During the global debut of its new Magic 6 Pro smartphone on Sunday, Chinese tech giant Honor unveiled an eye-tracking AI experiment that lets customers remotely open and move their cars by simply staring at the screen of their phone.The company is aiming to integrate the technology commercially internationally, and it is currently available in China.Honor, which was acquired by state-owned Shenzhen Zhixin New Information Technology Co. in November 2020 after being acquired by Huawei Technologies [RIC:RIC:HWT.UL], had only made its new phone available in China up until Sunday.
In an attempt to capitalize on the excitement around generative AI, tech and telecom companies are introducing new features and products ahead of the annual Mobile World Congress (MWC), which gets underway in Barcelona on Monday.Smartphone manufacturers are hopeful that the buzz surrounding AI will stimulate the stagnant smartphone industry, despite the fact that many experts believe generative AI could give rise to unethical or legal issues.In addition to competing with companies like Apple (AAPL.O) and Oppo for market share in China for smartphones, the company is also attempting to internationally integrate the LlaMA 2 large language model (LLM), a technology that is akin to ChatGPT, into its phones.
According to International Data Corporation, Apple held a 17.3% market share in China in 2023, while Honor held a 17.1% share.Along with the debut of its latest laptop, the MagicBook Pro 16, Honor on Sunday also unveiled an AI function that lets users drag and drop messaging apps between devices, including an Android smartphone and a Windows PC.
“We firmly believe in the transformative power of collaborative synergy, especially in the era of AI,” said the company’s CEO George Zhao in a statement.