Interview: Samsung Building Consumer Electronics for Virtual Worlds

We reported in December that Samsung's Computer Science Lab was looking to make two new hires targeted at creating interoperability for virtual worlds and blending them with consumer electronics.  While Samsung was a part of the virtual worlds interoperability summit in October, we were surprised because we hadn't heard of any other virtual worlds initiatives from the company. VP of Computer Science Victoria Coleman says they're coming. "The company as a whole is very, very interested in virtual worlds and the opportunities they present," she explained. "There are a number of efforts going on here and in Korea. A number of them are collaborative: we've been working very closely with IBM to put together the interoperability meetings."

Coleman's operation in the Computer Science Lab is a part of the Corporate Technology Operations group and answers to the CTO, as does the Software Lab in Korea, which Coleman says is also working on virtual worlds research. Along with the telecommunications group, Samsung is apparently focusing on virtual worlds from both a "very advanced R&D" perspective as well as one more immediately focused on product enablement.

Virtual Worlds Interoperability and Consumer Electronics

"We are a consumer electronics company," explained Coleman. "We see our devices becoming the primary portal that people use to interact with the Web. If virtual worlds become attractive, then our assumption is that people will be using our devices, TVs, phones, etc. to interact with them. The imperative then is how we make that experience enjoyable.  When we look at virtual worlds, we don't look at specific products. We look at how we can enhance the enjoyment of them with all our devices. And frankly we look at how they could work with devices that haven't been built. We keep our eyes open for emerging requirements."

Closer to home, and as indicated by the hiring descriptions, the Computer Science Lab is looking at interoperability. The lab already has a presence in Second Life for collaboration, but Coleman believes virtual worlds won't become truly "a game changing space" for consumers or Samsung until the worlds are interconnected.

"We're working with other companies that are platform providers for virtual worlds and then our own internal R&D program is unsurprisingly pushing in the same direction," she said. "We are looking at what we can do to enhance the experience when they are interconnected. What kind of apps do you have and what kind of use cases do you see?"

That most generally means content and application interoperability and search, but the effects of interoperability narrow down for Samsung. As a consumer electronics company, the focus will be on content integration for devices. For example, if a user creates content on a Samsung phone, it should be usable across a range of worlds.

Coleman says Samsung is already "well ahead on building" two applications. She hopes, though without confirming a commitment from the company, to see products released, at least in test form, to the public within the year. If nothing else, it would answer many of the Lab's questions on what direction to look in.

"What I can tell you is that the primary concern we have at this point is not what the client should look like, but what it should do," she explained. "We're working with folks in platform companies to figure out what is it that people expect to do with these devices and then platform companies can say, 'Well if that's the case, here's how we can adapt.' We don't really know and that's the hardest part. Once we have the first part, you can build it and put it out there and see if it works. It's very painful sitting in the lab nd trying to guess what we'll do."

Looking for an Audience

Plenty of tech spectators will undoubtedly see Samsung's move as foolhardy. Since virtual worlds haven't gone mainstream yet, the large tech company might appear to be chasing a product without an audience. Coleman, who laughingly admits to having predicted in the '80s that email would never catch on, now thinks it's only a matter of time and development for  virtual worlds.

"I'm convinced that the virtual worlds are suffering from the tyranny of the first version," she said. "The first version of something will almost always suck. For me as an innovation company, do you look at the first version and say, 'This will never succeed' or do you look at it and say, The next version will be revolutionary'?"

The Second Version is key, then, to Coleman. Until worlds are interoperable, she says, the technology will never reach the ubiquity of Facebook, LinkedIn, email, or the Web.

"Imagine a world where the Web consisted of only one format," she explained. "How stifling would that be? Allowing people to create and express their creativity in different formats will be very important. Allowing it to be ubiquitous so it's not just something that you do for 30 minutes in the office. When did email become interesting? It's interesting now that even my 7-year-old is doing it."

And that's the audience that Samsung is aiming for, everyone.  Just as email, and Samsung cell phones, are in the hands of 7-year-olds to 80-year-olds, she thinks virtual worlds can have the same effect. And that's something she thinks Samsung is more suited to do than many of companies already pushing virtual worlds.

"Raph Koster was very vocal at the [interoperability] meeting," she explained. "He said, 'You guys haven't been around virtual worlds and games. You're trying to reinvent the wheel.' He has a point. Most of the companies haven't been around games. But we are large companies that can take the technology and put it in the hands of lots of people. It's not when the geeks of Linden Lab or Samsung get the technology. It's when the 7-year-olds get it."

Research and Development

But there is still a place for the geeks. As a lifelong researcher, Coleman is excited about the new opportunities virtual worlds present for herself and her team.

"The interesting things about virtual worlds is that in addition to being great collaboration platforms is that they're great R&D platforms," she said. "I've been in R&D all my life and it takes you 70% of the time to build a platform to test your idea. Imagine if you didn't have to do that.  You don't have to spend so much time building the device. After all is said and done and the whole world is using these worlds, the thing for research is we'll be using it as our platform. It can turbocharge the research."

That funnels back into virtual worlds as well as consumer electronics. While Coleman says this year will be likely largely be spent on developing interoperability and standards for virtual worlds, the next will go farther in building usefulness into virtual worlds.

"The next thing will be search and building intelligence into avatars," she said. "The problem with virtual worlds nowadays is that you have to be there all the time. I can't be there all the time. It would be nice to have intelligence of some sort for avatars to represent you to some extent."

So will 2009 see the Samsung AI virtual world cell phone? Here's hoping.

Comments

[CellphoneSavant]

Great post. I am new to your blog nad I really like what I see.

[CellphoneSavant]

Great post. I am new to your blog nad I really like what I see.