高通雄心：万物皆可互联

    智能手机真是太过时了。

    在今年的拉斯维加斯消费电子展上，手机芯片厂商高通公司（Qualcomm）——全世界绝大多数手机里都有它生产的无线模块——没怎么谈起手机，反倒是大谈特谈自家的芯片可以如何用于新兴市场，比如车联网、可穿戴设备和智能电视。

    今天，消费电子展这个年度技术会议正式开始。本周一，高通这家位于圣地亚哥的公司发布了一系列新产品，它们是用来吸引汽车厂商和其他另类客户采用它的技术，使自己的产品变得“更聪明”。它发布的新产品包括：用于汽车业的全新处理器；正式投入商用的AllPlay，也就是高通为各种设备上的流媒体音乐打造的专用平台；以及用于高端电视的全新骁龙芯片。

    为什么高通要从移动这个老本行上突然转型呢？道理很简单。高通牢牢地掌控着智能手机领域，这是它未来数年能一直能赚钱的摇钱树。但它很清楚，高端手机市场的增长已经开始出现颓势，至少在北美这样的成熟市场是如此。因此，高通正在努力让自己的芯片和专利植入从洗衣机到手表所有这些目前还是“傻乎乎的”物体中。

    而从现在的情况看，智能手机只是高通的探路尖兵。即将上任的首席执行官斯蒂夫•莫伦科夫在消费电子展的问答环节上告诉现场的听众们：“我们发现，在智能手机上的成功正在引领我们在其他领域实现增长。”

    高通在所谓的物联网上押了很大的宝，但尽管多年来一直高调推广，智能互联家庭对主流消费者来说却还是可望而不可即。这主要是因为还有互通性的问题有待攻克（当然咯，高通表示自己已经找到了解决方案）。更重要的是，业内还需要证明带有“智能芯片”的烤箱就是比那些不带这种芯片的机器更出色——而且也值得多掏钱。而高通大笔砸钱的另一个领域是可穿戴设备。尽管厂家围绕全新的不锈钢Pebble智能手表已经开始大肆造势，但它也需要在很多方面证明自己的价值。至于说汽车，好吧，我们只能说这不会是第一届最终要靠所谓车联网带动人气的消费电子展。

    高通并不是唯一一家可劲儿显摆自己的嵌入式应用专业技术的公司。它的老对手英特尔公司（Intel）的老本行尽管跟手机没什么关系（手机业飞速增长，挤占了它曾经一统天下的PC市场，而它在手机业几乎毫无作为），但它也很想证明自己在可穿戴设备和互联家庭这种蓬勃兴起的市场里是个有力的竞争者。周一，英特尔展示了自己的智能耳机和手表，还有一个能为移动设备无线充电的碗状设备。它还推出了一款名为爱迪生（Edison）的系统级芯片，它被吹嘘为一个SD卡大小的电脑。

    有了这些创新成果，谁还会再关心智能手机呢？（财富中文网）

    译者：清远   

    Smartphones are soooo 2013.

    At this year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, mobile chipmaker Qualcomm (QCOM) -- whose wireless components are found in the vast majority of the world's cell phones -- chose instead to talk about how its chips can be used for fledgling markets such as connected cars, wearables, and smart televisions.

    The annual tech confab officially started today. On Monday, the San Diego-based company announced a series of products it hopes will entice automakers and other atypical customers to use its technology to make their products "smarter." Among the announcements: a new processor for the automotive industry; the commercial availability of AllPlay, Qualcomm's platform for streaming music across different gadgets; and new Snapdragon-branded chipsets for high-end television sets.

    Why the sudden shift away from its mobile roots? It's simple. Qualcomm has the upper hand in smartphones, a cash cow it can keep milking for years to come. But it knows that growth in high-end mobile devices is already starting to wane, at least in mature markets such as North America. Ergo, Qualcomm is pushing to get its chips and IP inside all sorts of still-"dumb" objects, from washing machines to watches.

    Smartphones, it turns out, are just the tip of the spear. "We're seeing the trend of the smartphone leading us to growth in other industries," incoming CEO Steve Mollenkopf told the audience in a question-and-answer session in Las Vegas.

    Qualcomm has a lot riding on the so-called Internet of Things, but despite years of promise the connected home is still far from reality for mainstream consumers. There are interoperability issues that still need to be worked out. (Of course, Qualcomm says it has a solution for that problem.) More importantly, the industry has yet to prove that toasters with "smarts" are better -- and worth the added cost -- than those without. Wearables, another area in which Qualcomm is investing, also has a lot to prove, despite the hype surrounding products like the new stainless steel Pebble smartwatch. And as for cars, well, let's just say this isn't the first CES that's been touted as the year connected automobiles finally make it big.

    Qualcomm is not the only semiconductor company trying to show off its embedded-application expertise. Rival Intel (INTC) wasn't exactly born mobile -- the company has barely made a dent in an industry that quickly grew to supplant one it dominated -- but it is already trying to prove that it's a contender in burgeoning markets like wearables and the connected home. On Monday, Intel showed off smart headsets, watches and earphones, as well as a bowl-like device that wirelessly charges the depleted batteries of mobile devices. It also introduced a new system-on-a-chip for wearables named Edison, touted as a computer the size of an SD card.

    With innovations like that, who cares about smartphones anymore?