Samsung bets on VR, IoT
Samsung Electronics President Yoon Boo-keun gives a keynote speech at the Consumer Electronics Show 2015 at an auditorium in the Venetian-Palazzo Hotel in Las Vegas, Tuesday. / Courtesy of Samsung Electronics
By Yoon Sung-won
Samsung Electronics has pledged to provide more virtual reality (VR) content and connect all its products through Internet of Things (IoT) by 2020.
At a press conference in Las Vegas on Monday (local time), one day before the launch of Consumer Electronics Show 2015, the company said it would connect technologies, content and services to create more opportunities.
“This year, we will concentrate more on connecting technologies, contents and services to bring the future life into reality,” said Samsung Electronics America president Tim Baxter. “We will create enormous opportunities from the IoT segment in a way that we provide convenience, safety and entertainment.”
Samsung Electronics unveiled a virtual reality content service called Milk VR at the press conference. The service is specifically designed for the company’s head mount display Gear VR which it unveiled at the IFA electronics fair in Berlin in September.
The company said the Milk VR service provided realistic sports broadcasts and movie content projected in a 360-degree virtual reality space.
It seeks to establish a multi-dimensional content service lineup under the Milk brand with the new service, added to its mobile music streaming Milk Music and video content Milk Video.
To secure more content for the service, Samsung Electronics said it would work with Skybound Entertainment, the U.S. film maker, which produced the thriller series “Walking Dead,” to prepare for new mystery thriller content.
It also said it would continue expanding virtual reality content lineup in cooperation with the National Basketball Association, Red Bull, Mountain Dew and Honda’s premium automobile branch Acura.
Super UHD TV
Alongside virtual reality content, Samsung Electronics showcased new customer electronics including a super ultra high-definition (SUHD) television and premium electric kitchen appliances.
The electronics giant brought out an 88-inch SUHD television. Surrounded by a panel made of nano material, it has an improved image engine called “SUHD Re-mastering” that can produce images 2.5 times brighter than ordinary televisions, with expanded contrast and more elaborate colors.
Samsung Electronics vice president Lee Won-jin said all Samsung smart televisions, including the new SUHD product, would use the Tizen operating system. The Tizen is an open-source mobile operating system platform co-developed by organizations and businesses including Linux Federation, Samsung Electronics, Intel, SK Telecom, Vodafone and NTT Docomo to counteract the dominance of Google’s Android.
Samsung Electronics America Executive Vice President Joe Stinziano said, “With the realistic high-quality image, new contents and the new user interface based on the Tizen platform, the new SUHD television will offer unprecedented users experience.”
The company said it had established the UHD Alliance with 20th Century Fox. The alliance will include major television manufacturers, Hollywood film studios and content providers to produce UHD content.
Chef Collection
In the home appliance segment, the company said it would launch the Chef Collection application for tablet computers and update the app once every two weeks to provide recipes by Michelin-rated restaurants’ chefs and the latest product catalogs.
The Flex Duo oven range that has two cooking chambers; the Active Wash washing machine that has a washboard and the Water Jet injection system that speeds up laundry; and the Power Bot robot vacuum cleaner that has a 60-times stronger motor were also introduced.
Samsung Electronics president Yoon Boo-keun vowed to connect all Samsung’s products through the IoT and to invest $100 million to support developers.
“We will continue to expand the IoT product lineup and connect 100 percent of our televisions through the IoT by 2017 and all the other Samsung appliances by 2020,” he said.
Yoon introduced a subminiature olfactory sensor that can recognize more than 20 types of smells, a motion-detection sensor, mobile application processor and a semiconductor called the embedded Package On Package, or ePOP, which integrates DRAM and NAND flash memory in it.
Yoon said he expected the new sensors and chips would play a key role in realizing the IoT technology in actual electronic appliances.