Samsung's 2014 smart TV lineup may revolve around impressive-looking hardware, but the Korean tech giant has revealed that interface improvements will also play an important role. Its new TVs will support finger gestures that should be more intuitive than the whole-hand commands of this year's models; you can stop a movie with a spinning motion, for instance. Voice control will also be more powerful. It's at last possible to change channels or launch apps with a single step, and search results appear in one place. While the gesture and voice upgrades may not be revolutions, they'll likely be welcome to viewers frustrated with unwieldy TV software.
“Samsung’s 2014 Smart TV models deliver significantly improved voice interaction and motion control features so that our consumers will be able to enjoy our Smart TV more intuitively,” said Kyungshik Lee, Senior Vice President of the Service Strategy Team of Visual Display Business, Samsung Electronics. “We will continue to develop content that integrates voice and motion recognition for added convenience.”
With the 2014 Smart TV, finding content is easier than ever. Users can change the channel in one step – by simply saying the channel number. They can even open a website or app using shortcuts. For reference, 2013 models require two steps to change TV channels: ‘Channel Change’ and ‘Channel Number’
The voice search feature is also more convenient to use, letting users find all content results in one place.
Further, when a consumer uses voice interaction to search for daily living information such as weather, stocks and sports while watching TV, a pop-up window appears on the bottom of the page with search results. Consumers can move to the app and see the details by clicking the pop-up.
Along with voice interaction, the motion control has been improved by adding the ‘finger gesture’ feature of the 2014 Smart TVs – a significant improvement to motion control.
Thanks to ‘finger gesture,’ users can change the TV channel, adjust the volume, find and select what they want to watch just by using their fingers. They can also go back to the previous screen and stop the video by motioning their finger counterclockwise – a more intuitive way to control the TV.
Image: Samsung Tomorrow