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Samsung's latest experiments include a phone app to calibrate your TV
There's also a scanner to help you clean your clothes.
Samsung is once again revealing C-Lab experiments at CES, and this year they reflect the stay-at-home reality of the pandemic. The company has unveiled in-house projects that include EZCal, a mobile app that automatically calibrates your TV’s picture quality. You don’t need to hire an expert or get a dedicated tool to optimize your screen for movie night, in other words.
Other internal projects are quite varied. Scan & Dive is a “IoT device” (really, a scanner) that classifies fabric and recommends care options — you may get a better sense of how to wash your clothes. Food & Sommelier, meanwhile, uses AI to pair food and wine for your home-cooked meals. And if you do need to head outside, Air Pocket is a portable oxygen storage device you can wear on your face mask.
Samsung is also backing 17 outside startups that include a smart height and weight scale for kids (Kiko from Magpie Tech), a 5G mixed reality collaboration platform (EpicLive from Salin) and a curious “online K-pop training service” (Counter Culture Company).
Don’t count on getting hands-on time with many of these experiments. Historically, C-Lab projects tend to languish after the initial CES rush is over. It does spin out some of its more successful projects as stand-alone companies, though, and three of them (Breathings, Linkface and Lupie) are CES innovation honorees. It won’t be shocking if one or more of the spun-out companies this year garners attention in 2022.
