Kicking off the full slate of presentations, discussions and hands-on labs held at San Francisco’s Moscone West convention center were keynote speeches from Samsung and tech industry leaders. The opening keynote event illuminated Samsung’s efforts to usher in the new phase of IoT that it’s calling “Intelligence of Things”, and showcased the exciting implications for developers and consumers.

Check out the highlights of the keynotes below.

SDC 2017 attendees take their seats before the start of the conference’s keynote event.

DJ Koh, Samsung Electronics’ President of Mobile Communications Business, opens the conference by discussing how Samsung’s leadership in hardware, IoT, artificial intelligence (AI) and augmented reality (AR) is bringing the company closer to realizing its vision of an innovative future created through “connected thinking”, where connected experiences are seamless and unified across devices.

During his speech, Mr. Koh announced that Samsung will unite its IoT services – including Samsung Connect, SmartThings and ARTIK – into a powerful, integrated platform called SmartThings, which will go beyond smartphones and ultimately unite the world’s largest ecosystem of mobile devices, appliances, TVs and IoT sensors.

Next, Injong Rhee, Samsung Electronics’ Chief Technology Officer and Executive Vice President of Software and Services, discussed some of the user-experience challenges that can arise with screen or touch-panel technologies, and how Samsung’s Bixby interface – which currently features over 10 million active users – alleviates them.

Mr. Rhee also demonstrated exciting ways that users will be able to interact with their connected services in the new Intelligence of Things era. To illustrate this point, he offered attendees a glimpse of Project Ambience – a prototype dongle that may be applied to a variety of electronics to make them Bixby-compatible.

Gilles BianRosa, Senior Vice President and Chief Product Officer for Samsung’s Visual Display Business, revealed that beginning in 2018, Samsung will offer Bixby-enabled TVs in the US and Korea. He followed up that announcement by discussing the exciting opportunities that the TVs’ Bixby integration and seamless connectivity will create, including intuitive voice controls and multi-device viewing experiences.

Yoon C. Lee, Samsung Electronics America’s Senior Vice President and Division Head of Content and Services, discussed how adding Bixby support and SmartThings integration to Samsung’s Family Hub refrigerators marks a big step – one that will offer developers “tremendous opportunities to develop new content, applications and experiences in areas like food, health, home management, entertainment, and more.”

Eui-Suk Chung, Samsung Electronics’ Executive Vice President and Head of the Service Intelligence Team, offered attendees a peek at Bixby 2.0 – an update of the intelligent assistant that’s even more ubiquitous, open and personal.

Dag Kittlaus, CEO and Co-Founder of Viv Labs, described the exciting benefits that Bixby 2.0 presents for developers. These include the abilities to build services without being limited by domains or interfaces, and make services compatible with any and all electronic devices. Mr. Kittlaus also announced that Bixby 2.0 is currently being introduced as a private beta SDK available to select partners, and is set to roll out in 2018.

Robert Parker, Samsung Electronics’ Chief Technology Officer of SmartThings, elaborated on how the platform’s support for broad integration allows developers to create seamless experiences that utilize the full Samsung device ecosystem, and highlighted how partners like ADT and NVIDIA are harnessing SmartThings to better serve their customers.

James Stansberry, the Samsung Strategy and Innovation Center’s (SSIC) Senior Vice President and General Manager of ARTIK IoT, outlined how Samsung’s ARTIK IoT platform will merge with SmartThings to become an ideal platform for developing enterprise-grade IoT products and services, and introduced new, secure system-on-modules (SoMs) that offer important security enhancements for IoT solutions.

Pranav Mistry, Samsung Electronics’ Senior Vice President of Research, shared some of Samsung’s exciting developments in AR, and discussed how the company incorporates advanced object recognition and spatial understanding software into its smartphones’ cameras to create new ways to interact with the world.

Google’s Vice President of Virtual and Augmented Reality, Clay Bavor, joined Mr. Mistry on stage to illustrate how Samsung and Google’s partnership on ARCore, an augmented reality SDK for Android, is opening the door for incredible AR innovations that will benefit developers and users. A preview of ARCore is currently supported by Samsung’s Galaxy S8, and support for the Galaxy S8+ and Note8 is coming soon.

Attendees examine the wide range of Samsung technologies that empower developers to design connected solutions that enrich daily life.

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.

“Security in the age of IoT means new levels of complexity and risk. The next generation of IoT products and services will be more deeply integrated into our lives than ever before,” said James Stansberry, Senior Vice President and General Manager of ARTIK IoT, Samsung Electronics. “Unfortunately, most companies are not prepared to address the challenges of securing every link of the chain, from device to IoT cloud. With the ARTIK IoT Platform and our new security hardened system-on-modules, we make it easier and more affordable for companies to adopt best security practices and deliver trustworthy products that will shape the future of IoT.”

New ARTIK Secure Systems-on-Modules

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. This helps protect data and prevent devices from being taken over, disabled, or used maliciously.

