Samsung's new technology puts more heat on Apple
SAN FRANCISCO — For anyone who thinks former L.A. cop and Star Trek creator
Gene Roddenberry was the greatest futurist of the 20th century — as I
do — wait until you see new home entertainment technology coming from
Samsung.
It was demonstrated at a San Francisco hotel late last week on a 54-inch TV — equipped with two-way wireless — that was smarter than any computer or home entertainment platform I've ever used.
It does Roddenberry's famous Star Trek computer one better, because it allows consumers to navigate their home media centers with voice and hand commands.
Samsung has combined the gesture-capture breakthrough of Nintendo's Wii with the new voice-recognition search technologies used by both Apple and Google in the latest versions of software for tablets and smartphones.
The eye-popping combination creates a powerful home media experience, with many options accessed easily.
What I saw demonstrated may someday soon be a prayer answered for any TV viewer who's ever searched the couch for a remote control device. That's because it can be controlled with an Android phone or tablet, as I saw done, thanks to the TV's wireless Internet link.
Because both devices share access to a huge pool of data over the wireless Internet, consumers can access movie reviews, behind-the-scenes interviews or reader comments on film blogs, for example, on a handheld device while watching the content behind on their TV.
Samsung was in town with a big presence to make sure no one missed the news that the company's latest Android-based smartphone, the Galaxy S4, shipped 10 million units in "27 days," as the company said at the press gathering.
Held at the Hotel Vitale at the base of Mission Street, it was the best tech industry reception I've been to since the dot-com days of 1999-2000. The eighth-floor reception room had a western view toward the Port of San Francisco, with the tower of the Ferry Building displayed in relief by the setting sun.
Into the heart of this scene came South Korean tech giant Samsung, which has been putting the heat on its rivals in many markets, from phones to TVs to chips.
In late April, Samsung reported a 46% rise in profit for its most recent period, as sales rose 17% from a year earlier.
Samsung became the world's largest seller of smartphones in late 2011, supplanting once-giant Finnish hardware maker Nokia, which had been No. 1 for more than a decade.
Samsung got there by making a key strategic move in adopting Google's Android software, which consumers have made the most popular smartphone operating system in the world.
Now Nokia is a rump of its former self, and the question that arises for Samsung is: Now that it has the global crown, how long can it hold it?
Every one of its markets is fiercely competitive, requiring tens of billions of dollars in research-and-development spending each year.
The handheld consumer market that Samsung now sits on top of is quite a fickle one, with product lines sliding in and out of popularity quickly.
The competition is fierce to be first to market with new features, with legions of engineers working at Google and Apple, and millions of independent mobile software engineers developing apps that use either platform.
Like Nokia, Motorola saw its once-dominant or leading positions in various handheld markets evaporate under the dual juggernaut of Apple- and Google-powered devices. Motorola was broken up, and its hardware business was bought last year by Google.
The technology showed by Samsung doesn't fundamentally alter the balance of power between those two competing smartphone platforms directly, in my opinion.
But Samsung has skated to where it thinks the puck will be, to employ a famous analogy used by hockey immortal Wayne Gretzky.
The WatchOn service, combined with the Samsung Smart TV, provides a groundbreaking media experience — one not produced by Apple.
The Samsung technology raises the questions of whether this type of experience is what Apple has been shooting for with its long-rumored development efforts, and whether a smartphone worn on your wrist will someday be used to control your TV.
When I stood 5 to 6 feet in front of the huge Samsung color display, put my hand up (as traffic cops do when they want you to stop) and then waved my hand back and forth just a bit and not too fast, a menu appeared on the screen in response.
It took several tries, and the interface still needs work, because when there was a lot of movement behind me — other journalists sprinting for the free buffet of fresh shrimp and in-shell crab, perhaps — the TV stopped responding to my gestures.
Still, I eventually got the hang of it and could move the onscreen cursor by moving my hand 6 feet away.
When I said the words "Tom Cruise comedies," as a Samsung employee instructed, the long list of movies on the screen was reduced to two: Risky Business and Jerry Maguire. When I then moved the cursor over the first movie and shut my hand, the title began to load.
That's when I felt like I was living in the future.
The application of this technology or a similar version of it — if it works successfully and proliferates in wireless networks — would be a type of place-shifting service that consumers can now get by having TiVo or a Roku box.
But it's not necessarily the type of cord-cutting technology preferred by consumers who want to watch their own content wherever they are without using their local cable company.
If a consumer used this technology at home, their movie selections would be limited to those provided by their current technology or cable package.
WatchOn would, however, give parents who are traveling or away from their kids the ability to help those kids select an appropriate movie from a shared list — as long as both parties are using linked Android devices.
Will we see something like this from Apple soon?
The company's developers conference begins in San Francisco next week.
