MWC 2015: A visit to SK Telecom

I was greeted by an unusual couple. A man dressed in a special exoskeleton wirelessly controled the robot standing besides us. The exoskeleton recorded movements of the operator's body and transmitted commands to the robot instantly, almost with no delay. The robot perfectly replicated movements of the human body. It looked funny - but it could have some serious applications. This remotely-controlled robot can work where there is a threat to life or health. I bet that the presented technology came from the army?

Robot controlled by body movement at SK Telecom booth video: GSMchoice.com, via YouTube

Another interesting feature presented by SK Telecom is a phone - or rather - a smartwatch for children. This device allows the child to call to one of numbers set by parents, it allows to receive a call from the number approved by parents as well. The child can read texts, play a simple game, but most of all it has a special emergency button. Its pressing will immediately notify parents and give them the position of the child. Kids T Phone Joon is configured and operated by a special application for smartphones. Settings are stored on operator’s servers, so the access to Joon can be achieved after logging in from any phone or tablet. Besides indicating the position of the baby, the watch acts as a tracker as well, recording any activity. This allows a parent to know if his or her child is physically active. The device has a form of a watch with a small display. It is not a touch display, but the usage is so simplified that it only uses three buttons. The housing is waterproof, and the central part of the strap can be removed and worn as a pendant.

SK Telecom has a more business solution as well. The virtual store allows an easy and convenient shopping, combining their traditional form with e-commerce. How does it work? The shop looks basically like a traditional one – there are shelves with wares, but we do not need to place anything in the basket. Using a special code reader we scan products, and before leaving the store we have the opportunity to check, edit and approve our shopping list. After the payment we just have to choose the day and time of delivery, and then leave - no bags, no hassle. Everything will be brought by a courier. This is a good solution for those who prefer to see the product before they buy it...

Moments after the virtual shopping (unfortunately – they will not be delivered to my country) I saw a pico projector, which SK Telecon proposes under a contract instead of a phone. The device is in the form of a cube with a side length of 5.5 cm. This small gadget can display an image with a diagonal of up to 80 inches and in the HD resolution. Unfortunately, the brightness does not astonish – it reaches only 60 lumens, which for such a small hardware is still quite an achievement. As a consolation, we are left with a long lifespan of the laser projector lamp. The trinket with a weight of 195g has a built-in 1 watt speaker and a 4200 mAh battery that allows to watch a 2 hour movie. The image can be send to the small projector via HDMI (MHL) or Wi-Fi (DLNA, Miracast).

While I was leaving the booth I encountered a smartwatch. It is basically a typical representative of the genre: it monitors any activity, it measures the heart-rate, it shows notifications and signals when we are moving away from the phone. It can trigger the shutter of phone’s camera as well. I noticed, however, that its charger - thanks to a clever design, the clock docked in the grip changes into a table one. Ingenious - and simple.