Forget smart glasses, how about smart jewellery?
Samsung is looking into new wearable devices, potentially including earrings and necklaces, amid an industry-wide push to develop new types of AI-powered consumer electronics.
AI could enable a new wave of devices that allow users to communicate and get things done more quickly without having to take out a phone, Won-joon Choi, chief operating officer for Samsung's mobile experience division, told CNN this week.
For Samsung, these types of new devices could be something you wear around your neck, dangle from your ears or slip on your finger.
'We believe it should be wearable, something that you shouldn't carry, (that) you don't need to carry,' he said. 'So it could be something that you wear, glasses, earrings, watches, rings and sometimes (a) necklace.' Choi's comments underscore the opportunity tech giants see to develop new hardware products around AI, a technology that some say is expected to be as impactful as the internet itself.
AI services like OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Gemini have moved beyond basic text prompts and are getting better at handling complex tasks. That's led tech giants to look into devices that require less manual input than smartphones, which largely require typing and swiping on screens.
That search is already in full swing, starting with smart glasses. Meta has touted its AI-powered Ray-Ban smart glasses, of which 2 million have been sold since 2023, as a success. The Facebook parent also recently acquired a minority stake in Ray-Ban parent company EssilorLuxottica, according to Bloomberg, further indicating the company's interest in AI-powered wearable gadgets.
Samsung, Google and Snap are also developing smart glasses, while OpenAI and ex-Apple designer Jony Ive are collaborating on a mysterious new AI device for next year.
On whether Samsung is actively looking into developing earrings or other smart jewelry, like a pendant or bracelet, Choi said the company is 'looking at all kinds of possibilities'.
'What do you wear? Glasses, earrings… necklaces, watches and rings, something like those,' he said.
However, that doesn't mean those possibilities will become products. Samsung and other tech companies routinely develop prototypes and evaluate new technologies internally without bringing them to market.
Some tech startups have already unsuccessfully tried to develop new AI gadgets to replace smartphones at certain tasks.
The Humane AI Pin, created by a pair of Apple veterans, flopped because of its high price and buggy performance. The company shut down the product and sold parts of itself to computing giant HP in February. Another device called the Rabbit R1 also launched to a lackluster reception last year, although it's undergone significant updates since then. And a startup called Friend created an AI necklace that's meant to be a digital companion, although its launch has been delayed until the third quarter of this year.
Samsung's approach, unlike some of these options, will involve a device that's a companion to your phone rather than a standalone product, similar to the company's smartwatches, according to Choi.
And the company's upcoming smart glasses, which it hasn't revealed many details about yet, could be just the start.
'We are actively working on glasses, but some people do not want to wear glasses because they change their look,' he said. 'So we are also exploring other types of devices.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Qatar Tribune
16 hours ago
- Qatar Tribune
The risks and rewards of tokenization as crypto heavyweights push for it
Agencies As cryptocurrencies become more intertwined with the traditional financial system, industry heavyweights are racing for a long-sought goal of turning real-world assets into digital tokens. 'Tokenization is going to open the door to a massive trading revolution,' said Vlad Tenev, the CEO of the trading platform Robinhood at a recent James Bond-themed tokenization launch event in the south of France. Advocates say tokenization is the next leap forward in crypto and can help break down walls that have advantaged the wealthy and make trading cheaper, more transparent and more accessible for everyday investors. But critics say tokenization threatens to undermine a century's worth of securities law and investor protections that have made the U.S. financial system the envy of the world. And Robinhood's push into tokenizing shares of private companies quickly faced pushback from one of the world's most popular startups. The basic idea behind tokenization: Use blockchain technology that powers cryptocurrencies to create digital tokens as stand-ins for things like bonds, real estate or even fractional ownership of a piece of art and that can be traded like crypto by virtually anyone, anywhere at any time. The massive growth of stablecoins, which are a type of cryptocurrency typically bought and sold for $1, has helped fuel the appetite to tokenize other financial assets, crypto venture capitalist Katie Haun said on a recent podcast. She said tokenization will upend investing in ways similar to how streamers radically changed how people watch television. 'You used to have to sit there on a Thursday night and watch Seinfeld,' Haun said. 'You tune in at a specific time, you don't get to choose your program, you couldn't be watching a program like Squid Games from Korea. Netflix was market-expanding. In the same way, I think the tokenization of real-world assets will be market expanding.'Robinhood began offering tokenized stock trading of major U.S. public companies for its European customers earlier this month and gave away tokens to some customers meant to represent shares in OpenAI and SpaceX, two highly valued private companies. Several other firms are diving in. Crypto exchange Kraken also allows customers outside the U.S. to trade tokenized stocks while Coinbase has petitioned regulators to open the market to its U.S. customers. Wall Street giants BlackRock and Franklin Templeton currently offer tokenized money market funds. McKinsey projects that tokenized assets could reach $2 trillion by push for tokenization comes at a heady time in crypto, an industry that's seen enormous growth from the creation and early development of bitcoin more than 15 years ago by libertarian-leaning computer enthusiasts to a growing acceptance in mainstream finance. The world's most popular cryptocurrency is now regularly setting all-time highs — more than $123,000 on Monday — while other forms of crypto like stablecoins are exploding in use and the Trump administration has pledged to usher in what's been called the 'golden age' for digital assets. Lee Reiners, a lecturing fellow at Duke University, said the biggest winners in the push for tokenization could be a small handful of exchanges like Robinhood that see their trading volumes and influence spike. 