Image: Samsung Newsroom media sources
During the Samsung Developer Conference 2022 on Oct. 12, the corporate launched the brand new One UI 5, the evolution of SmartThings and the brand new Samsung Knox Matrix and expanded its well being and wellness ecosystem for the Galaxy Watch.
Samsung held its annual Developer Conference in San Francisco, bringing collectively builders, creators and designers. The firm, like many others, was eager to emphasize its imaginative and prescient for smarter and extremely personalised experiences which are centered on the client.
Ahead of SDC22, TechRepublic spoke to Seungwon Shin, vice chairman and head of safety for Samsung’s Mobile Experience Division, throughout a pre-briefing to get the within story on the brand new bulletins and the challenges of constructing new safety and privateness options.
“Actually, Samsung internally already had the technologies … . The issue really for us was how to deliver these technologies into solutions that consumers feel comfortable using and how to secure the consumer devices without users having to do all the complicated configuration,” stated Shin.
What’s new in One UI 5?
Image: Samsung Newsroom media sources
During SDC22 the corporate introduced the discharge of the brand new One UI 5. Samsung’s One UI Beta program was initially launched in August 2022. The firm explains that the suggestions from 1000’s of Galaxy customers who participated within the One UI Beta program formed the brand new One UI 5 expertise.
The One UI 5 offers a brand new design that focuses on personalised cellular experiences. Icons are bolder and easier, notifications could be learn at a look, and the pop-up name show has been redesigned.
Among the brand new options, Bixby Text Call permits customers to reply telephone calls just by typing a message. Samsung’s clever platform Bixby converts the textual content to audio and shares it instantly with the caller on the road. The function is designed for customers to take calls even in environments the place they can’t be heard, like a busy prepare or a loud live performance.
Another replace is Samsung’s Routine. The new answer permits customers to change to totally different smartphone modes, resembling “morning routine, work routine or sleep routine.” With routines, customers can set off a sequence of actions on their system primarily based on their actions, creating with One UI 5’s modes personalized settings for various elements of their life.
To arrange the Home screens, customers can now use the brand new Stack widgets, which permit customers to tug and drop widgets on prime of one another and swipe left or proper to shortly and simply scroll by each. The new One UI 5 additionally comes with new Smart ideas for widgets. Smart ideas mechanically counsel apps and actions primarily based on utilization patterns and the context of a person’s cellular exercise. Other options embody sensible textual content extraction and picture extraction.
Shin explains that Samsung works in three fundamental areas to steer in safety and cellular privateness: true end-to-end safety, information separation for impartial work and private profiles, and runtime safety.
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Anchored within the {hardware}, Knox is the guts of the Samsung Galaxy safety.
“Knox architecture provides a hardware-based security system. This means that even though the attacker has compromised some of the software in the mobile system, they cannot capture the secure wallet or some of the critical information of the customer because it is stored in the hardware,” Shin defined.
Galaxy customers attempting out the beta model of One UI highlighted the brand new Security Dashboard as one in all their favorites. In this new dashboard, customers can management the privateness and the system’s safety settings and discover ideas or warnings.
The One UI 5 additionally includes a new notification on the Share Panel that warns a person in the event that they’re about to unwittingly share a photograph that comprises probably delicate info resembling a picture of a credit score or debit card, driver’s license, Social Security card or passport.
Shin explains that with the brand new dashboard, customers can see and customise settings for the digital camera, microphone and monitoring areas. Additionally, they’ll perceive what purposes have used the digital camera or microphone.
“So, if the customer doesn’t like that kind of tracking, then she or he can easily turn off those features,” Shin stated. Moreover, the corporate will present safety updates for no less than 5 years for its clients.
Samsung will even broaden the Samsung Wallet to 13 new markets this 12 months, together with Denmark, Finland, Qatar, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland and UAE. The pockets was initially launched in June 2022 to markets together with China, France, Germany, Italy, the U.Ok. and the U.S.
With the pockets, the corporate appears into the way forward for digital finance trending globally and positions itself to compete with prime wallets like these supplied by Apple or Google. The pockets can retailer something from financial institution playing cards and digital keys to journey passes, driver’s licenses and pupil IDs. Like all of Samsung’s options, it’s protected by Samsung’s safety platform, Knox, which incorporates fingerprint recognition and encryption.
SmartThings and Calm Technology
Image: Samsung Newsroom media sources
Samsung can be betting strongly on Internet of Things sensible residence units. With the brand new One UI 5, customers can management all units with their smartphones. The built-in SmartThings and Bixby platform is how the corporate needs to construct a user-friendly sensible residence expertise able to supporting a number of family units.
“As technologies become more complex, we will always search for ways to make life easier, more connected and more flexible, so our consumers can focus on what matters most,” stated Jong-Hee Han, vice chairman, CEO and head of the Device Experience Division at Samsung Electronics.

