微軟和IBM從中國霧霾預(yù)報(bào)中發(fā)現(xiàn)商機(jī)?
在中國的空氣質(zhì)量預(yù)測(cè)市場(chǎng)方興未艾、高速發(fā)展之際，全球最大的兩家科技公司——IBM和微軟正在爭相開發(fā)這片市場(chǎng)。
Both Microsoft and IBM secured their firstgovernment clients last year after developing theirrespective pollution forecasting technologies.
在研發(fā)出各自的污染預(yù)測(cè)技術(shù)后，微軟和IBM去年雙雙迎來了來自首家政府客戶。
IBM's first client was the city of Beijing'senvironmental protection bureau, which bases its color-coded pollution alerts on thetechnology.
IBM的首家客戶是北京市環(huán)保局，合作項(xiàng)目基于其顏色分級(jí)預(yù)警技術(shù)。
For its part, Microsoft has signed up China's environment ministry, and the environmentalprotection bureaus in Fujian province and Chengdu city.
而微軟則與中國環(huán)保部、福建省環(huán)保廳、成都市環(huán)保局等簽署了合作協(xié)議。
The two tech rivals aren't just competing over government clients. Business clients - inparticular renewable power generation companies - are another target, along with consumers.
作為競爭對(duì)手，IBM和微軟的競爭對(duì)象不局限于政府客戶，企業(yè)客戶(尤其是可再生發(fā)電公司)、消費(fèi)者也是它們的目標(biāo)。
"If you can predict the weather, it only takes a few more variables to predict air quality," saidRobert Rohde of Berkeley Earth, a U.S.-based non-profit that maps China's real-time airpollution. "Most of the time pollutant emissions don't vary very rapidly."
“如果能夠預(yù)測(cè)天氣的話，只需要多添加幾個(gè)變量就可以預(yù)測(cè)空氣質(zhì)量。”追蹤中國實(shí)時(shí)空氣污染分布的美國非盈利組織Berkeley Earth主管羅伯特·羅德表示，“大多數(shù)時(shí)候，污染物的排放不會(huì)在短時(shí)間內(nèi)產(chǎn)生改變。”
But there are still kinks to work out. The latest version of Microsoft's iPhone app lacked theforecasting function advertised, which the company blamed on a bug, while during a recent"red alert," when the air was considered hazardous and schools were shut, the China OpenIBM-based forecast recommended "light exercise".
但目前微軟和IBM的空氣質(zhì)量預(yù)報(bào)應(yīng)用仍存在一定缺陷。由于一處缺陷，微軟最新iOS版空氣質(zhì)量檢測(cè)應(yīng)用缺乏預(yù)測(cè)功能。在最近的霧霾“紅色預(yù)警”期間，北京的學(xué)校暫停教學(xué)，但中國網(wǎng)球公開賽和IBM共同推出的空氣質(zhì)量預(yù)報(bào)大數(shù)據(jù)卻推薦民眾“輕度運(yùn)動(dòng)”。