'Which is kind of ironic given the origins of crypto, which was to bypass intermediaries,' Reiners said. Interest in tokenization has also gotten a boost thanks to the election of President Donald Trump, who has made enacting more crypto-friendly regulations a top priority of his administration and signed a new law regulating stablecoins on Friday. 'Tokenization is an innovation and we at the SEC should be focused on how do we advance innovation at the marketplace,' said Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Paul law can be complex and even defining what is a security can be a hotly debated question, particularly in crypto. The crypto exchange Binance pulled back offerings of tokenized securities in 2021 after German regulators raised questions about potential violations of that country's securities law. Under Trump, the SEC has taken a much less expansive view than the previous administration and dropped or paused litigation against crypto companies that the agency had previously accused of violating securities law. Hilary Allen, a professor at the American University Washington College of Law, said crypto companies have been emboldened by Trump's victory to be more aggressive in pushing what they can offer. 'The most pressing risk is (tokenization) being used as a regulatory arbitrage play as a way of getting around the rules,' she said. However, the SEC has struck a cautionary tone when it comes to tokens. Shortly after Robinhood's announcement, SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce, who has been an outspoken crypto supporter, issued a statement saying companies issuing tokenized stock should consider 'their disclosure obligations' under federal law. 'As powerful as blockchain technology is, it does not have magical abilities to transform the nature of the underlying asset,' Peirce of the most closely watched areas of tokenization involves private companies, which aren't subject to strict financial reporting requirements like publicly traded ones. Many hot startups are not going public as often as they used to and instead are increasingly relying on wealthy and institutional investors to raise large sums of money and stay private. That's unfair to the little guy, say advocates of tokenization. 'These are massive wealth generators for a very small group of rich, well-connected insiders who get access to these deals early,' said Robinhood executive Johann Kerbrat. 'Crypto has the power to solve this inequality.' But Robinhood's giveaway of tokens meant to represent an investment in OpenAI immediately drew pushback from the company itself, which said it was not involved in Robinhood's plan and did not endorse it. 'Any transfer of OpenAI equity requires our approval—we did not approve any transfer,' OpenAI said on social media. 'Please be careful.' Public companies have strict public reporting requirements about their financial health that private companies don't have to produce. Such reporting requirements have helped protect investors and give a legitimacy to the U.S. financial system, said Allen, who said the push for tokenized sales of shares in private companies is 'eerily familiar' to how things played out before the creation of the SEC nearly a century ago. 'Where we're headed is where we were in the 1920s,' she said.
Qatar Tribune
2 days ago
- Qatar Tribune
Jensen Huang: Nvidia boss, AI visionary in black leather jacket
Agencies Relatively unknown to the general public only three years ago, Jensen Huang now stands as one of the most powerful entrepreneurs in the world as head of chip giant Nvidia. The unassuming 62-year-old draws stadium crowds of more than 10,000 people as his company's products push the boundaries of artificial intelligence. Chips designed by Nvidia, known as graphics cards or graphics processing units (GPUs), are essential in developing the generative artificial intelligence powering technology like ChatGPT. Big Tech's insatiable appetite for Nvidia's GPUs, which sell for tens of thousands of dollars each, has catapulted the California chipmaker to a market valuation of over $4 trillion, making it the first company to surpass that milestone. Nvidia's meteoric rise has boosted Huang's personal fortune to $150 billion – making him one of the world's richest people – thanks to the roughly 3.5% stake he holds in the company he founded three decades ago with two friends in a Silicon Valley diner. In a clear demonstration of his clout, he recently convinced U.S. President Donald Trump to lift restrictions on certain GPU exports to China, despite the fact that Beijing is locked in a battle with Washington for AI supremacy. 'That was brilliantly done,' said Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a governance professor at Yale University. Huang was able to explain to Trump that 'having the world using a U.S. tech platform as the core protocol is definitely in the interest of this country' and won't help the Chinese military, Sonnenfeld said. Born in Taipei in 1963, Jensen Huang (originally named Jen-Hsun) embodies the American success story.
Qatar Tribune
5 days ago
- Qatar Tribune
SoftBank CEO pitches autonomous AI agent system for corporate use
Agencies SoftBank Group Corp Chairman and CEO Masayoshi Son said Wednesday the company is developing 'the world's first' artificial intelligence agent system that can autonomously perform complex tasks. 'The AI agents will think for themselves and improve on their the era of humans doing the programming is coming to an end,' Son told an event in Tokyo attended by business people. He revealed the new system will first be introduced at the technology conglomerate with 100 million clients and 50,000 employees and said such AI agents could work 24 hours a day to compile strategies, program and negotiate on behalf of humans. 'I'm excited to see how the AI agents will interact with one another and advance given tasks,' Son said, adding that the AI agents, to achieve the goals, will 'self-evolve and self-replicate' to execute subtasks. Unlike generative AI, which needs human commands to carry out tasks, an AI agent performs tasks on its own by designing workflows with data available to it. It is expected to enhance productivity at companies by helping their decision-making and problem-solving. The project comes as SoftBank Group and OpenAI, the developer of chatbot ChatGPT, said in February they had agreed to establish a joint venture to promote AI services for corporations. Joining Son virtually at the event, Sam Altman, the head of OpenAI, underscored the significance of AI agents, calling the technology a 'remarkable step forward.' 'I think the first era of AI, initial era was about an AI that you could ask anything and it could tell you all these things,' Altman said. 'Now as these (AI) agents roll out, AI can do things for can ask the computer to do something in natural language, a sort of vaguely defined complex task, and it can understand you and execute it for you,' Altman said. 'The productivity and potential that it unlocks for the world is quite huge.'
