想用Android手表打败苹果？三星你too simple

三星(Samsung)想要藉由抢先推出新种类的可穿戴设备把宿敌苹果(Apple)给比下去，但如果这家韩国大厂要发表的新产品只是一款 Android 手表，恐怕难以震服那家美国同业。 我相信总有一天将会有一系列新的可穿戴式设备崛起，以各种协同运作的设备为基础，可能包括手表、眼镜、鞋子…等等；根据业界消息，三星可能会推出一款名为“Galaxy Gear”的新产品，就是着眼于以上的趋势。 而据了解，即将问世的首款可穿戴式设备会是一只 Android 手表；笔者曾在几年前的国际消费性电子展(CES)上看到 LG 的首席技术官戴了一只蜂窝式手机表，但在当时曾获得短暂惊叹之后，那个产品无声无息地消失了，微软(Microsoft)几年前发表的Spot智能手表也是命运雷同。 针对可穿戴式设备， ARM 首席技术官Mike Muller也抱持些许怀疑态度，他在日前接受笔者电话采访时表示：“手表类设备让我感到有些失望，因为功能性太有限无法引人瞩目；但我们认为配件首饰倒会是一个值得注意的可穿戴式设备平台。” Muller与部分产业人士将健身设备、植入式医疗感测设备领域，视为培育真正有用之可穿戴式设备的“沃土”；确实，像是 FitBit (编按：健身用智能配件供货商)这样的新创公司引发了某些人的想象，包括一些产业资深人士以及微软的研究员Gordon Bell。 而Muller认为，那些可穿戴式设备比一种新科技更需要创新思维；在笔者与Muller通电话之后没多久，ARM就公布了开发近临界电压处理器(near-threshold processor)的计划，可见得未来低功耗芯片的发展将会很不错。 尚需厘清的的是未来那些可穿戴式设备所收集到的私人资料，所可能面临的隐私权以及安全性问题；对此Muller表示：“对于这个问题我们无法提供简单的解决方案，而且我也不认为只凭我们就能解决，这是一个整个产业界需要共同面对的问题。” 此外Muller指出，那些小型设备已经拥有硬件式的安全技术，只是缺乏安全的、可透过无线更新软件的相关标准。 最后Muller也针对最近被大力吹捧的物联网(Internet of Things，IoT)提出了个人看法：“物联网只是嵌入式技术的重新包装，因为一旦说嵌入式就没人会想要写了，但如果你说那是物联网，大家抢着写。” 编译：Judith Cheng 参考英文原文：Samsung Gear May Make Apple Feel Naked，by Rick Merritt

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{pagination} Samsung Gear May Make Apple Feel Naked Rick Merritt, SiliconValley Bureau Chief Samsung would love to get the jump on archrival Apple by establishing a new category of wearable devices. But if all the Korean giant has to offer is an Android watch, it won't make the folks in Cupertino reach for a fig leaf. I believe someday a new category of wearables will emerge based on a variety of devices that work in concert, maybe including watches, glasses, shoes, and more. Reports that Samsung may launch something called Galaxy Gear suggest it is thinking along these lines. The same reports, however, say the first device is an Android watch. I saw LG's CTO wearing a cellular watch at CES a few years back, and after the oohs and aahs, it died a quiet death. Microsoft's Spot watch had a similar fate. Mike Muller, chief technologist for ARM, is a bit of a skeptic, too. Muller shared his thoughts on wearables and more with me in a telephone interview last week. "Watches have been disappointing to me because their functionality is too limited to make them compelling," Muller said. "But we think jewelry could be a platform that's interesting," he said. Muller and others see "worried well" fitness devices and implanted medical sensors as fertile ground for spawning really useful wearables. Indeed, FitBit caught some people's imagination, including industry veteran and Microsoft researcher Gordon Bell. Muller quipped that the connected scales he has at home created a new category of "guilt as a service." These devices require innovative thinking more than new technology, Muller said. Just days after we spoke, ARM disclosed plans for near-threshold processors, so the horizon for low-power chips is good. What's more foggy is the future of privacy and security for the very personal data wearables collect. "We don't have a simple answer to this, and I don't believe we will because it's an industry-wide problem," Muller said. Separately, these small micros already have hardware-backed security techniques, but they lack standards for secure, over-the-air firmware upgrades, he said. Finally, Muller took his own personal swipe at that much ballyhooed term, the Internet of Things. "IoT is rebranded embedded, because no one will write about embedded, but if you call it IoT everyone will," he quipped.