The forthcoming Mobile World Congress (MWC) is going to be full of surprises and most of these surprises will be from companies such as Samsung and LG. While LG is rumored to be launching its wearable products - the G Arch smartwatch and G Health fitness tracker, Samsung is also expected to unveil its Galaxy Band fitness tracker and devices running Tizen OS at MWC 2014.
Rumors of Galaxy Band surfaced first when Dutch site Galaxy Club spotted a U.S. patent application for a flexible-screen device which was filed more than a year ago by Samsung. According to Korean news site DDaily, Samsung Galaxy Band will come with features such as pedometer, route guidance, smart tracking sensors for motion, humidity and pressure. The focus of the device, however, is movement and it will specialize in navigation.
The device is also expected to support voice control and be compatible with an array of the company's products such as TVs, sound system and other appliances.
Compared to the smartwatch Galaxy Gear, Galaxy Band will be lighter and sleeker.
Samsung is also expected to show off its new Tizen mobile OS, which may be seen running on a plethora of mobile devices at MWC 2014. According to IT News, invites have already been sent out for "an exclusive sneak preview of the newest Tizen devices" on Feb. 23 in Barcelona, Spain.
Rumors are that these "newest Tizen devices" might include a smartphone, as SamMobile recently published a selection of leaked screenshots giving an idea of how Tizen will work.
The first Tizen-based phone was expected to be launched sometime in the second half of this year, but for unknown reasons, the launch date was pushed back to 2014 International CES. However, now it seems the wait has further been extended to February 2014.
Tizen OS is a HTML5-based operating system being built by Samsung, Intel and other companies to take on Android and iOS. Because of its line of Android devices, Samsung is already among the leading smartphone manufacturers; therefore, its association in the development of a competitive mobile operating system is a bit dubious.
