It’s the dawn of a new day here at CES 2013 in Las Vegas, and just like clockwork there’s yet another keynote address that’s set to kick off in just a few minutes. Today’s headliner is none other than Samsung president Stephen Woo, and rumor has it that there’s quite a bit of star power lined up for today’s event. Panasonic may have had Lisa Ling, but Samsung is expected to bring former President Bill Clinton onstage in short order.
Anyway, myself and Canadian wunderkind Darrell Etherington are here in the crowd to liveblog it all — it won’t be long before things officially kick off, so stay tuned!
Brief parting remarks from Woo and that’s it! Thanks for sticking with us!
“America has come so far: we’re not as racist as we used to be, we’re not as sexist as we used to be, and we’re not as homophobic as we used to be.” But we still don’t like to be around people who disagree with us.
In this too the virtual world gives us an opportunity to come together and have conversations.
“People can be frightened into believing that the government is their enemy and that the police are impotent — it’s an example of the sorts of divisions of the modern world”
This… has taken a turn. Clinton is now talking about the U.S.’s ridiculous gun death rate (“It’s nuts… why does anyone need something that can hold 100 bullets?)
Drawing some parallels now between China, the Middle East, and the U.S., and talking about the need for gun control in the States.
Three crucial problems the world has facing — lack of access, staggering inequality, and climate change (including a zing at deniers).
President Clinton sharing the stage with Samsung gadgets. You just can’t get better PR.
The State Department has used social channels more then ever before under Hillary’s leadership.
“The young man who runs my house in New York just bought a Ford” — continues talking about voice commands and Sync (though not by name).
Clinton turning to talk about Haiti — 80% of folks in Haiti had cell phones despite rampant poverty. Now they can conduct transactions via phone (thanks to some help from a Canadian bank).
Cell phones given to fishermen in Sri Lanka helped increase their income by 30%, just because they could communicate more effectively.
Wants to try and guarantee universal internet access and solid speeds, after noting that average broadband speeds in the U.S. are a quarter of those in Korea.
Got a first hand glimpse at hospital’s health tech after Hillary’s health issues — “we simply cannot afford to keep spending a trillion dollars a year on health care”
“I did what I could to keep the internet free for speech, and for commerce.”
“I’ve always been fascinated by the role of technology and human history”
When he took office, there was a “grand total of 50 sites” on the internet.
Clinton here to talk briefly about the role of mobile technology in the developing world.
Oh boy, special guest time. It’s Samsung’s Hope For Children Ambassador (and former President) Bill Clinton!
Talking about Samsung’s humanitarian efforts now (like Hope For Children), which aims to help educate 2.5 million students over the next five years.
“We push ourselves to innovate, not just for innovation’s sake.”
And that’s it from Rudder. That last video was about the XBOX experience extending beyond the boundaries of a screen (check out Darrell’s pic).
“Some companies talk about a reality distortion field, but we’ve actually built one.” Zing!
“It should be clear that says displays and computers have to be flat, opaque, or rigid.” And here comes a Windows Phone 8 mockup running on a flexible OLED.
Oh, and who could forget that Microsoft brought Skype to Samsung’s Smart TVs (disclosure: I did).
Talking about “great devices” like the ATIV series that complement SkyDrive, XBOX, Windows Phone, etc.
But jokes aside, I need something with a display like that immediately. Onward to Microsoft and Eric Rudder, MSFT’s Chief Tech Strategy Officer.
Samsung wants us to believe that having a hot phone make it easier to get dates. Suuuure.
And here we go — promo video time again.
Whoa. YOUM display baked into a prototype phone — the screen actually curves around the edge of the device. Great for notifications!
Time for a flexible OLED prototype — he’s really bending the hell out of that thing with no image or color distortion.
Talking about OLEDs now, and Samsung’s tech allows for flexible OLEDs like those in Samsung’s YOUM line.
Briefly talked about its existing 10.1 display, but Sammy is currently working on a new 10.1-inch display that requires 25% less power.
Processors: check. Memory: check. Now it’s time for displays! They “determine how we experience and interact with our mobile device world.” Here comes Samsung’s Brian Berkeley for more.
