Samsung's Galaxy S III: A Smartphone That Takes Embedded Vision Seriously
June 22, 2012Back in early May, I dedicated a news writeup to Samsung's just-announced and latest-generation Galaxy S III smartphone, by virtue of its abundance of embedded vision talents. Since it's based on the Android v4 O/S, it automatically supports Google's facial recognition unlock scheme (which Samsung has augmented by requiring you to not only stare into the front-facing camera but also blink, thereby differentiating you from a photograph), along with multi-image stitch "panorama" mode.
The Galaxy S III's cameras also implement "smile shot" capabilities to trigger picture-taking when the subject is...umm...smiling, as an extension of the more general face detection feature that optimizes focus and exposure for human subjects in the shot. And after you take a burst of eight pictures, you can use "Best Photo" mode to let the Galaxy S III automatically select what it thinks is the optimum one, even going so far as to discard ones in which one or more subjects are in the midst of blinking (and conversely prioritizing those in which subjects have smiles on their faces).
The front-facing camera finds use for more than just self-portrait, videoconferencing, and facial unlock functions. The handset's SmartStay capability keeps the display at full illumination for as long as it discerns that you're in front of it; conversely, it turns off the OLED when it determines that you're gone. And although I didn't realize this until now (therefore why I didn't mention it in the earlier writeup), according to AnandTech the Galaxy S III supports hands-free gesture interface control, which the company brands as the "3D Interactive Experience" and will be promoting via an upcoming audience-participation game presented at 3-D movie theaters. Check out the video below, shot by AnandTech's jason Inofuentes during Samsung's launch event:
For more information on the Galaxy S III, check out the following product reviews, all published (coincidentally, I'm sure ;-) ) Tuesday at 9PM PT:
- AnandTech
- Ars Technica
- Engadget
- GigaOm
- Gizmodo
- The New York Times
- Slashdot
- TechCrunch
- VentureBeat
- The Verge (and more, and more, and more), and
- Wired
Also, take a look at the first two Galaxy S III commercials, one at the top of this writeup and the other below: