Listening to music with earphones? A very overrated concept for Samsung’s C-Lab, which is back with loads of wacky innovations.
The C-Lab is a bit like Samsung’s nursery for ideas. Every year, a whole bunch of wacky and innovative ideas emerge, and this year is no exception.
To tackle this 2022 vintage, Samsung begins by presenting its DearBuds, a rather particular pair of earbuds developed with the start-up Linkface. Indeed, these devices apparently do not allow listening to music; they are primarily intended to … dehumidify your ears.
They start with measure humidity in your ear canal. If this is greater than the recommended value, the device will emit a combination of warm air and light until it drops back to an adequate level.
The idea is not as crazy as it sounds. As this study shows, we have already known for many years that when the humidity is too high, the ear canal becomes a real palace for microorganisms. This enclosed, hot and humid space is the perfect substrate for them to proliferate. Too much humidity is therefore a risk factor that can lead to infections in the area. However, does this really justify investing in such a product? The question remains unresolved …
Lots of original projects
It is far from being the only motley invention presented by the wizards of C-Lab. We can for example quote Petnow, a dog identification system developed in cooperation with an external start-up. Today, a large portion of our dog friends are identified with the help of fleas. But some masters are opposed to this technology; they could then fall back on this system based on artificial intelligence. It makes it possible to identify a dog from a photo of its nose, a bit like scanning a human fingerprint. A concept that could be concretely useful for the traceability of animals, even microchipped.
We can also cite Tooning, another AI-based tool that allows you to make animated cartoons without any drawing skills. Rather than for entertainment, Samsung believes it could be an interesting event for business presentations or as part of an advertising campaign.
The C-Lab teams have also given birth to a few projects that could be described as artistic. This is a concept that allows you to design your own temporary tattoo on a smartphone using an application. The user can then print it directly on the skin thanks to a device called Prinker, a contraction of the words printer (printer) and ink (ink).
We can also cite Piloto, an application again based on AI which hopes educate children in the wise use of smartphones, Where ZamStar, a smart electric guitar furnished with LEDs which facilitate the learning of fingering.
As with each annual C-Lab announcement, the prognoses are launched; it will be interesting to follow these different projects to see how many of them will lead to a real product. The list of the different projects is available here.