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The imaginative and prescient the corporate calls Calm Technology saves customers time on a setup by immediately permitting clever units to work collectively. Samsung reimagined SmartThings and its related providers and partnerships, together with Samsung’s Hub Everywhere, extending its capabilities to all the sensible residence.
Additionally, Samsung introduced an expanded partnership with Google to take sensible residence interoperability to the subsequent stage. In the approaching months, Samsung Galaxy telephone and pill customers can onboard Matter-compatible units to each the SmartThings and Google Home ecosystems. Users can now keep away from operating a number of apps and accounts to regulate every system by connecting units between totally different ecosystems.
“Unlike some other vendors, we are trying to collaborate with multiple partners to guarantee the security of their mobile experiences,” Shin stated.
On the opposite hand, with the brand new Bixby Home Studio, builders can now construct differentiated, personalized experiences for the SmartThings platform.
“These days, all our devices will be connected. In this environment, there shouldn’t be any kind of possible threat. To handle threats, we have proposed the Knox Matrix,” Shin stated.
Knox Matrix: Blockchain IoT safety
As sensible units and IoT turn out to be extra frequent, so do breaches. Cyberattacks prey on weak sensible units to entry a broader community. To present cutting-edge safety options for this new setting Samsung offered Knox Matrix, a non-public blockchain-based platform that turns eligible Samsung units right into a protect to guard the person’s whole system ecosystem.
Knox Matrix retains Galaxy units, TVs and different residence units safe whereas permitting personalised privateness by the brand new Security and Privacy dashboard. The system scans for vulnerabilities, recommends safety updates, and provides customers information administration choices to maintain privateness and safety prime of thoughts.
“We are going to set up a trusted and secure channel on the Samsung devices, which means that our smartphone, our smart TV or our smart air purifier—they can connect with each other to monitor each other and share information about the security,” Shin added.
The firm reckons Knox Matrix is a revolutionary idea for multi-device safety, a area they view as the subsequent battlefront for safety and privateness. With Knox Matrix, when sensible units are related and speaking with one another, not solely do they generate a layer of community units, however they’ll determine if a tool is breached and block and isolate it from the community. Knox Matrix helps units primarily based on Android, Tizen or different working techniques.
“We started the design process for Knox Matrix last year. And we carried out our internal lab tests as well as proof of concept, which confirmed the needs as well as the possibilities of this technology. So, here at SDC, we are introducing it for the first time,” Shin defined.
When questioned in the event that they anticipate many updates and patches within the close to future, Shin added that Knox Matrix leverages a number of the prevailing options of Knox.
“So, we don’t foresee too many updates, but we are making preparations to apply incremental updates going forward,” Shin stated.
Health tech: Wearables, medical analysis and street security
Image: Samsung Newsroom media sources
Samsung additionally introduced new initiatives to proceed growing its well being providers and options. During the convention, the corporate highlighted a brand new utility programming interface that provides adjustable sensitivity for Fall Detection for the Galaxy Watch. Galaxy customers can modify sensitivity ranges—standing nonetheless, transferring or exercising—through the Galaxy Wearable app.
SEE: Samsung unveils Galaxy Z Flip 4, Z Fold 4, Galaxy Watch 5 (TechRepublic)
Additionally, builders can now create providers utilizing Galaxy Watch’s Fall Detection algorithms that sense a person’s stumble or fall by combining totally different sensors, together with an accelerometer and gyroscope.
The firm additionally offered the Toolkit for Medical Research of Samsung, a brand new open-source healthcare expertise that helps medical analysis at hospitals, establishments, wellness facilities and different care organizations. The instrument is designed to speed up analysis processes and ship superior information and insights by wearables just like the Galaxy Watch.
Researchers can use this open-source mission to construct modules that allow contributors to hitch a examine, with the intention of streamlining the onboarding course of.
“Flexible survey templates are also in place to satisfy the ever-changing needs of organizations. From there, relevant data and insights are gathered more easily from wearable devices, while participants are guided with actionable insights throughout the process,” the corporate defined.
Samsung Health and Fitbit additionally adopted Health Connect. This platform offers centralized privateness controls, making it simpler for customers to grant or deny permissions to well being and health apps. Health Connect additionally works within the health apps Leap Fitness, MyFitnessPal and Withings.
Finally, with the Samsung Privileged Health SDK, Samsung partnered with Tobii, an eye-tracking and a focus computing instrument, to make roads safer. The Privileged Health SDK can determine early driver fatigue and stress indicators and decide the person’s stage of drowsiness whereas on the street by sensing real-time coronary heart charge ranges by the Galaxy Watch.
From new alternatives for builders to healthcare, sensible residence units, safety improvements and their new pores and skin for Android, Samsung is pushing ahead on a broad entrance to make superior and complicated expertise accessible to customers in a easy manner. It’s no simple feat to carry the most recent in cellular tech into everybody’s palms. It could seem seamless and simple, however behind it, the corporate has invested numerous hours in analysis and growth and continues to innovate.