't stringent enough to prevent the on-the-fly maps from being shared with unauthorized apps or heisted by hackers.
Tango技术可以创建一个动态的家或办公室内部地图。谷歌不需要提前创建一个测绘数据库，正如现有服务Google Maps和Google街景。虽然如此，倘若监管力度不够，无法防止即时地图信息被未授权的应用程序共享或被黑客入侵，Tango技术可能引发新一轮对隐私的担忧。Lenovo says the Phab2 Pro will sell for $500 when it begins shipping in the U.S. in August. The device is expected to be available throughout the world by mid-September, in advance of Apple's anticipated release of the iPhone 7.
联想公司表示，Phab2 Pro手机将于8月在美国上市，售价为500美元。这款手机全球上市时间预计约为9月中旬，早于苹果iPhone7手机预期发布时间。In another effort to put a new twist on smartphones, Lenovo also previewed the newest models in its Moto line, which it bought from Google two years ago.
联想还发布的另一款新品，这是智能手机新的转折点。联想还发布了摩托罗拉品牌新机，该系列是联想于两年前从Google手中收购而来的。The Moto Z and Moto Z Force will both let people snap on additional equipment called "Mods" to the back of the phones. The initial Mods include a speaker to amplify music, a projector for displaying photos and video from the phone and a power pack that provides 22 hours of additional battery. The phones will be available exclusively in the U.S. through Verizon this summer before a global release in the fall.
联想Moto Z和Moto Z Force手机可以使用额外的“模块”接驳到手机背部。最初的模块包括音乐播放器模块、投影机模块、外接电源模块，其中电源模块可再续航22小时。这款手机将于今年夏天由美国电信公司Verizon独家发行，早于今秋全球发行时间。The new phones are coming out as phone sales are slowing. People have been holding off on upgrades, partly because they haven't gotten excited about the types of technological advances hitting the market during the past few years. Phones offering intriguing new technology such as Tango could help spur more sales.
新款手机即将上市，但手机销售市场却正在放缓。人们对手机升级持观望态度，一部分原因是几年来，人们始终未发现有令他们感到兴奋的高科技产品进入市场。手机提供像Tango这样有趣的新技术，这有助于刺激手机市场消费。But Tango's room-mapping technology is probably still too abstract to gain mass appeal right away, says Ramon Llamas, an analyst at the IDC research group. "For most folks, this is still a couple steps ahead of what they can wrap their brains around, so I think there's going to be a long gestation period," Llamas says.
然而IDC分析师雷蒙·拉玛斯表示，Tango的空间映射技术可能还是过于抽象，不会立刻赢得大众青睐。拉玛斯说：“对于大多数人来说，让他们接受这款产品仍需要一定的过程，所以我认为将会有一个漫长的酝酿期。”Other smartphones promising quantum leaps have flopped. Remember Amazon's Fire phone released with great fanfare two years ago? That souped-up phone featured four front-facing cameras and a gyroscope so some images could be seen in three dimensions. The device also offered a tool called Firefly that could be used to identify objects and sounds. But the Fire fizzled, and Amazon no longer even sells the phone.
其他智能手机的发展预期以为会突飞猛进，却以失败告终。还记得两年前亚马逊大张旗鼓的发布智能手机Fire吗？这款升级版手机装载四个前置摄像头和一个陀螺仪，以至于有些图像看起来有3D效果。该装置还提供了一个称为萤火虫的工具，可以用来识别物品和声音。但火势告吹，而亚马逊甚至不再销售这款手机。The Phab2 Pro also looks impressive, with a 6.4-inch display screen and four cameras to help perform its wizardry. Lenovo boasts the phone's sensors can capture about 250,000 measurements per second.
Phab2 Pro看起来也令人印象深刻，拥有6.4英寸的显示屏和四个摄像头，以助于展现其功能。联想扬言这款手机的传感器拥有每秒约25万频谱处理能力。Despite all the fancy hardware, the key to the Tango phone's success is likely to hinge on the breadth of compelling apps that people find useful in their everyday lives.
不管手机硬件多么强大，搭载Tango技术的手机成功的关键在于，人们发现手机里那些引人注目的应用程序在日常生活中是有用的。Google previously released experimental Tango devices designed for computer programmers, spurring them to build about 100 apps that should work with the Phab2 Pro. Home improvement retailer Lowe's is releasing an app that enables Phab2 Pro users to measure spaces with the phone and test how digital replicas of appliances and other decor would look around a house.
谷歌此前发布的为电脑程序员设计的试验性Tango设备，激励他们开发出约100个Phab2 Pro手机适用的应用程序。家装用品零售商美国劳氏公司即将发布的一款应用程序可实现Phab2 Pro手机用户用手机测量空间及测试家居用品和房内其他装饰的数字模型是否适合房间尺寸。Both large and small tech companies are betting that augmented reality, or AR , will take off sooner than later. Microsoft has been selling a $3,000 prototype of its HoloLens AR headset. Others, such as Facebook's Oculus and Samsung, are out with virtual reality, or VR, devices. Google has one coming as well through its Daydream project. While AR tries to blend the artificial with your actual surroundings, VR immerses its users in a setting that's entirely fabricated.
大型和小型科技公司断言增强现实技术（AR）迟早会发展起来。微软的HoloLens AR眼镜售价3000美元。另外，Facebook的Oculus公司和三星均插足增强现实技术或虚拟现实设备。谷歌已经通过其Daydream项目开展了相关计划。尽管增强现实技术尝试人工实现与您周围的实际环境融合，但是虚拟现实技术使其用户深信这完全是捏造。The AR and VR devices out so far invariably require users to wear a headset or glasses. In many cases, they also must be tethered to more powerful personal computers, restricting the ability to move around.
迄今为止，增强现实和虚拟现实设备总是要求用户佩戴耳机或眼镜。在多数情况下，这些设备必须结合更强大的计算机，限制了左右移动的可能性。None of that is necessary with the Phab2 Pro. Instead, you get an augmented look at your surroundings through the phone's screen.
Phab2 Pro手机完全不需要理会这些，相反，你可以通过手机屏幕更加真实地看到周围环境。"This has a chance to become pervasive because it's integrated into a device that you already have with you all the time," says Jeff Meredith, a Lenovo vice president who oversaw development of the Tango device. "You aren't going to have to walk around a mall wearing a headset."
负责Tango设备开发的联想副总裁杰夫·梅雷迪思表示：“这使得手机能更广泛地被接受，因为它集合了人们已经拥有的所有设备，人们将不再需要戴着耳机逛商场。”