John Shinal has covered tech and financial markets for 15 years at Bloomberg Businessweek, the San Francisco Chronicle, Dow Jones MarketWatch, Wall Street Journal Digital Network and others.
It was demonstrated at a San Francisco hotel late last week on a 54-inch TV — equipped with two-way wireless — that was smarter than any computer or home entertainment platform I've ever used.
It does Roddenberry's famous Star Trek computer one better, because it allows consumers to navigate their home media centers with voice and hand commands.
Samsung has combined the gesture-capture breakthrough of Nintendo's Wii with the new voice-recognition search technologies used by both Apple and Google in the latest versions of software for tablets and smartphones.
The eye-popping combination creates a powerful home media experience, with many options accessed easily.
What I saw demonstrated may someday soon be a prayer answered for any TV viewer who's ever searched the couch for a remote control device. That's because it can be controlled with an Android phone or tablet, as I saw done, thanks to the TV's wireless Internet link.
Because both devices share access to a huge pool of data over the wireless Internet, consumers can access movie reviews, behind-the-scenes interviews or reader comments on film blogs, for example, on a handheld device while watching the content behind on their TV.
Samsung was in town with a big presence to make sure no one missed the news that the company's latest Android-based smartphone, the Galaxy S4, shipped 10 million units in "27 days," as the company said at the press gathering.
Held at the Hotel Vitale at the base of Mission Street, it was the best tech industry reception I've been to since the dot-com days of 1999-2000. The eighth-floor reception room had a western view toward the Port of San Francisco, with the tower of the Ferry Building displayed in relief by the setting sun.
Into the heart of this scene came South Korean tech giant Samsung, which has been putting the heat on its rivals in many markets, from phones to TVs to chips.
In late April, Samsung reported a 46% rise in profit for its most recent period, as sales rose 17% from a year earlier.
Samsung became the world's largest seller of smartphones in late 2011, supplanting once-giant Finnish hardware maker Nokia, which had been No. 1 for more than a decade.
Samsung got there by making a key strategic move in adopting Google's Android software, which consumers have made the most popular smartphone operating system in the world.
Now Nokia is a rump of its former self, and the question that arises for Samsung is: Now that it has the global crown, how long can it hold it?
Every one of its markets is fiercely competitive, requiring tens of billions of dollars in research-and-development spending each year.
The handheld consumer market that Samsung now sits on top of is quite a fickle one, with product lines sliding in and out of popularity quickly.
The competition is fierce to be first to market with new features, with legions of engineers working at Google and Apple, and millions of independent mobile software engineers developing apps that use either platform.
Like Nokia, Motorola saw its once-dominant or leading positions in various handheld markets evaporate under the dual juggernaut of Apple- and Google-powered devices. Motorola was broken up, and its hardware business was bought last year by Google.
The technology showed by Samsung doesn't fundamentally alter the balance of power between those two competing smartphone platforms directly, in my opinion.
But Samsung has skated to where it thinks the puck will be, to employ a famous analogy used by hockey immortal Wayne Gretzky.
The WatchOn service, combined with the Samsung Smart TV, provides a groundbreaking media experience — one not produced by Apple.
The Samsung technology raises the questions of whether this type of experience is what Apple has been shooting for with its long-rumored development efforts, and whether a smartphone worn on your wrist will someday be used to control your TV.
When I stood 5 to 6 feet in front of the huge Samsung color display, put my hand up (as traffic cops do when they want you to stop) and then waved my hand back and forth just a bit and not too fast, a menu appeared on the screen in response.
It took several tries, and the interface still needs work, because when there was a lot of movement behind me — other journalists sprinting for the free buffet of fresh shrimp and in-shell crab, perhaps — the TV stopped responding to my gestures.
Still, I eventually got the hang of it and could move the onscreen cursor by moving my hand 6 feet away.
When I said the words "Tom Cruise comedies," as a Samsung employee instructed, the long list of movies on the screen was reduced to two: Risky Business and Jerry Maguire. When I then moved the cursor over the first movie and shut my hand, the title began to load.
That's when I felt like I was living in the future.
The application of this technology or a similar version of it — if it works successfully and proliferates in wireless networks — would be a type of place-shifting service that consumers can now get by having TiVo or a Roku box.
But it's not necessarily the type of cord-cutting technology preferred by consumers who want to watch their own content wherever they are without using their local cable company.
If a consumer used this technology at home, their movie selections would be limited to those provided by their current technology or cable package.
WatchOn would, however, give parents who are traveling or away from their kids the ability to help those kids select an appropriate movie from a shared list — as long as both parties are using linked Android devices.
Will we see something like this from Apple soon?
The company's developers conference begins in San Francisco next week.
John Shinal has covered tech and financial markets for 15 years at Bloomberg Businessweek, the San Francisco Chronicle, Dow Jones MarketWatch, Wall Street Journal Digital Network and others.
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