speaker only a few inches thick and two feet 61 cm wide Volume control is through a magnetic dial that looks like a hockey puck It can be attached to any metal surface The speakers are Wi-Fi connected and are controlled by the SmartThings app COMPUTER CHIPS Samsung has long been a leading computer chip manufacturer In 2018 its most advanced chip to date was incorporated into its newest smartphone the Galaxy S9 The chip was an award winner in the embedded technologies category at the CES 2018 show The new chip will also be used in personal computers The fast and powerful chip is expected to help Samsung get further into the artificial intelligence AI field The company aims to be an industry leader in AI someday However Samsung has some catching up to do in this area Google Assistant and Amazon’s Alexa personal assistant had advantages in technology and popularity as of early 2018 MEDICAL DEVICES Samsung also featured two medical devices that were created in the company’s research program C-Lab One 10
of them GoBreath is for patients with lung damage The portable device helps patients learn methods of breathing that will speed their recovery time after surgery Their doctors can check on their progress remotely through the internet A second product Relumino smart glasses was also introduced The glasses help people with vision problems see better when they are reading or just looking at objects An accompanying phone processes videos from a camera in the glasses Those images are then sent back to a display on the glasses allowing the person to see the image more clearly HEALTH-CARE ROBOTS Samsung’s participation in the health-care and AI fields has great potential The combination could make health care more efficient friendly and accurate However public trust issues about machine learning and AI have to be addressed Who is responsible if health care AI makes the wrong decision What is the risk of AI health care being used to hurt people Experts in technology and ethics are studying such questions The Nuffield Council on Bioethics an independent organization based in the United Kingdom stated in one of its reports AI technologies have the potential to help address important health challenges 4 But the report also indicated that AI might be limited by the quality of the data it has access to and whether it can mimic important human qualities such as compassion 11
C-LAB A GRADE Samsung Electronics started C-Lab in 2012 It is a place where Samsung employees can work on projects of their own choosing This work is done outside their regular work hours This shows their commitment and their passion about their ideas The results of the innovative projects may or may not make it to the consumer marketplace The medical devices Relumino and GoBreath both presented at CES 2018 were the result of C-Lab projects SAMSUNG’S TRANSFORMATION Although Samsung makes lots of money from smartphones televisions appliances and computer chips it did not start out as an electronics firm The Korean company came into being long before the country was divided into North and South Korea in 1945 Lee Byung-chul started the company in 1938 Korea was under occupation by Japan at that time Originally the company milled rice and transported goods As time went on the company expanded into many other fields Sugar refining textile manufacturing and goods trading in the early 1950s provided the foundation of the Samsung Corporation By the mid-1960s Samsung was involved in fertilizers a private university insurance and food processing among other activities It was not until 1969 that the company established Samsung Electronics as a subsidiary In the 1970s Samsung Electronics’s first products were TVs The company later 12
samsung Samsung sells its many products at retail locations around the globe 13
