On tour with Samsung

Stuff's in Korea right now and in between eating all the Kimchi we can handle, we've been treated to some awesome tours of the companies that define the Korean market.

First stop is the Samsung Suwon complex. With a workforce bigger than the population of Milton Keynes and taking up an area of 1.72m square metres, "rather large" doesn't even begin to describe it.

We were treated to a tour of the Samsung museum and product showcases, so I've posted some of the highlights, plus news of future Sammy products below...



First up, Samsung's 80in hi-def plasma, a snip at $150,000. A bit of a departure from the retro stylings of this 70s model in the museum.

We've all seen the F400 Samsung phone fited with a B&O speaker, for stylish commuter infuriation, but Sammy let slip that there would be more B&O MP3 player hook-ups for next year.

We also got hands-on with the SyncMaster 460TSn, a touchscreen LCD with an integrated computing unit with 4GB Flash storage, 3 USB ports and 1GB RAM. Not exactly mind-blowing specs, but did we mention it's touchscreen (see our video below).

In mobile news, Samsung was very cagey about committing to any Android handsets, but did admit that they were in the "initial stages" of development for the North American market.

The big message for Samsung mobile was convergence – apparently the company's boffins are developing tech for seamless home and mobile hook-ups, embedding DNLA networking into products to make them interoperable.

For example, seamlessly sending your mobile's video content straight to your set-top box or TV, something Sammy has already showcased at CES early this year in its Innov8 handset.

Watch this space for more news from the Far East, incuding more future phone trends, hands-on video with the LG Renoir and some virtual reality madness...