Gadgetory

I went to Korea in the middle of March to see the new Galaxy s8 and to also get a glimpse into house Samsung has changed as testing processes we spent most of our time in a town called Sioux on this is what Samsung calls digital city and it's their headquarters it's actually the size of a small city there are about 34,000 employees it's about the size of 250 soccer fields so basically it's this massive campus where they do all of the research for their new products our second day we flew to Gumi which was about an hour on the helicopter and goomy this is where Samsung's newest devices are assembled it has eight other sites around the world including in Vietnam but this is kind of the heart of where their products have always been put together with the Galaxy s8 they're also doing new testing to make sure that the battery is safe like puncturing it with a nail putting it in machines that simulate really high temperature so over 150 degrees Fahrenheit they also started some new tests one of the most interesting ones we saw was what they call accelerated usage test this is basically trying to simulate what you actually do with your phone but at a much sped up process Samsung also had these huge shelves set up with different rows of batteries different phones plugged in to test to make sure that the battery charging and discharging works properly they have the ability to test 60,000 phones in Gumi while we were there they had 6,000 actually being tested in terms of charged and discharged with the accelerated usage test those tests take five days per device so it's a really thorough program I was one of the first people outside Samsung to actually get to see the Galaxy s8 so for Samsung this is kind of the device the codename did the dream to show employees that technology that they dream up can actually come in a product even if it takes five or six years there's the curved display which they call the infinity display they got rid of the physical home button and went with a digital one they have a new artificial intelligence assistant called Bixby show me gallery photos from mother okay I've got 26 pictures with Bixby it's not about questions like who's Martin Luther King jr. or what's the weather it's a new interface for your phone so you're not just gonna see Bixby in phones you're gonna see it in washing machines refrigerators in the u.s. most people know samsung for its TVs and it's phones when you go to Korea it's not just electronics they manufacture clothing they build boats they have an advertising business in Korea Samsung is makes up more than 20% of the economy so they're just this huge behemoth that you run into it every point right now they have some problems in Korea though they're vice chairman Jay Wiley who is actually slated to take over control the company has been arrested and charged with bribery and embezzlement Samsung is still really apologetic for what happened with the note 7 but I think they're also very optimistic about the s8 this is the device for them that this is going to really show their position on design on software and they think that now they finally have a program a phone that will help their different devices talk to each other better for Samsung this is just a huge huge deal Oh