Samsung is to debut three new products from its C-Labs program at the CES tech expo in Las Vegas next week.
The firm will show off a smart belt called WELT (pictured), which is designed to track user’s waist size and activity. That’s is a perfect January product if we ever heard of one.
Lastly the company is planning to showcase ‘rink’ which will allow for control of virtual reality devices, such as Samsung’s Gear VR.
See also: CES 2016: What to expect?
These will be the first products to make it beyond Samsung’s C-Labs into the public realm. The initiative, created in 2012, allows Samsung employees to take a year off from their day-to-day jobs in order to work on their own product ideas.
The idea, much like Google’s 20 per cent time idea is to foster creativity and individuality. If the product is successful, as The Verge reports, it can be spun off into a new company.
Here’s what Samsung says about each of the produced it will offer up for hands-on feedback from CES attendees.
WELT: “WELT is a smart wearable healthcare belt that looks like a normal belt, thus offering consumers a more discreet way of using smart sensor technology to monitor their health. WELT is capable of recording the user’s waist size, eating habits and the number of steps taken, as well as time spent sitting down. It then sends this data to a specially-designed app for analysis, and the production of a range of personalized healthcare and weight management plans.
RINK: “rink is an advanced hand-motion controller for mobile VR devices which offers a more intuitive and nuanced way to interact with the virtual world. The ability to intuitively control the game or content just by using their hands provides consumers with a much deeper level of mobile VR immersion.”
TIP TALK: “TipTalk is a remarkable new UX that enables people to listen to the sound from their smart devices, such as the Samsung Gear S2, without headsets or earphones, simply by touching their finger to their ear. This enhances the clarity of calls, enabling them to be taken in public, even in noise-sensitive or loud environments, such as a concert hall or building site – without the risk of being overheard.
“Shaped like a watch strap, ‘TipTalk’ can be added to watches – analog or smart – and sync with smartphones, enabling Text-to-Speech (TTS) functionality.”
Naturally we’ll be checking them all out when CES kicks off next week.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
