The Morning After: Samsung made an oven that can livestream your dinner

We’re moving on from washing machines. As part of its refreshed Bespoke smart home appliances lineup, Samsung has revealed a new high-tech oven. The new range also includes a washer and dryer, so maybe we haven’t quite moved on.

The highlight is its Bespoke AI Oven. It has a seven-inch screen and touch controls, and features air sous-vide, air frying, and steam cooking methods. The most intriguing element is the AI Camera inside. The camera can detect what you’re making and suggest optimal cooking settings if it recognizes the cuisine. You can even monitor the cooking using the screen or the SmartThings app (which you can use to control the oven remotely).

There’s also the option to take photos of your creation or even livestream the video feed. To someone. Anyone.

– Mat Smith

The Morning After isn’t just a newsletter – it’s also a daily podcast. Get our daily audio briefings, Monday through Friday, by subscribing right here.

The biggest stories you might have missed

German Bionic debuts its lightest powered exosuit to date at CES 2023

I’m more intrigued by its ergonomics-monitoring safety vest.

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German Bionic

German Bionic, the robotic exoskeleton startup behind the Cray X, will show off two new posture-protecting products at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada this week. The Apogee is the company’s latest and lightest powered exosuit built for commercial and industrial use. The company’s new SafetyVest, on the other hand, doesn’t actively help the user pick up heavy stuff but it does monitor their movements and body positioning as they work and offers “data-based, personalized ergonomic insights, as well as assessments and recommended actions.”

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LG’s 2023 OLED TVs are up to 70 percent brighter

With a revamped interface and better sound options.

LG’s new TVs should be even brighter. They will include a per-pixel Brightness Booster Max feature that, on certain G3 series TVs, promises up to a 70 percent brighter picture, meaning less time squinting during daytime viewing. The G3, C3 and 8K-capable Z3 all use a new processor that offers AI upscaling, HDR tone mapping and object-based picture sharpening. The chip also helps deliver 9.1.2-channel surround sound from the built-in speakers. As is often the case when LG reveals its latest screens, you’ll have to wait a little longer for pricing and availability.

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Tesla set a new company record for vehicle deliveries

Over 405,000 Teslas shipped in Q4 2022.

Tesla delivered 405,278 electric vehicles over the final three months of 2022. It’s a new record for the company, but it still fell short of estimates from analysts. According to Tesla, the Model 3 and Model Y made up most of the company’s deliveries in the fourth quarter of 2022, with 388,131 of those vehicles making their way to consumers before the end of the year. Tesla faced macroeconomic and logistical challenges multiple times in 2022/ COVID-19 restrictions in China forced Tesla to suspend and reduce production at its Shanghai Gigafactory. Tesla also closed the facility during the last week of December.

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Samsung’s prototype Flex Hybrid OLED mobile display can both slide and fold

Last year at CES, Samsung folded its displays nearly every way you could think of, but this year it’s combining that with another trick — sliding. The Flex Hybrid OLED mobile screen, debuting at CES 2023, can both fold from one side and slide out on th…

Samsung’s 2023 QD-OLED TVs will reach up to 2,000 nits of peak brightness

Samsung launched its QD-OLED TV lineup last year at CES promising higher brightness than other OLED TVs, particularly its arch-rival LG. However, it was only mildly brighter than LG OLEDs back then, and yesterday, LG unveiled its 2023 OLED TV lineup wi…

Samsung’s new wall oven lets you livestream a video feed of what’s cooking

Samsung is refreshing its lineup of customizable Bespoke smart appliances with a wall oven, washer and dryer. The Bespoke AI Oven has a seven-inch screen and touch controls. The cooking methods include air sous vide, air frying and steam cooking. Perha…

Samsung’s latest gaming monitors include an 8K, 57-inch ultra-wide display

Samsung is pushing further into the realm of humongous monitors with the next-gen, 57-inch Odyssey Neo G9. Some may find this model a bit more palatable than the 55-inch Odyssey Ark Samsung released last year, as it’s an ultrawide with a ratio of 32:9 …

Tech that can help you stick to your New Year’s resolutions

Regardless of how 2022 went for you, 2023 is another chance for all of us to make the new year better than the one that came before it. We set New Year’s resolutions with the best of intentions, but it’s no wonder that so many people fail after just a …

Samsung taps a former Mercedes-Benz designer to lead its mobile design team

Samsung’s mobile division has a new design chief. On Friday, the company announced the appointment of Hubert H. Lee to head up its Mobile eXperience (MX) Design Team, the unit responsible for designing some of Samsung’s most visible products, including its flagship Galaxy S series phones. Lee joins the electronics giant after a stint as the chief design officer of Mercedes-Benz China, a position that saw him lead the automaker’s design teams in China and the US. “His unique and visionary perspective will help shape the look and feel of Galaxy, building on the distinct design ethos that users know and love,” Samsung said.