Don’t get me wrong, I see the importance here, but this address just got *really* dry. Even Mr. Excited-About-Everything seems to have fallen asleep.
Data centers are going to the key in delivering “fast and smooth” cloud services. Gee, you think?
HP’s Trevor Schick from HP is taking the stage now.
6 times faster and using 26% less power in testing Samsung’s green SSDs in data centers.
We created more sophisticated memory components for these data centers — replacing disk drives with SSDs.
Where does the data go? Where is the cloud? Data centers and servers, naturally, and Woo concedes that storage isn’t the most interesting part of mobile devices.
Data creation has been “put into the hands of billions… and people are sharing more than ever.”
Also, we’re having a few network issues here — hoping they clear up soon.
Actually, it’s talking about the advances in mobile camera performance. “Let’s face it — data isn’t getting any lighter and cats are only getting cuter.” Truer words never spoken.
It’s cat video time!
“Big Little is a revolution”
East is talking about energy efficiency, and driving gains there in future chip development.
Ooh — great demo showing off how the Octa’s “little” and “BIG” processors divy up tasks based on a workload’s needs.
He’s talking up the big.LITTLE processor tech that went into crafting the Exynos 5 Octa — originally unveiled last year. Designed for high-performance workloads.
Here comes ARM CEO Warren East to talk about efficiency — mobile world requires providing best performance and lowest power consumption.
Talking about how chipset sizes have shrunk from ~90nm to 28nm. Going forward, 20 and 10nm chipsets.
“In mobile devices, battery life is an equally important factor [as performance]“
It’s taking a while to load, but here it is. Looks pretty phenomenal — no visible lag, real-time reflections on the windshield, accurate damage modeling.
Need For Speed: Most Wanted is being fired up on the reference tablet now (which was onstage, mea culpa).
Here’s EA’s Glenn Roland to talk up the chipset as well. Time for a live demo.
Exynos 5 Octa “provides 3d performance that’s twice as good as any previous generation processor”
Stephen’s talking about searching for restaurants and playing full HD videos at the same time. Not bad Samsung, not bad.
This thing multitasks like a champ, also hands HD video with alplomb — designed for high-end smartphones and tablets.
The Exynos 5 Octa has been built into a reference device, but I can’t tell if there’s one onstage right now.
“Ultimately we’re saving energy and prolonging battery life” — show us the numbers!
“Whole new concept in processing architecture — two sets of four cores each.” My goodness!
Next breakthrough: The Exynos 5 Octa!
Onward to processors — Samsung intro’d the Exynos 4 Quad chipset last year, what’s new this time around?
“Components are the foundations on which device are built.”
Perhaps they’re meant to symbolize electrons or radio waves or something. Either way, you lost me Samsung.
Nothing says mobile components like a line of attractive dancers gyrating wildly.
Someone is *really* excited to hear about mobile device components. Plant, or overzealous vendor?
“The battle of innovators has intensified… but our industry’s center of gravity is and remains mobile devices”
There are more then 6 billion mobile devices in use, and over half a billion smartphones were sold last year.
“By the end of this hour, I hope you’ll share our vision of a world with limitless possibility.”
Just giving a brief rundown of his agenda for the address — mobile-centric memory advances, displays, and more.
Woo: “What an inspiring community CES attracts each year.”
Alright, Gary’s just cheerleading now. Bring on Stephen Woo!
Gary Shapiro is back, and as chipper as ever welcoming us to the final big-name keynote of the show.
Oh it’s Party Rock Anthem again. So awesome. So pulse-pounding.
Ah, so that’s what it is — these teaser videos alternate between LMFAO and PSY. Classy.
(That was Darrell Etherington by the way, he’ll be grabbing more photos once things are under way.)
What are the odds we hear Gangnam Style again?
“Hot ‘n Cold” — perhaps a reference to Samsung’s lucrative oven and refrigerator business? Nah, I’m probably just reading waaaaay too much into things.
Aaaand we’re in place! Nothing like a bit of Katy Perry to start off the day.
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