Turn on Tomorrow: Samsung product launch
Latest Gadgets were invited down to Chelsea FC’s football stadium to spend an evening playing with Samsung’s latest and greatest gadgets all under the banner, “Turn on Tommorrow”. After an opening of salvo of Drinks and Nibbles (which included a frankly mind blowing spiced potato dish), we were treated to a broad overview of Samsung’s vision for 2010 by Vice President (Samsung Consumer Electronics UK), Andy Griffiths. Watching a grown man wax poetic about the next generation of fridges was a little bizarre. However, I then went to have a look at the fridges and was instantly amazed.
The Samsung Zipel marks the first time I have ever been excited about refrigeration technology. It has standard fridge stuff, energy efficient cooling of your food and drinks etc. However what made my eyes pop was the inclusion of a 7” touch screen and wireless connectivity. You may ask, “Who needs a wireless touch screen in a fridge?” And the correct reply is of course, “No one”. It is however, undeniably cool. You can surf the net, receive news alerts & weather reports, see upcoming dates on your Google calendar and make basic notes. It can even read memory cards to create a photo slideshow. Coolest of all it can provide nutritional information on a range of foods. However it cannot play DOOM. Yet.
I then headed over to the Hoover section to play with the futuristic cleaning robot the Navibot, which like its surgical cousin MediBot, is adept at eating hundreds and thousands. A more advanced take on the Rhoomba, with some pretty advanced AI, the Navibot takes 30fps video, which works in conjunction with its path-finding algorithm to map out rooms. It also has a memory, which allows it to return to its base if it runs out of power, charge and then head back to where it left off and generally puts my carpet cleaning skills to shame.
Camera wise, there were a smattering of average looking point and shoots, the WB500 being the most eye-catching, with 24mm Ultra Wide, Optical 10x Zoom Schneider Lens and High Definition Video recording. However the star of the camera corner was clearly the NX10, a curious looking intermediary between the worlds of the point and shoot and the DSLR. Designed without a mirror box or pentaprism, the NX10 is tiny in comparison to most DSLRs and extremely light weight, despite being a fully functioning DSLR. Like most modern DSLRs, the NX10 records high definition, video although only in 720p.
The largest crowds were huddled around Samsung’s array of 3DTV and Blu Ray home cinema combos. Needless to stay this looked absolutely stunning. The glasses were small and unobtrusive, the images crisp and the 7.1 surround sound booming. The demo videos – marine life, BMX bandits at a skate park and male and female models at some sort of pool party all benefited from the added dimension. Another cool feature was the ability to read standard 2D films and reinterpret depth of field – essential adding 3D to most movies. However what interested me the most was not the 3D but the introduction of “apps” to TV. Conceptualizing TV as a platform, in a similar fashion to the Android Marketplace store or the Apple App store, the coming generation of TVs will have built in wireless connectivity, allowing access to services such as the BBC iPlayer, or Lovefilm and possibly even video conferencing utilizing services such as Skype.
