Inside Secretive Samsung Lab to Emulate Silicon Valley Unicorns
- Creative Lab developing employee ideas for possible spinoff
- Samsung program is part of $13 billion research budget
Choi Hyun Chul, chief executive officer of Innomdle Lab, poses for a photograph while wearing the prototype of the TipTalk device with his finger to his ear in Seoul, South Korea, on Oct. 23. Choi, a Samsung Electronics Co. engineer, developed a wristband that keeps eavesdroppers from listening to smartphone conversations.
Photographer: SeongJoon Cho/BloombergSamsung Electronics Co. employees who came up with creative products outside core businesses in the past would often see their ideas buried in bureaucracy and inertia. The response this year when an engineer developed a wristband to avoid eavesdropping was very different: Samsung helped him start his own company.
The move gave Choi Hyun Chul space and resources to develop TipTalk, which transmits conversations through a fingertip pressed against your ear. The gadget may only create a ripple in the wearables industry, yet its development signals a seismic shift in Samsung’s notoriously one-dimensional culture.