It will probably be at least a year before we see Lee start to leave his mark on Samsung’s products. Prelease leaks of the company’s next Galaxy S series phones suggest they’ll look a lot like their Galaxy S22 predecessors. What’s more, with the way smartphone development timelines work, Samsung has likely already settled on a design for its 2024 flagship. Even then, don’t expect dramatic changes; from a design standpoint, phone companies have played it safe for more than a decade. Still, Lee could push for small but meaningful tweaks to Samsung’s design formula — much like Evans Hankey did at Apple after Jony Ive’s departure. 

The best Apple Watch accessories for 2023

It didn’t take long for the Apple Watch to become perhaps the most ubiquitous wearable. Even more so than the iPhone, the Apple Watch is a device you can truly make your own with the right accessories. It is, after all, a watch, and like traditional ti…

The Morning After: New York’s governor signs a weakened right-to-repair bill

New York governor Kathy Hochul has finally signed a right-to-repair bill into law, over half a year since the state legislature was passed. Representatives for Microsoft and Apple pressed Hochul’s office for changes, as well as industry association TechNet, which represents many notable tech companies, including Amazon, Google, Dell and HP. Critics say the amendments will weaken the law’s effectiveness. The bill’s revised language excludes enterprise electronics, like devices used in schools and hospitals. Home appliances, motor vehicles, medical devices and off-road equipment were also previously exempted.

Whatever aims the right-to-repair bill had when first proposed have been weakened. Public Interest Research Groups (PIRG), a collective of consumer rights organizations, said in a statement to Engadget: “Such changes could limit the benefits for school computers and most products currently in use.” It continued: “The bill now excludes certain smartphone circuit boards from parts the manufacturers are required to sell and requires repair shops to post unwieldy warranty language.”

– Mat Smith

The Morning After isn’t just a newsletter – it’s also a daily podcast. Get our daily audio briefings, Monday through Friday, by subscribing right here.

The biggest stories you might have missed

TikTok will be banned on most US federal government devices

Included in a mammoth $1.7 trillion bill that President Biden just signed.

TikTok will be outlawed on almost all devices issued by the federal government after lawmakers passed a $1.7 trillion spending bill. Officials recently added the No TikTok on Government Devices Act (what a name) to the bill, which the Senate unanimously approved last week. The mammoth 4,155-page legislation was fast-tracked to avoid a partial government shutdown. It will fund the government through September. The legislation requires the Biden administration to establish rules to remove TikTok from government devices by mid-February. The bill carved out exceptions for elected officials, congressional staff, law enforcement agents and other officials. However, the House of Representatives separately banned TikTok on devices it owns and manages.

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Samsung’s new smart fridge has a massive 32-inch display

Think of it like a smart TV with a fridge attached to it.

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Samsung

CES is nearly here, which means we’re once again writing about refrigerators. With its Family Hub Plus, Samsung has boosted the touch display size to 32 inches from 21 inches, although it’s still a vertical screen. Samsung has added support for Google Photos, along with the OneDrive integration seen on past models. There’s also a new SmartThings hub so you can control multiple smart home devices from your… kitchen, including robot vacuums, air conditioning, lighting and more. It also supports Amazon’s Your Essentials service, letting you order groceries and other products directly from the touchscreen. Those groceries go inside.

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The EV revolution became an eventuality in 2022

It’s been a busy year for the industry.

It’s been a decade since the first Tesla EV made its commercial debut and the electrification of American automotive society began in earnest. Over the past ten years as battery capacities have grown and range anxieties have shrunk, electric vehicles have become a daily sight in most parts of the country. Now, virtually every notable automaker on the planet has jumped on the electric bandwagon with sizable investments in battery and production technologies and pledges to electrify their lineups within a decade or so.

Not even recent years’ production slowdowns and supply chain disruptions brought on by the COVID pandemic managed to stall the industry’s momentum. The International Energy Agency in January reported that EVs had managed to triple their market share between 2019 and 2021 with 6.6 million units being sold globally last year. And as eventful as 2022 turned out to be, 2023 and beyond could be even bigger for the EV industry. We’re expecting EV debuts including the VW ID.3; the Lucid Gravity, Polestar 3, Jeep (one of four!) and Honda’s Prologue SUVs.

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