At the Samsung Developer Conference (SDC) 2017, held at Moscone West, Samsung announced that it will unite its IoT services under SmartThings, announced Bixby 2.0 with an SDK, secure IoT products including the ARTIK Secure IoT Modules, and the 360 Round, a camera for developing and streaming 3D content.

"At Samsung, we're constantly innovating in order to deliver smarter, connected experiences for our consumers. Now we're taking a big step forward with our open IoT platform, intelligent ecosystem and AR capabilities," said DJ Koh, President of Mobile Communications Business, Samsung Electronics. "Through an extensive open collaboration with our business partners and developers, we are unlocking a gateway to an expanded ecosystem of interconnected and intelligent services that will simplify and enrich everyday life for our consumers."

Samsung also demonstrated Project Ambience, a small dongle or chip that can be applied into a wide variety of objects, allowing them to connect, and create a Bixby experience.

Democratizing the Internet of Things

Samsung is combining its existing IoT services-SmartThings, Samsung Connect, and ARTIK-into one united IoT platform: SmartThings Cloud, which will provide a single cloud-based hub that can connect and control IoT-enabled products and services from a unified touchpoint.

With SmartThings Cloud, developers will have access to one cloud API across all SmartThings-compatible products to build their connected solutions and bring them to more people. It will also provide secure interoperability and services for business developing commercial and industrial IoT solutions.

ARTIK spans a range of chips from integrated ARM Cortex-M microcontrollers to eight-core applications processors. Today, most of the chips inside its modules are from third parties - but that will change.

For example, an end-node module announced in May includes a Samsung three-core ARM chip with integrated Wi-Fi. Another Samsung integrated chip for end nodes will ship early next year, followed by a Samsung gateway processor with connectivity chips from a third party.

Samung's secure modules will use a standalone secure element to support key storage for secure boot and other features. They will use a variety of standards for encryption, authorization, and signed apps.

The Samsung ARTIK IoT Platform with SmartThings Cloud will provide everything companies need to quickly develop secure IoT products and services including production-ready hardware, software and tools, cloud services and a growing partner ecosystem. The addition of new ARTIK secure IoT modules enables device-level protection for safe data exchange, interoperability, and secure access to ARTIK IoT services including device onboarding, orchestration, management, and over-the-air updates.

The new ARTIK secure IoT modules combine hardware-backed security with pre-integrated memory, processing, and connectivity for a broad range of IoT applications, from simple edge nodes like sensors and controllers, to home appliances, healthcare monitors, and gateways for smart factories.

ARTIK secure IoT modules provide a strong root of trust from device-to-cloud with a factory-injected unique ID and keys stored in tamper-resistant hardware. Samsung's public key infrastructure (PKI) enables mutual authentication to the cloud to identify each device on the network and support whitelisting. A new Secure Boot feature and code signing portal can be used to validate software authenticity on start-up. In addition, the secure IoT modules provide a hardware-protected Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) with a secure operating system and security library to process, store, and manage sensitive resources, including keys and tokens on devices. Information is protected using FIPS 140-2 data encryption and secure data storage.

ARTIK "s" secure IoT modules will be available on November 30 through Samsung ARTIK channel partners. The ARTIK IoT Platform and ARTIK cloud services are available today.

Next-Generation Intelligence

Samsung is moving intelligence beyond devices and into an ubiquitous, personal and open ecosystem with introduction of Bixby 2.0 with SDK, integrated with Viv technologies.

Samsung introduced Bixby to the world earlier this year with the launch of our flagship mobile devices, the Galaxy S8 and S8+ and the Note 8. Bixby is now available in over 200 different countries, with more than 10 million registered users. Samsung says that Bixby 2.0 is "a bold reinvention of the platform."

Bixby 2.0 will be available on any and all devices. This means having the intelligence of Bixby, powered by the cloud, act as the control hub of your device ecosystem, including mobile phones, TVs, refrigerators, home speakers, or any other connected technology. Soon, developers will be able to put their services on any and all devices and will not have to reinvent their services each time they support a new device.

It will be more personal, with enhanced natural language capabilities for more natural commands and complex processing, so it can really get to know and understand not only who you are, but who members of your family are, and tailor its response and actions appropriately.

And finally, Bixby 2.0 will be open. With Bixby 2.0, the doors will be wide open for developers to choose and model how users interact with Bixby in their services across all application domains e.g., sports, food, entertainment, or travel - the opportunities are truly endless.

Samsung today announcd its first private beta program with Bixby SDK, which will be available for select developers.

"General availability coming in the near future," Samsung said.

Augmented Reality

Samsung is committed to continuing to advance technologies in AR. Through a partnership with Google, developers will be able to use the ARCore SDK to bring AR to Samsung consumers on the Samsung Galaxy S8, Galaxy S8+ and Galaxy Note8.

Virtual Reality

Samsung introduced Gear VR nearly three years ago. Today, its expanding ecosystem features more than 1,000 apps, 10,000 videos through the premium 360-degree Samsung VR service and collaborations with content creators and media brands.

At SDC 2017 Samsung showcased its latest VR solutions to help educate developers on the possibilities that exist when building within Samsung's VR ecosystem. Samsung has developed a range of VR services including:

• Samsung VR, a video service offering the 360 content taking you anywhere from the cockpit of an airplane, to the depths of the ocean with your Galaxy phone and a Gear VR.
• Samsung Internet VR, a Gear VR-optimized browser that allows users to surf the web and watch videos and photos on a large, virtual screen.
• Samsung PhoneCast VR, an application that translates 2D apps into 3D VR through mirroring for improved VR playtime.
• VRB Foto, a social 360 photo sharing solution developed as part of Mobile Platform and Solutions lab of Samsung Research America, which allows users to create and share fun effects on top of 360 photos shot using cameras like Gear 360.
• Black River Studios, a division of Samsung R&D Institute of Amazonia (SIDIA) in Brazil, produces titles for Gear VR and Galaxy devices including Angest, Rock & Rails, and Finding Monsters perfectly suited for the upcoming HMD Odyssey.
• Samsung Gear VR Framework, an open source VR rendering engine with a Java interface for developing mobile VR apps offering a simple and familiar SDK for traditional Android developers without having to know multiple underlying VR SDKs.

Developers can pair these services with hardware like the Gear 360, as well as the 360 Round - a new camera featuring 17 lenses - eight stereo pairs positioned horizontally and one single lens positioned vertically - to livestream 4K 3D video and spatial audio, and create 3D images with depth.

The 360 Round's compact design features IP651 water and dust resistance and a fanless design to reduce weight and eliminate background noise. With additional features, including PC software for controlling and stitching and expandable external storage, the 360 Round provides long lasting shooting for any sized job.

The 360 Round offers high-quality 3D images with a 4K camera, thanks to 17 paired lenses that capture a 360-degree view. In addition, the 360 Round enables live streaming with little-to-no latency and broadcasts easily with one-step stitching and control software provided by Samsung.

The Samsung 360 Round will be available in October in the United States before expanding to other markets over time.