Samsung Electronic's plans for the Internet of Things headlined the company CEO's opening keynote speech at CES 2015.
IoT devices are the future of technology, Boo-Keun Yoon, president and CEO, told the crowd and can be used for everything from improving people's health to actually parking cars with a smart watch. In the IoT model, devices will be able to communicate directly with one another via the Internet for better efficiency.
In order for IoT devices to reach their full potential, Yoon constantly emphasized that companies need to make hardware and software that is open and able to communicate with all different kinds of devices regardless of brand. It appeared the CEO was pointing directly at Apple, Samsung's biggest rival, a company which likes to maintain complete control over how their products communicate with others.
Yoon spoke about how wearables like fitness bands and smart watches have accelerated the growth of the Internet of Things through the use of sensors that record data and transmit the information to smartphones to provide the user with an overview of their health and fitness information. Attendees also got to see BMW's Remote Valet Parking Assistant, which uses a Samsung smart watch to autonomously park itself and then, when the user is ready to leave, the smart watch can be used to summon the car to pick the person up.
Yoon announced that Samsung plans on investing more than $100 million this year to accelerate the program.
"The IoT is not a pipe dream any more, it's ready to go. That's because there are many consumer devices already out there, ready to connect to IoT," said Yoon. "The opportunities and benefits of IoT are huge, but so are the challenges. We need an open system and to collaborate across industries, not just within technology."
"IoT is about delivering experiences that change our lives for the better, and it's developers that come up with the ideas that change our lives. Samsung is committed to supporting them, and will invest more than $100 billion into developer community through funding for startups and our incubators, which we are taking global."
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