Baidu launched its first client-side for smart watch — Baidu Watch V1.0 at the end of December 2014. Baidu Watch v1.0 is the search client-side developed for Google’s Android Wear according to the official news.

In terms of Baidu Watch’s functions, it is mainly used with voice search and the search results can be optimized for smart watches. Such function makes Baidu search reach smart watch.

Baidu wants to take advantage of search technology and integrate such technology with smart device

said the staff who is in charge of Baidu watch’s development.

Online search are continuously evolving nowadays. Search results have expanded to text link, flash, video and so on. Search methods can be text, voice, and images. With the popularity of smart device in our daily life, search can be everywhere to serve the needs.

Baidu has approved to be a good platform for advertisers to do online marketing. In Q3, Baidu had over half million active online marketing customers.

Baidu Watch will launch reminders for couples and family members and “find your phone” features based on connection with your personal smartphone.

Baidu continued its efforts in smart device development in 2014 and revealed its smart bike DuBike prototype, developed by Baidu Deep Learning Lab in November 2014 which looks attractive. See more here.

Also read：How to Deal with Deliberate Negative Search Results on Baidu

Mobile Taobao revealed on November 26 2013 about its new functions in new mobile Taobao app, including the most advanced voice search technique in China.

According to the revelation, mobile voice search recognition could reach 93% accuracy, supporting voice input in normal environment, as well as complex environment like metro, bus stop and plaza. What’s more, mobile Taobao voice search could tell from the mix voice input of Chinese and English brands.

Mobile Taobao claimed that most of Chinese voice search recognition rate was below 85%, while mobile Taobao achieved above 87% recognition rate. For products especially, the voice search recognition reached as high as 93%.

According to iResearch, the number of total China mobile search users reached 390 million in Q2 2013. China mobile search market is not mature yet. Mobile search technology needs improvement to offer better user experience.

The total mobile search revenue in Q2 reached 1.19 billion yuan (USD 194 million), with a 15.7% QoQ increase.

In China mobile search usage rate in Q2 2013 was 76.5%.

In terms of popular mobile search content categories, web page, news and fictions were the top three, with 58.8%, 54.1% and 51.5% rate respectively. Compared to PC, mobile search content were more likely to contain entertainment and local services.

In Q2 2013, 77.6% users average daily mobile search were more than two times. And 38% users searched 2-5 times a day.

37.8% Chinese used voice search in Q2 2013, and only 19.4% used image search. Although voice search and image search were launched for quite some time, they were not widely used. Especially for image search, it was most used in clothing and book search.

Besides, 66.4% users said they noticed mobile search ads, but only 3.1% clicked on the ads in Q2 2013.

Baidu awarded million dollar prize to two teams, one of them was speech search engine team. This is the first time when an end-user oriented team won the prize.

Baidu’s million dollar prize is set up by CEO Robin Li, mainly for employees whose position are below director levels. The team should be limited to a maximum of 10 persons. The prize would be awarded to teams which have made innovations and breakthroughs in significant projects, far beyond expectations. The number of winning teams is not limited, which means Baidu would give out the prize to every team achieved the criteria. The prize would give out on Baidu Annual Summer Party.

As the highest prize in Baidu, we could see its mid-term goals through the prizes. In the first two years, the prizes were awarded to realizing full potential of server, content network keyword match and Baidu PPC Phoenix Nest. In this year, one team works on advertising and budget, also focuses on business enterprises. But the speech search team is customer oriented.

Media questioned that Baidu didn’t put much effort on mobile products before. After buying Chinese app distributor 91 wireless for 1.9 billion USD, Baidu awarded mobile terminal developing team with one million dollar which showed growing importance of mobile terminal to Baidu.

Actually, in the past two years, Baidu speech search engine have supported a series of products, such as Baidu voice input, Baidu voice search and Baidu voice assistant.

iFLYTech is Chinese voice recognition software company, with 20 billion CNY market capitalization which is almost the same as Sohu. This gives us a reference for the Baidu speech recognition valuation.