While Samsung fans fawn over the latest Galaxy S8 rumors, the Korean electronics giant announced a slew of new products this week to remind the world that it makes things other than smartphones, too.
Some are still at the idea stage, including a Bluetooth toy for kids and a diagnostic tool for your skin. The Bluetooth toy, called Tag+, is essentially just a plastic button, but Samsung envisions it as part of a toy ecosystem that resembles a massively multiplayer online game.
Depending on whether your kid clicks, long-presses, shakes, or bumps the Tag+, it sends a different signal to its companion app. A click will bring up the instruction manual for a Lego-style toy, in case your child is the type who looks at diagrams in a manual when he or she is flummoxed. A shake, meanwhile, will prompt the app to display everyone else playing with the toy worldwide.
As for skincare, Samsung's S-Skin is designed to replace many trips to the dermatologist. It's a tiny patch that penetrates the skin with LED light to measure its hydration, redness, and melanin. The patch can serve as an early-warning system for catching melanin deficiencies that can foretell the onset of Parkinson's disease, for instance.
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Both products are still in the prototype stage, and take advantage of Samsung's attempts to reduce the power consumption and increase the efficiency of its chipsets and processors. Much of that research takes place in Samsung's facilities in Silicon Valley, although the company also plans to retool a Texas factory to make more efficient chips as well.
Meanwhile, Samsung also announced new personalized content for its smart TVs. A curated program guide will guess which shows you want to binge-watch from a variety of streaming sources and display them in one place. Likewise, it will also pull albums and sports games from eight apps and dozens of channels into a single interface.
The new smart TV services are now available to Korean and US TV owners, and will roll out in Europe this spring.