Just imagine being able to personalize and adjust your mobile phone’s sound reproduction with an equalizer. Or being able to watch high-resolution movies or play games in full-color animation. These are just some of the things that will come your way in the very near future.
In 1996, Philips integrated Voice Recognition into mobile phones. Back then, the function was limited to ‘Voice Dialing.’ For example, when you say "Darling," the phone automatically calls your loved one. Then in 1999, the company progressed to Voice Command, allowing you to order the phone to perform a specific function. Say "Silent" and it switches to silent mode. Say "Diary" and it checks your upcoming appointments. Today, Voice Recognition is a standard feature on the whole range of Philips’ mobile phones, which can execute more than 25 customized actions following your Vice Commands for different functions such as redial, send or read message, WAP, and so on. And all these are secured as your phone recognizes only your voiceprint. Another technological arena that Philips is excited about is mobile display.
The company announced that its polymer-based organic light-emitting diode (OLED) technology is now available for production for telecommunications applications. The technology features maximum resolution with extremely bright, high contrast capabilities for easy viewing at any angle. Also more recently, Philips achieved a major industry breakthrough with its color module that can provide full-screen display capability while in stand-by mode – thus consuming less power than other active matrix color mobile phone display on the market and enabling longer battery life.
According to Jan Pape, marketing manager of Philips Semiconductors Display rivers business line, "the significance of the telephone display has been growing gradually over the years, and today at least 50 percent of the user interface is visual. This is just the start: touch screens are emerging fast and as we cram ever more data into the bandwidth, mobile phones are about to become a practical gateway to the Internet. When this happens, the display becomes paramount. Another development will be mobile video conferencing with lager screens, moving images and color displays. Philips Semiconductors’ next-generation display driers will enable these developments."