Samsung is planning for a future where Smart TVs can control other living room devices and electronics using gestures, according to reports on Monday.
The Wall Street Journal brings word the firm is in talks with Korean start-up VTouch, which is building a new interface allowing users to point at interconnected objects off the screen, like lamps and stereos.
The VTouch software moves past past the cursor-based interfaces utilised by current solutions. To do so, it is deploying a custom-built algorithm that tracks the viewers' eyes and hands. This combination, it says, greatly improves accuracy.
"It will be a new interface that drops the usage of cursors, allowing the user to point to objects that exist beyond the TV screen," Kim Seok-joong, the VTouch founder and CEO said.
The future of TV?
Kim said VTouch's software will be ready to hit Smart TVs in 2016, so it's a little while away yet, but could prove key to Samsung's bid to revive the television division, currently dragging down its huge mobile gains.
A partnership or perhaps an acquisition of VTouch (no prizes for guessing the V stands for 'Virtual') would give Samsung an opportunity to lay down a marker for the future of Smart TV
Samsung has already expressed huge interest in the interconnectivity of devices and recently unveiled the Samsung Smart Home concept at CES 2014 in January.
This platform will allow Smart TVs, digital cameras, wearables and even household items like washing machines be controlled through a single app.
Via TechCrunch
