LG has
revealed a consumer version of its roll-up TV set at the CES trade show in Las
Vegas.
The
Signature OLED TV R is built on a concept unveiled last year, in which the
screen retracts into a base when not in use so it is less obtrusive.
LG plans to
sell the device in the US before the end of 2019, but has yet to reveal the
month or price.
Experts say
the technology is unlikely to become a mass-market proposition for many years
to come.
"It's a
4K set rather than 8K, so you could argue there's a compromise there - but
otherwise this is a very high-end design that is going to be very costly,"
commented Jack Wetherill from the consultancy Futuresource.
The South
Korean firm also showed off another TV that will compete with the fold-out
model for flagship status: a 88in (224cm) model that was described as being the
biggest OLED set to date.
Much of the
presentation about it centred on its use of machine learning to finesse its
picture quality.
That
represented a tacit acknowledgement that there is little native 8K content
available as yet, so users will be reliant on upgraded 4K and high definition
imagery.
In addition,
the firm said that its wider range of new smart TVs would include access to
Amazon Alexa as well as Google's Assistant, which was added last year.
Relatively
few devices have worked with both the two rival virtual assistants to date.
Speaker-maker
Sonos has notably taken longer than expected to deliver on its promise of
combining the two into a single device.
In LG's
case, the two platforms will be accessed via its own ThinQ software rather than
directly.
Its press
conference showed a user commanding them via a TV remote control, suggesting
that a different button press determined which of the two assistants was
invoked.
Samsung's
new TVs will also offer access to both Amazon and Google's platforms too,
although it will prioritise its own smart assistant Bixby.
"I see
it as an acceptance that there's a very large group of users already using
Google and Amazon's AIs," remarked Paul Gagnon from the consultancy IHS
Markit.
"It
would be pretty hard for a company to stand in the way of that progress and not
cut out potential buyers."
LG also said
its TVs would be among the first to natively support Apple's AirPlay technology,
allowing them to stream footage and audio from iPhones and iPads as well as be
controlled by Siri.
LG dedicated
much of the rest of its press conference to explaining how its household
appliances could be made to anticipate their owners' wishes by allowing the
company to monitor people's wider behaviour.
One example
involved its ThinQ software offering to deploy a robot vacuum because it had
detected its owner picking up another cleaning device.
Another
involved the dishwasher ordering itself new detergent because it had run out.
In general,
things ran much more smoothly than last year when the firm's US marketing chief
David VanderWaal tried to demo a robot called Cloi, which repeatedly ignored
his commands.
However,
right at the end of the latest event the firm failed to mute his microphone, so
that the last words heard were Mr VanderWaal saying: "That's a wrap - one
glitch on the video."
One of the
firm's displays failed to work as intended during the TV section of the press
conference.
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