Holography: Samsung’s next innovation engine

June 12, 2014 Leave a comment

Updated : 2014-06-03 18:14

Holography: Samsung’s next innovation engine

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Holograms of singer Psy and dancers are screened at the Klive concert hall in Euljiro, Seoul, Jan. 16, which is capable of projecting holographic content.

The venue and the concert have been co-arranged by the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning, KT and YG Entertainment

By Yoon Sung-won

What will be the next-generation technology that can bring genuine”innovation” to the global ICT industry?
The answer may vary.
Samsung Electronics, the world’s top smartphone maker, is consideringholography technology as one of the new smart technologies aftersmartphones and wearable device technologies.
The current 3D display technology requires people to wear specialeyeglasses to watch a stereoscopic image from the two-dimensionaloriginal image which is projected from a flat screen. The holographytechnology goes beyond this algorithm to produce imagesstereoscopically in the first place, freeing from a need for eyeglasses.
The holography technology can be applied to a wide range of industrialfields other than smart devices ― for example, medical science,construction and architecture, design, entertainment and performance,business conferences, art and televised media.
The smartphone market has been saturated and the profitability ofwearable devices is said to be relatively limited because most of theirfunctions work in sync with other smart devices like handsets and tabletcomputers.
For that reason, Samsung is likely to have eagerness to accumulateoriginal technologies as well as patent rights related to the holographytechnology, in an effort to be an innovator, a “first-mover” in the futureglobal market.
To realize the holography technology on smart devices, manufacturersfirst need to develop display panels with hardware capacity that iscapable of describing a very high level of resolutions as well asapplication processors with faster computing speed.
During the U.S. Consumer Electronics Show 2014 held in January, oneof the world’s biggest technology fairs, one of the most populartechnologies introduced there was that 3D display that does not requirespecial eyeglasses to watch stereoscopic images.
Together with much improved high-definition technologies, electronicscompanies including Samsung Electronics, Sharp and many otherChinese firms came up with next-generation 3D screens, raisingexpectations for the next-generation display technologies.
The next step in 3D technology is holograms, which are still in an infantstage of development. The key is to develop an algorithm to realize thestereoscopic images projected from a flat screen.
According to data from the U.S. -based patent-related researcherInnography about companies’ revenue and holography-related patentsregistered in the United States, Samsung, which already has strength indisplay technology, is likely to be a strong prospective consumer forthese patents in the future with its profound revenue basis.
Since the holography technology is not yet established in the industry,each company has concentrated different methods of embodiment.
Japan’s Sony, one of the leaders in terms of holography technology,has developed or collected patents related to the head-mounted-typehologram display. Samsung Electronics has concentrated in improvingoptical elements and the hologram projection method to actualize theholography algorithm. Germany-based SeeReal Technologies hasfocused on eye-tracking technology, according to the data.
No matter how promising or important the holography technology maybe, Samsung remains cautious about its future and about thecompany’s commitment into it.
“It is still too early to make an official statement about Samsung’sinterest and development in the holography technology, though it canbe one of many options,” a Samsung Electronics insider told The KoreaTimes. “Holography not only has a long way to go in its developmentprocess, but it also is too wide and complicated to refer to a technologyapplicable to a certain field.”

Filed under Macro Trends, TMT Trends

Unknown's avatarAbout bambooinnovator
Kee Koon Boon (“KB”) is the co-founder and director of HERO Investment Management which provides specialized fund management and investment advisory services to the ARCHEA Asia HERO Innovators Fund (www.heroinnovator.com), the only Asian SMID-cap tech-focused fund in the industry. KB is an internationally featured investor rooted in the principles of value investing for over a decade as a fund manager and analyst in the Asian capital markets who started his career at a boutique hedge fund in Singapore where he was with the firm since 2002 and was also part of the core investment committee in significantly outperforming the index in the 10-year-plus-old flagship Asian fund. He was also the portfolio manager for Asia-Pacific equities at Korea’s largest mutual fund company. Prior to setting up the H.E.R.O. Innovators Fund, KB was the Chief Investment Officer & CEO of a Singapore Registered Fund Management Company (RFMC) where he is responsible for listed Asian equity investments. KB had taught accounting at the Singapore Management University (SMU) as a faculty member and also pioneered the 15-week course on Accounting Fraud in Asia as an official module at SMU. KB remains grateful and honored to be invited by Singapore’s financial regulator Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to present to their top management team about implementing a world’s first fact-based forward-looking fraud detection framework to bring about benefits for the capital markets in Singapore and for the public and investment community. KB also served the community in sharing his insights in writing articles about value investing and corporate governance in the media that include Business Times, Straits Times, Jakarta Post, Manual of Ideas, Investopedia, TedXWallStreet. He had also presented in top investment, banking and finance conferences in America, Italy, Sydney, Cape Town, HK, China. He has trained CEOs, entrepreneurs, CFOs, management executives in business strategy & business model innovation in Singapore, HK and China.

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