Looked at objectively, the images on Samsung’s curved, Ultra HD TV sets do live up to their name. When Samsung streams custom-made 4K content, which is four times more detailed than 1080p, on any of the sets (which range from 55-inches to a room-swallowing 105-inches), the effect is surreal (or perhaps, “hyper real”). However 4K content is still in short supply, even with all the 20th Century Fox content Samsung is promising to deliver on a 1 terabyte drive ($299). What about Joe T.V. Watcher, sitting at home with his HD feed from the local cable company? How will his picture look? We posed that question and a few others on some pressing issues facing the next big wave of HD TV technology to Samsung SVP Joe Stinziano, who spoke to Mashable shortly after the company gave a closer and more detailed look at its upcoming Ultra HD TV line, including a group of curved displays, some new 4K content options and a few new sound devices. Stinziano was also, famously, Michael Bay’s counterpart at the CES keynote that will go down in history. Standing in the cavernous Guggenheim Museum atrium, right above where Stinziano made his presentation to press, the Samsung exec promised that, thanks to some pretty intense upscaling technology, the 1080i content from your cable or fiber company will actually look better on Samsung’s UHD TVs. That sounds great. Of course, there’s no way for us to know if that’s true (Samsung has never shown the sets running a standard HD feed) until we get a UHD TV in at Mashable HQ and hook it up to a Time Warner Cable feed. Image: Mashable, Christina Ascani Stinziano also shared the based prices for the smallest UHD TV, a 55-inch $2,500 model and talked a bit about the sound limitations of these ultra-thing devices. Samsung spent some time on Thursday talking about the Shape sound system it introduced last year (they have a new design option) and the new Sound Stand, a 1.5-inch audio device that can sit under 55-inch UHD. Joe admitted that sound really needs air to be powerful and these flat TVs simply don’t provide the space. Hence, the sound systems. You can hear more of Stinziano’s comments and get a closer look at the new UHD TVs in the video above. Read more: http://mashable.com/2014/03/20/samsung-uhdtv/
Image: Christina Ascani/Mashable Samsung‘s Gear S smartwatch, initially unveiled in August, will be available in the U.S. “this fall,” the company announced on Wednesday. In a short press release, Samsung added that the watch will be available through AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless — and that’s pretty much all the info we’ve got. There was no word on pricing, but Samsung says more info about the Gear S will come “soon.” The Gear S sports a 2-inch SuperAMOLED screen, 3G connectivity, and it doesn’t require a Samsung smartphone nearby to operate. On Tuesday, Samsung also announced the pricing and availability for its Galaxy Note Edge, Gear S and Gear VR in Australia. They’re all going down under in November, while the Note 4 is coming in October. The price for the Gear S is $A499 or approximately $443. Read more: http://mashable.com/2014/09/24/samsung-gear-s-u-s-this-fall/
You’d think Samsung would have waited until it was out of the San Jose courtroom with Apple, where it is currently locked in battle over charges of infringing patents, before it launched this. In downtown Sydney, the Korean electronics giant has just launched the first of its new line of “experience” retail stores — an experience not unlike one you’d have in say, oh, I don’t know, an Apple store. To be clear, there are other prominent downtown Samsung retail stores in the world — one in New York at the Time Warner center, for example. But the Sydney store that opened Thursday is a new style entirely. Let’s take a peek inside: What Is Copying Anyway? Now to be fair to Samsung, it’s hard to patent the kind of similarities here. A store is a store. Just because it happens to be spacious, spartanly attired in wooden tables, generously staffed with smart young people in blue outfits — well, we doubt Apple has a patent on all of that. (We know they have patents on the external design of the Apple store.) But they could win the legal battle on this one without a shot being fired, and still lose the wider PR war. The store launch may have come too late to influence the jury in San Jose, but there’s still the jury of public opinion. Which is, arguably, what you need to win in a retail environment. So let’s get the conversation started. Watch the video of the store from Australian TV above, then take a look at this classic video from 2001, where a relatively young-looking Steve Jobs introduces the original Apple store, complete with original iMacs: What’s your vote? Would you shop at a version of that Samsung Store near you? Can it compete? Let us know in the comments. Read more: http://mashable.com/2012/08/23/samsung-copy-apple-store/
