When generative AI tools started making waves in late 2022 after the launch of ChatGPT, the finance industry was one of the first to recognize these tools’ potential for speeding up the data-gathering and research process.
MIT alumni Jacob Chanyeol Choi and Subeen Pang founded Linq after they won the Samsung Open Collaboration in 2023, an accelerator-like program hosted by Samsung Financial Network.
Choi told TechCrunch that win spurred him to build large language models (LLMs) for enterprises, particularly the financial sector.
“We knew the potential for a tool that could seamlessly integrate with a company’s data ecosystem, which led to the birth of Linq,” Choi said.
In addition to its B2B service for enterprise clients, the startup also plans to build B2C tools for AI equity research.
India’s smartwatch market in flux as unknown brands challenge heavyweights The world's biggest smartwatch market has seen a deluge of new devices in the past few monthsIndia’s smartwatch market has transformed, seemingly overnight.
Hong Kong-based market analyst firm Counterpoint Research has observed the number of unknown brands in the Indian smartwatch market has grown from 78 in 2021 to 128 in 2023.
Declining pricesThe growth of unknown brands in the Indian smartwatch market has not yet significantly impacted all the local firms dominating the market.
Last year, smartwatch brands boAt and Noise entered the smart ring market in India to diversify their product catalog.
That said, market analysts like IDC’s Sharma predicts the Indian smartwatch market will see only single-digit growth this year due to stiff competition from unknown brands and dropping ASPs.
After a brief tease at the end of its big Galaxy S24 event earlier this month, Samsung officially debuted the Galaxy Ring this morning at MWC.
Circular cofounder and CEO Amaury Kosman stated, “We’re really pleased that Samsung has announced that it will be bringing the Samsung Galaxy Ring to market later this year.
The company isn’t a household name, but it’s big enough to effectively be synonymous with the smart ring category for many consumers.
While the Galaxy Ring appeared on the MWC floor today, we’re still waiting for a lot here with regards to specifics.
Samsung could also lean into sleep tracking, suggesting users wear the Watch all day and sleep with the Ring on.
Samsung is bringing its Galaxy AI features to more devices through a new One UL 6.1 update coming in late March, the company announced today.
The features are coming to the Galaxy S23 series, S23 FE, Z Fold5 and Z Flip5, as well as Tab S9 Ultra, Tab S9+ and Tab S9.
The AI features were first introduced for the Galaxy S24 series, but will soon be available to even more Samsung users.
As nearly every tech company is introducing and expanding their AI-powered features, it makes sense for Samsung to make its features more widely accessible.
In addition, a new “Note Assist” feature will let users generate summaries and translate notes, while a “Browsing Assist” feature will provide them with quick summaries of news articles.
Rebellions, a South Korean fabless AI chip startup, said today it has closed $124 million (165 billion KRW) in a Series B round of funding to develop its third AI chip, called Rebel.
Rebellions’ fundraise comes at a key moment in the chip industry, specifically around the development and use of AI chips.
Nvidia is the AI chip market leader, its name synonymous with the AI boom that is currently sweeping the technology world.
In May 2023, Rebellions’ strategic investor, KT, installed Atom, Rebellions’ data-center targeted AI chip, in its cloud-based neural processing units (NPU) infrastructure.
Rebellions CEO Sunghyun Park, a former quant developer at Morgan Stanley in New York, and four co-founders set up the AI chip startup in 2020.
Muscle mass tends to decline as you get older, impacting your walking and increasing the risk of falls.
“Using the wearable robot EX1, older adults can effectively perform simple exercises such as walking and fitness, thereby improving their quality of life,” says research lead, Professor Wan-hee Lee.
“Our findings provide a solid foundation for developing various types of improved and advanced wearable robots,” Lee.
“This will further expand the global wearable robot market, promoting further research and commercialization.”It’s not certain when or if the Samsung EX1 might actually hit the market.
Even so, anticipate assistive wearable robotics becoming a lot more prevalent over the next decade.
Since launching its self-repair program in August 2022, Samsung has been aggressively adding new devices to the mix.
Another upgrade this week brings the current offering up to 50 products (when you factor in variants like the Plus and Ultra), including smartphones, tablets, TVs, laptops, monitors, soundbars and even a projector.
There are 14 new devices in all, including the Galaxy S23 series, Galaxy Z Fold 5, Galaxy Z Flip 5, Galaxy Tab S9 series, the Galaxy Book 2 series and the aforementioned projector, Freestyle 2.
The news also finds Samsung adding a number of different parts options, including speakers, the SIM tray, side key and volume buttons on Galaxy phones and tablets.
Samsung’s approach is generally more in line with Google’s in terms of access to tools and parts.
It took Oura (pictured above) to show the world that the ring is a viable health tracking form factor.
The company concluded today’s Galaxy S24 Unpacked event by announcing the Samsung Galaxy Ring.
Meet the Galaxy Ring, with AI technology is empowering us to stay connected, unleash our creativity and build healthier habits all in more meaningful ways.
We know it’s called the Galaxy Ring.
Of course, while company, the form factor does have its feature limitations owing to a small size.
The tech giant accounted for 20% of the global market with 234.6 million shipments last year.
Samsung closed the year with 226.6 million shipments, while Xiaomi and Oppo saw 145.9 and 103.1 shipments, respectively.
Transsion rounded out the top five with 94.9 million shipments.
According to the report, global smartphone shipments declined 3.2% year over year to 1.17 billion units in 2023.
“The fourth quarter (4Q23) saw 8.5% year-over-year growth and 326.1 million shipments, higher than the forecast of 7.3% growth.”
Gemini, Google’s cutting-edge generative AI model family, is coming to Samsung’s new flagship smartphone — the Galaxy S24.
Google and Samsung made the announcement to coincide with the Galaxy S24’s unveiling this afternoon.
Beyond Gemini, the Galaxy S24 will benefit from Google’s Imagen 2 text-to-image model, which will underpin photo editing features in the Galaxy S24 Gallery app.
Neither company said exactly how Ultra might be used on the Galaxy S24, however — or any other Samsung devices for that matter.
Mum’s the word on whether Galaxy S24 users can expect the same Assistant and Bard upgrades; hopefully we’ll learn more during today’s Galaxy S24 press conference.
