South Korean tech giant Samsung has affirmed its commitment to new technology and innovation investments and also launched a new Samsung Strategy and Innovation Center (SSIC). Samsung will invest in two funds to help foster innovation; it has contributed $1 billion to the Venture Americas Fund and set up a new $100 million Samsung Catalyst Fund to “fund development of components and subsystems”. Meanwhile it is hoped that the SSIC, based in the Silicon Valley area of California, will bring new sources of “disruptive innovation” to Samsung, which currently does most of its own R&D work in Korea.
Young Sohn
The SSIC will be headed up by Samsung’s chief strategy officer Young Sohn, a former executive at Intel, ARM and Aligent. At a press conference yesterday Mr Sohn talked about Samsung’s big ambitions; by 2020 the company expects there to be 120 billion smart connected devices in use around the world and it wants to have its logo on a good proportion of them. By that time Samsung hopes to have doubled its revenue to become a $400 billion company. Why Silicon Valley? “Being in Silicon Valley is critical because this is the epicenter of disruptive innovation,” explained Sohn. Also perhaps there were no vacancies on Silicon Roundabout.
Looking for Samsung Innovation? Check out the Samsung Galaxy Q.
Here is an example of Samsung putting its money where its mouth is in terms of innovation. Recently there have been quite a few articles about a new smartphone called the Samsung Galaxy Q (GT-B9150). MobileGeeks has benchmarks and photos of what it says is the Galaxy Q; a smartphone we should be able to see at the upcoming MWC later in the month.
folding display
Specs of the Galaxy Q from MobileGeeks
- Dual Super AMOLED HD display (1920 × 1080)
- Exynos 5250 dual-core 1.7Ghz
- 2GB RAM
- 8MP rear camera
- 2MP front camera
- 3500mAh Battery
- Android Jelly Bean 4.2.1
The Samsung Galaxy Q is rumoured to be a foldable Youm screened device. SlashGear described the Galaxy Q screen as “two displays at 5.3-inches each that fold out into one single larger display”. The details seem pretty sketchy and cobbled together from all sorts of sources, so it’s another case of “better wait and see” until the start of the MWC.
