CES 2013: Samsung flexible display rules show

On Day 3 of the International CES in Las Vegas, Samsung made a dramatic announcement, helped along by an appearance by Bill Clinton.

If Sony dominated Twitter conversation on Day 2 of the International CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas this week, with the most talked-about TV set of the show (see article) Samsung made up for it on Day 3.

The daily analysis of real-time data from the show analysed by Salorix, the smart social engagement platform, showed that Samsung had moved from 14% “share of voice”” (SOV) on Day 2 to 29% on Day 3, thanks to the demonstration of a prototype flexible display screen for smartphones. Sony, which had taken 28% on Day 2, dropped to 9%. However, Sony remained in second place, ahead of the 8% SOV shared by Panasonic and Lenovo.

Samsung’s big moment came during a keynote address by Dr Stephen Woo, president, device solutions business, Samsung Electronics. And it was not the appearance of former president Bill Clinton on stage with Woo. Rather, it was the demonstration by Brian Berkeley, head of Samsung’s display lab in San Jose, of a phone with a thin, flexible color screen.

Dr Woo focused his Wednesday morning keynote address on the components that make mobile computing possible and how Samsung is developing innovative component solutions in three areas: processing, memory and display. ‚””As users become more attached to their devices, they become more sophisticated in their desires,‚”” he said. Woo unveiled Samsung’s eight-core Exynos 5 Octa mobile processor, which uses ARM’s big.LITTLE architecture to deliver faster processing speeds while consuming less energy. He also demonstrated Samsung’s latest flexible OLED mobile displays.

Woo brought on stage with him leaders from several partner companies and organizations, including President Clinton who serves as the ambassador to the Samsung Hope for Children, which supports children’s education and access to health care globally. ‚””The world has huge challenges which I think technology can help to overcome,‚”” Clinton said, adding that he believes mobile devices can be used to ‚””bridge the divides of the world.‚””

The Brand Matters Keynote focused on the social media aspects of marketing. Moderated by Michael Kassan, chairman and CEO of MediaLink, the keynote began with a one-on-one with Marc Benioff, Chairman and CEO of salesforce.com. Benioff discussed the explosion of consumption and sharing of content thanks to the proliferation of wireless. ‚””The mobile revolution has taken over everything,‚”” said Benioff. ‚””When you walk the show floor like I did yesterday, you see in real-time that everything is connected.‚”” The keynote then broke into a panel discussion with executives from AT&T, American Express, Coca Cola and Unilever to explore the magic of unlocking a brand.

The Brand Matters SuperSession focused on how consumers are really engaging with digital media. It is easier than ever for brands to communicate to the consumer, but it is increasingly more difficult to have engagement from the consumer. Gen Y tends to care more about their own personal brand than a company’s brand, so to engage with the individual, the brand must promote the individual’s brand. Six Gen Y consumers discussed their use for social media and their outlooks on issues such as privacy, company response on complaints and advertising on social platforms.

Representatives from Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, YouTube and Amazon discussed how they thought brands could engage with consumers on their platforms. The shift from desktops to mobile has forced the platforms to adapt to their consumers’ needs and expectations. The representatives from the multiple platforms agreed that to have successful brand engagement, the brand must have a strong and consistent voice and personality. They must also utilize multiple platforms and individualize their engagement to the individual as much as possible.

During Wednesday’s SuperSession One-on-One with Federal Communications Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Julius Genachowski and Gary Shapiro, president and CEO, CEA, Genachowski announced that the FCC will kick off a government-wide effort to increase Wi-Fi speeds and alleviate Wi-Fi congestion at major hubs, such as airports, convention centers and larger conference gatherings, like the Las Vegas Convention and World Trade Center (LVCC). He predicted that their efforts to free-up spectrum in the 5 gigahertz band would increase Wi-Fi capabilities by 35 percent from current levels. Prior to the announcement, Shapiro dubbed Genachowski ‚””the spectrum chairman‚”” and thanked him on behalf of the industry for all that he had done to unleash valuable spectrum resources.

The Mega Trends and Mobile First World SuperSession featured an interactive panel discussion with moderator Rajeev Chand, managing director and head of research, Rutberg & Compant. Chand was joined on stage by panelists: Anand Chandrasekher, Qualcomm: Glenn Lurie, AT&T: Kevin Packingham, Samsung: and Vaughan Smith, Facebook. Discussion centered around the most important trends in the mobile first world. Panelists discussed the mobile ecosystem, future of wireless devices and the concept of ‚””the Internet of things.‚”” Processor capabilities, connected cars, smart homes and the smart TV relationship were among the top mobile trends for 2013 named. Panelists named healthcare, education and travel industries as industries ripe for change.

The Verge’s Joshua Topolsky and Nilay Patel led the Argue the Future 2: Return of the Future SuperSession with panelists Eric Chen of Lytro, Andy Forssell of Hulu and Walt Mossberg, The Wall Street Journal. The session focused on the future of content distribution and video displays and how much resolution consumers will give up for greater flexibility in video accessibility.

Jay Esguerra, Kevin Castle, Chris Woolum and Aurelio Agundez took home the $4,000 grand prize from the CEA MoDev Hackathon, sponsored by the Travel Channel, for their creation of the app ‚””Travel Social,‚”” which allows users to select a destination and have social networks tell them all about where they’re going and what’s popular. Twenty-six teams of up to four people competed in the Hackathon, where teams worked for eight hours developing apps that incorporated aspects of travel or adventure. Second place winners Dani Sparks and Scott Motte received $2,500 cash and Beats by Dre headphones for ‚””Posted,‚”” which provides actual custom postcards from wherever you travel.

Tim Westergren, chief strategy officer and founder of Pandora, delivered the keynote address at the 2013 CES Leaders in Technology (LIT) Dinner Wednesday evening, an annual event that features a distinguished audience of government guests, top policymakers and technologists. In his remarks, Westergren detailed the challenges he encountered while building Pandora into the success that it is today, and addressed the need to fix the broken royalty payment system. Westergren reported that 100,000 artists are represented on Pandora via millions of songs across all genres and that technology allows the company to deliver customizable radio to its customers and to mobilize them, when necessary, to action.

Winners of CNET’s Best of CES Awards were announced on Thursday, with Best of Show honors going to the Razer Edge. Other category winners can be found at ces.cnet.com.

Today’s Developer University brought together app developers to meet platform developers, see live demos and network. The Last Gadget Standing competition resulted in the Lenovo IdeaCentre Horizon Table PC winning the top online award. In an onsite run-off, the Luminae keyboard edged out the Misfit Shine as the top product in the event. The Mobile App Showdown featured 10 companies and their innovative apps. MyScript Calculator won the showdown and allows users to write down a mathematical equation and then solves it on the spot. The app recognizes all types of math equations and its range of difficulty was demonstrated on the Mobile App Showdown stage.

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