Google sought yesterday to steal a march on Apple and breathe life into a new market for “wearable” computing devices, as it showed off a range of stripped down internet services such as voice-activated search to feature on a coming generation of smartwatches.
谷歌(Google)昨日试图偷偷地超越苹果(Apple)，给“可穿戴”计算设备这一新市场注入活力。该公司展示了一系列精简版的互联网服务，比如语音激活搜索，这些服务将搭载于即将推出的新一代智能手表上。
Apple laid the ground last month for its own iWatch, with the announcement of a fitness app that would act as a hub for a user’s health information, much of it collected from around the body by sensors embedded in wearable gadgets.
苹果上月为自己的iWatch夯实了基础。它宣布推出一款健身应用，该应用将扮演用户健康信息中心的角色——这些信息有很大一部分是由嵌入可穿戴设备的传感器从用户身体各处收集的。
The big US tech companies have raced to establish a wearables market as the growth in smartphone sales has levelled off in the developed world, carrying over the tactics they honed in the smartphone wars. Google’s approach, using a new version of its Android smartphone operating system, relies on rallying a range of electronics companies to make devices using its services.
由于发达国家智能手机销售增长已近极限，美国大型科技公司沿袭它们在智能手机大战中提炼出的战术，展开了一场建立可穿戴设备市场的竞赛。谷歌的做法是使用新版Android智能手机操作系统，这一战术的基础是要聚拢一批电子厂商，生产使用谷歌服务的设备。
“Google has a big ecosystem advantage; they have a lot of companies working on it,” said Geoff Blaber, a mobile industry analyst at CCS Insight. “But like tablets, it will probably take a couple of generations for these to really catch on with consumers, and Apple has a big brand advantage over any of these manufacturers.”
“谷歌在生态系统方面拥有巨大优势；很多厂商都在生产谷歌系统的可穿戴设备。但像平板电脑一样，这些厂商的可穿戴设备很可能要到第三四代时才能真正受到消费者的追捧，而苹果相对这些厂商中的任何一家都拥有巨大的品牌优势，”CCS Insight移动行业分析师杰夫•布拉韦尔(Geoff Blaber)表示。
The first Google-powered smartwatches, from LG and Samsung, are available to order now, though no date was given when they would be shipped. A Motorola watch will also go on sale this summer.
LG和三星(Samsung)推出的首批搭载谷歌系统的智能手表现已接受订购，尽管具体发货日期还未公布。摩托罗拉(Motorola)的一款智能手表也将于今夏上市。
The battle to attract users will depend on creating useful services for smartwatches, according to analysts, explaining why the big tech companies have used their annual developer events to lay out their plans.
在解释为何大型科技公司要利用它们的年度开发者大会公布它们的规划时，分析师们表示，这场用户争夺战的胜负将取决于谁能为智能手表打造有用的服务。
“As with Apple’s push into health apps ahead of its iWatch launch, wearables’ success lies in creating an ‘ecosystem’ of apps before consumers will be prepared to buy new devices,” said Carolina Milanesi, an analyst with Kantar Worldpanel.
Kantar Worldpanel分析师卡罗琳娜•米拉内西(Carolina Milanesi)表示：“与苹果在发布iWatch前进军健康应用领域一样，可穿戴设备要想获得成功，就必须在消费者做好准备购买新设备前，建立一套应用的‘生态系统’。”
Google said smartphone users checked their screens 120 times a day on average, and that smartwatches could replace some of the interaction. The watches could give “intelligent answers to spoken questions”, and act as a “key in a multi-screen world”, it said.
谷歌表示，智能手机用户每天平均浏览手机屏幕120次，其中部分互动可被智能手表取代。该公司还表示，智能手表可“对口头提出的问题给出智能的解答”，充当“多屏世界的一把钥匙”。
The announcements came as Google pushed Android into a range of new markets. It announced a version for cars, called Android Auto, and a TV set-top box, named Android TV.
宣布上述消息的同时，谷歌也将Android系统推向了一系列新市场。该公司宣布推出名为“Android Auto”的车载信息系统和名为“Android TV”的电视机顶盒。