A seamless display with a hidden camera at its center. A transparent antenna that allows a totally seamless body. A holographic device. Even a headphone jack!
Those are some of the technologies included in an extremely detailed Samsung phone patent published last month by the World Intellectual Property Organization.
According to Dutch tech site Letsgodigital, the laundry list for this state-of-the-art device doesn’t stop there.
There is an ultrasonic fingerprint scanner, a projector module, and an array of sensors all hidden under the display: grip sensor, “bio” sensor (whatever that means), temperature and humidity sensors, UV sensor, gesture sensors, atmospheric pressure sensor… it’s mind numbing, really.
While we don’t know how realistic this all is or how far Samsung is from attaining smartphone nirvanna, the patent seems to describe a phone that uses a screen similar to the revolutionary display that Samsung Electronics presented last month at the Marriott Hotel in Shenzhen, China.
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Reportedly, the electronic components manufacturer was presenting the product — which has been finalized — to 20 big customers, which may include Apple, one of Samsung’s big clients for OLED displays.
As for the holographic device, I thought that it maybe referred to a screen similar to the underwhelming Red Hydrogen One. But according to Letsgodigital, the WIPO patent says that “the display may include a ‘hologram device’, which makes it possible to show 3D projection images in the air using interference of light”. Which, needless to say, is a fascinating prospect. Or maybe Samsung is just pulling our legs.
Exotic features aside, however, the phone described in this patent is certainly a very significant design and feature jump from the current Samsung Galaxy S9, which is something that Samsung Mobile CEO DJ Koh promised for the S10.
However, we don’t really have a clue about how close this patent is to becoming reality — if at all. It’s nice to dream that this may be the fabled Samsung Galaxy S10 but, for now, we only got a list of notable technology breakthroughs and some pretty diagrams.
Samsung is supposed to announce the Galaxy S10 at February 2019’s Mobile World Conference in Barcelona, Spain.
