Commentators are beginning to speak of CES 2013 as Samsung’s show. That’s a bit unfair to the other 2,000+ companies present, but there is a huge buzz around news from the world’s biggest electronics manufacturer, at the ‘biggest tech expo on earth’. Samsung’s Key Note on Wednesday included another impressive range of fresh tech innovation (yes, Samsung is innovating, despite Apple-lovers cries).
Highlights:
Stephen Woo, president of the Device Solutions Division, introduced the new Exynos 5 Octa processor, based on ARM's big.LITTLE architecture. This processor will allow for much higher processing power, while facilitating “70 percent higher energy efficiency” (this is great news!).
Brian Berkeley, Head of Samsung Display Lab, demonstrated the most recent developments in flexible screens from Samsung’s Youm, which attracted gasps of amazement from the captivated audience. The tech has been around since early last year, but this was an opportunity to see it in action on prototype devices and it seems likely that products featuring the technology will be available within the next 12 months. The technology will also see utilization in TVs, which will produce a more encapsulating viewer experience (LG have alsodemonstrated their work in this space). More on that here.
Clinton also made a (surprising) guest appearance towards the end of Samsung’s Key Note to deliver a seudo-tech message. He highlighted how important the virtual world is in providing opportunities as an open discussion platform for politics, as well as providing minorities the chance of having their voice heard. As we all remember twitter and facebook played a considerable role in galvanizing local support and gaining global attention for the Arab Spring demonstrations/uprisings in the last two years. A roar of approval also welcomed his anti-gun comments (despite the fact that things seemed a bit off topic by this point).
Clinton also called on the US to ramp up tech innovation, citing the fact that internet speeds in the homeland of Apple are only 25% of those in Samsung-land, South Korea (I downloaded a season of Breaking Bad in less than five minutes the other day).
Interesting facts: When Clinton took office in 1992 there were 50 sites on the internet (that figure is now over 600,000,000), and mobile phones weighed 5 pounds (iphone 5 weighs 12 grams).
