Aiming to develop the next generation of mobile technologies, the Microsoft China Research & Development Group announced last week the establishment of the Mobile Technology Center (MTC) in Beijing. The new center will focus on mobile multimedia, 3G wireless, and seamless device connection technologies and innovations.

"Mobile technologies nowadays are evolving quite quickly," said Todd Warren, corporate vice-president of Mobile and Embedded Devices Division for Microsoft Corp. "The multimedia application in the form of music and video as well as Web browsing are becoming much more popular in a mobile environment."

Applying PC technologies directly to mobile phones provides a lot of richness to their capacities, added Todd. A basketball fan at work can watch NBA games using a cell phone connected to a computer through wireless technologies.

On the opening day of the new center, research fellows from Microsoft Research China (MSR) demonstrated to the audience some even more exciting mobile technologies. Though still in a prototyped stage, these technologies may represent the direction of future mobile technology development.

Photo XP is a picture browsing application which delivers an entirely different experience from traditional photo browsing. Photo XP allows a mobile phone user to organize and play back their digital memories in a more intuitive way. For example, they can group and sort pictures based on date, location and names.

More interestingly, Photo XP has adopted face detection, a cutting edge technology from MSR. The technology can enable the cell phone users to make face extractions from pictures, which can then be added to contacts in their address book.

"The technology is based on pattern recognition. It is cool for Photo XP to accurately identify all the faces in a group photo," said Guan Yanfang, a research fellow from MSR.

Another groundbreaking mobile technology is called Butler.

Butler delivers an entirely new level of seamless communication through device-to-device data communication.

This innovative application leverages the computational intelligence of mobile devices and allows for the sharing and exchanging of information between mobile phone users.

A few scenarios like contact and schedule sharing are already possible in Butler.

When one delivers an inquiry to another one, upon the receiver's approval, his mobile phone will automatically search for the needed information and share it with the sender.

"Butler is in fact based on an interpersonal relations network. You are looking for a person through another one who might know him or her," Guan said. "The technology will be particularly practical in a business environment."

When the mobile phones are equipped with the Global Positioning System, one can even know the exact location of his or her friends if the inquiry receivers press the approval button.

(China Daily March 29, 2006)