“The New ARTIK secure systems-on-modules provide the performance and security features we need for our new Samsung IoT appliances,” said Youngsoo Do, Senior Vice President of Digital Control Group at Samsung Electronics. “Together, Samsung ARTIK platform and SmartThings Cloud will create opportunities to help us to get to market faster and safely deliver new services that will enrich the lives of our customers.”

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. Customers can use the new Secure Boot feature and code signing portal 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.

“Hardening the security of IoT devices once the product has been deployed is extremely difficult,” said Vikrant Gandhi, Digital Transformation Industry Director at Frost & Sullivan. “Manufacturers must use components that have built-in defenses for both device and data integrity. ARTIK IoT platform’s new security measures provide this protection from the start, and helps companies operate more safely in the Internet of Things.”

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.

Ecosystem Expansion

Samsung’s new SmartThings Cloud will unite all of the company’s existing IoT cloud services – Samsung Connect Cloud and ARTIK Cloud – into one consolidated IoT cloud platform. This seamless, open ecosystem will allow better and easier connectivity across an expanded set of devices and services from home to industrial applications.

In addition to today’s announcements, Samsung continues to expand the ARTIK IoT Platform and accelerate businesses’ path to profitability. This expansion includes the recent launch of the new ARTIK service to monetize data from interoperable devices and enable an IoT data economy, as well as the addition of Ubuntu, the industry’s most familiar Linux distribution, on ARTIK high performance system-on-modules. Earlier this month, Samsung – as a member of the Industry Council (ITI) – also announced a commitment to enable a National IoT Strategy Dialogue that is open, collaborative and secure.

For more information:

Samsung ARTIK platform, visit https://artik.io and https://artik.cloud

Samsung ARTIK marketplace, visit https://www.artik.io/iotmarketplace

The visual of IoT is a compelling one: With a simple command or touch of a button, you can control the lightbulbs in your living room, lock your back door and set the alarm for the garage door. And while developers and manufacturers all around the world are working hard to create their own smart IoT devices and solutions, few are compatible with each other. What this means for consumers who are keen to make their homes “smart” is a lot of work: how many different apps and what level of tech expertise will they need in order to have their devices work in sync? There are also concerns around privacy and security – surely all this technology means more risk of exposure. While there’s great appeal in the fantasy of the “smart” home, the barrier is all the work it will take to make this a reality.

Samsung believes in a future where our digital world is as ubiquitous and essential as electricity, with security so effective you almost won’t have to think about it. It will just work, on demand and just the way you want it; no need to interact with many different apps to achieve results. With our unified approach, we will deliver a truly integrated experience that touches every single “thing” around our customers – while ensuring privacy and security.

For over 40 years, the user experience is what has driven Samsung to develop technologies that – to put it simply – make people’s lives easier. While the features and products are important, the inspiration behind our IoT offering is the same: the tangible benefits for consumers. With Samsung Connect bringing together our appliances, TVs and other everyday items (such as lightbulbs and locks) to one touch control on your smartphone, ARTIK as our secure IoT platform, and of course, with SmartThings’ open and easy integration solution , we are closer than ever in transforming the “smart” home fantasy into a reality. What’s more, with the introduction of new cellular network infrastructure that can better support IoT, we are looking to expand the IoT experience beyond the boundaries of the smart home. Most importantly, we are removing the barriers and bringing them all together in one, integrated IoT experience.

Today at the Samsung Developer Conference (SDC 2017), we are proud to announce SmartThings Cloud, which will unite all of our IoT clouds into a single powerful platform. Through this new platform and vision for more powerful intelligence through Bixby 2.0, also announced today at SDC 2017, we are working to democratize IoT with intelligence that is easy to use and accessible for everyone.

The newly united SmartThings  will be an open ecosystem, ready to work with not only Samsung devices, but a wide range of connected devices. From early next year, consumers will have the freedom to choose from the world’s broadest range of IoT devices and control them using just a single app. Whether it’s price or design or functionality driving their purchase decision, consumers can now select devices that suit their budget and lifestyle with no constraints.  This spirit of simplicity is also relevant to developers, as they need to code for just one single API to give their products and services instant compatibility across over 1 billion devices. Additionally, it’s a cloud that is designed for intelligence not as a bolt-on. The end result is a seamless experience that will enhance the lives of our consumers in a way they’ve only dreamed of.

As part of the world’s largest open ecosystem of IoT devices, with products that ‘Works with SmartThings’ or even ‘Works as SmartThings Hub,’ our partners are integral in delivering this ultimate seamless experience to consumers. Many are already harnessing the power and simplicity of the SmartThings Cloud to bring next-generation solutions to their customers. We want to help them drive change through scale and have a unique opportunity to grow their IoT business.

With the new and – most importantly – open SmartThings Cloud, Samsung is connecting the fabric of the IoT experience and leading the democratization of the Internet of Things. Imagine turning on your favorite playlist, adding a few items to your shopping list and dimming the living room lights with simple voice commands, all in quick succession. Imagine devices from different manufacturers and service providers no longer jostling for supremacy – they all just simply work together. This is what meaningful changes in technology ultimately delivers: A better, more enhanced experience that exceeds consumers’ expectations and simply delivers more. For more information on SmartThings Cloud, please visit our SmartThings Developer Website.