Samsung C-Lab To Show Off Audio, Visual Innovation At CES 2018

Who says Samsung isn't a proponent of innovation? Well, maybe not that much inside its main, stable, and sometimes slow-moving business divisions. But if you take a peek inside its C-Lab, a.k.a. Creative Lab, program, you might actually find some of the strangest and sometimes impressive things innovation can produce. And Samsung isn't shy about showing them off to a crowd at CES 2018, in the hopes of finding potential partners and investors to turn ideas into actual commercial products.

Samsung will showcase three new projects from C-Lab. Of the three, Relumino might be the most familiar to those keeping a close watch on Samsung's activities. Currently taking the form of a modified Gear VR headset, Relumino uses computer vision and imaging in order to address common visual deficiencies. The team behind Relumino hope to reduce the device into a less conspicuous sunglasses form in the future.

From visual to aural, S-Ray, short for Sound-Ray, wants to take directional audio and package it into more consumer-friendly forms, like neckbands, handheld boxes, and even smartphone covers. S-Ray tries to solve the problem of keeping your ears open to hear important ambient sound while still being able to enjoy music that only the wearer can hear.

Finally, GoBreath dives into the medical world with a portable device, app, and cloud service. The kit focuses on helping recovering patients with deep breathing exercises and instructions via the app. The device and the service help doctors monitor patients' progress and even give them a nudge if needed.

Like any innovation program, not all C-Lab projects make it out of the prototype stage, no matter how refined. Samsung itself almost never produces successful projects and instead spins them off into startups. CES is also an opportunity for these projects to find investors and partners to help bring these concepts to life and to the market.

SOURCE: Samsung