A recent report by Bernard Marr reveals how the major announcements made by Samsung in this year’s CES trade show, indicates how it is gradually becoming the driving force for the fourth industrial revolution. In the last year alone, the company has spent over $15 billion dollars in the R&D, on the major elements representatives of the Industry 4.0, namely, robotics, Big Data, IoT, autonomous driving, AR, 5G, and AI.

Samsung Bixby Speaker against Google Home, HomePod, and Alexa

If you’re a user of Samsung smartphones, you must already be aware of the existence of Bixby, a voice assistant that works alongside the Google Assistant to enhance the user interface of the phone. Now, the company is planning to launch a smart speaker with the same name and system, leveraging its capabilities in contextual understanding and natural language processing, to come in direct competition with Google Home, Alexa, and HomePod.

What’s more interesting is that the company has also made an announcement of embedding the second stable version of the AI system, Bixby 2.0, to all the other devices it manufactures. That means whether it’s a Samsung television, refrigerator, or washers, you’ll be able to interact with them through your voice commands.

Samsung’s progress in IoT

Samsung has promised that by the year 2020 all the devices it manufactures will not only have the aforementioned AI capabilities but will also be IoT ready. Hence, you will be able to control all your Samsung devices with your smartphone using a singular app that the company has named as Smart Things.

For the app, the company has written that it is, “uniting all of its IoT applications in Spring 2018, including Samsung Connect, Smart Home, Smart View and more, into the Smart Things app. This will make it even easier to connect and control hundreds of devices directly by phone, TV, or car – all from a single application.”

They have also mentioned how using the app, users will be able to, “to monitor, control, and automate your home from anywhere in the world, and begin to add as many connected lights, locks, sensors, and devices as suits your unique personality and lifestyle.”

Saram: the humanoid robot

Another big revelation that made by the company in CES 2018 was in regards with its humanoid robot Saram. The AI technology that the company is using for the development of the robot has already been in use in the company’s own factory, and as far as the robotics part of the development is concerned, the company has already covered the vertical walking technology. Now the robot has the brain of the AI and the technology that allows it to walk on a variety of surfaces while being solidly vertical. Therefore, it wouldn’t be long before the company would start commercializing these robots for the market, though the first models would definitely be limited to industrial purposes.

Other Advancements in the area of AI and machine learning

If you have read our previous blog on how AI is being used to improve the night vision quality in smartphone cameras, the innovation in the field by Samsung wouldn’t come as a complete surprise. Nevertheless, Samsung is in fact the first company to have unveiled the 8K AI tech for television. 8K being the highest television resolution achieved yet, obviously has the dearth of content with the same high-quality resolution. But the magical addition of AI resolves the issue by actually enhancing the quality of the low-res content before showing it to the viewers.

Innovation in Smartphones

Any post on Samsung innovation would be incomplete without the mention of its smartphones. Being the largest manufacturer for the most used mobile operating system across the globe, Samsung was always looked upon with high expectations, which until now it has fulfilled with sleeker, better performing, and large-display phones. Now in order to set the Samsung smartphones apart from the generic competition yet again, the company is planning to unveil a triple-camera system in its Galaxy S10 models.

As per a report published by Money Control, the company will launch its latest model in the Galaxy series with an ‘under-display fingerprint sensor’ and a ‘3D camera’ that will use a triple lens model. The camera setup is believed to use three lenses for better zoom approach, with 3D depth sensing. It is noteworthy, however, that similar speculations were made about the upcoming models of iPhones and since then neither of the companies has made any official statement about it.

Resources

https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2018/05/30/the-amazing-ways-samsung-is-using-big-data-artificial-intelligence-and-robots-to-drive-performance/2/#d802f594cbca
https://www.financialexpress.com/industry/technology/betting-big-on-rd-samsung-set-to-lead-iot-and-ai-in-india/1192218/
https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/samsung-may-unveil-new-triple-camera-system-with-the-galaxy-s10-model-2582633.html
https://www.pocket-lint.com/phones/news/samsung/140128-what-is-bixby-samsungs-assistant-explained-and-how-to-use-it
https://blog.smartthings.com/news/smartthings-updates/the-new-smartthings-app-is-here/
https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/samsung-may-unveil-new-triple-camera-system-with-the-galaxy-s10-model-2582633.html