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Samsung Snags Wozniak, Others for First "Free the TV" Developer Day
Samsung is putting some celebrity technology muscle behind its recently announced $500,000 "Free the TV Challenge," snagging Apple co-founder
Steve Wozniak to participate in a fireside chat at its first developer day in San Jose next Tues, Aug. 31st. Joining Woz at the event will be Pandora founder Tim Westergren, Geek Squad founder Robert Stephens, ESPN CTO Chuck Pagano, CNET editor at large Brian Cooley and high-level Samsung executives. Attendees will see demos and gain training on Samsung's SDK.
Samsung is making an aggressive play for new apps suited specifically for connected devices and TVs. Two weeks ago, Samsung director of content Olivier Manuel told me in an interview that Samsung believes it already has a 60% share of connected TVs which it sees having huge growth ahead. Samsung also recently began a high-profile ad campaign with the slogan, "Now there's an app for that."
The battle for TV apps is just getting underway and this fall we'll see more announcements, from Apple, with its rumored "iTV" device, Google, with its Google TV device and plenty of others. As a dominant CE provider, Samsung will be in the middle of the action.
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Categories: Devices
Topics: Free the TV, Samsung
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Interview With Samsung Director of Content Olivier Manuel
Samsung continued its Samsung Apps branding campaign with the launch of its $500,000 "Free the TV Challenge" contest this week. The contest is aimed at incenting developers to create killer apps available on connected Samsung Blu-ray players and TVs. As I wrote recently, Samsung has begun promoting its apps with the tagline "Now there's a TV for that," a spin on Apple's, "There's an app for that." To learn more about the contest and Samsung's larger goals, I interviewed Samsung's director of content, Olivier Manuel on Wednesday. An edited transcript follows.
VideoNuze: Why create this contest, and why now?
Olivier Manuel: The reason we're running the contest now is to celebrate the fact that we're opening up our SDK, which means for the first time developers across the U.S. can download it and develop an app for Samsung connected devices. We're excited to see what kinds of new creative ideas we're going to receive from developers.
Categories: Devices
Topics: Free the TV, Samsung
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