Business
Samsung wants to put NFTs in your living room with its 2022 TV lineup
No one asked for this.
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Samsung is hoping you know what an NFT is, or at least, know someone who can explain it to you while hoping you know what a blockchain is.
While most of us are still wondering if NFTs are some big scam, Samsung is embracing the technology by integrating an NFT platform into its 2022 television lineup.
The platform will allow creators to share their art and give buyers the opportunity to preview NFTs as well as learn about pertinent blockchain metadata and history. The televisions will also feature a shift in display settings that will optimize based on the specs of NFT being viewed.
Announced in a press release, Samsung notes:
“With demand for NFTs on the rise, the need for a solution to today’s fragmented viewing and purchasing landscape has never been greater. In 2022, Samsung is introducing the world’s first TV screen-based NFT explorer and marketplace aggregator, a groundbreaking platform that lets you browse, purchase, and display your favourite art — all in one place.”
Considering that NFTs are a plaything of the rich and money launderers, this appears to be little more than Samsung latching on to a current technology term in order to sell televisions to people who will never purchase or create an NFT in their lives.
As many on Twitter are already pointing out, it’s a niche technology that hasn’t reached a point of mainstream adaptation.
Adding NFT services to its TVs will do little for Samsung besides making it harder for Best Buy employees to explain the differences between things that are all basically the same.
It’s a gamble that likely costs little to produce and regardless of its success, is low risk.
Knowing this, Samsung also announced that a few of its 2022 lineup of televisions will support apps for Google Stadia and Nvidia GeForce Now through its upcoming Samsung Gaming Hub application.
At least the gaming bit is something more relevant to the general television buying populace. Even though that will be limited to select televisions.
Slipping into the world of NFTs through a consumer product can either be great for the emerging popularity of this technology, or extremely destructive as it’s much easier to scam people who don’t know better than it is those immersed in the technology as it stands right now.
It’s not hard to imagine a world in which your grandparents are calling to ask what an NFT is after they just got scammed out of their life savings by purchasing one.
That might be a generalization as it takes more than just a simple credit card transaction to purchase an NFT and Samsung will likely only display/partner with reliable NFT sources, but that’s just a detail.
Regardless, NFTs are about to make their consumer technology debut, so if you struggle to explain them to your extended family now, it’s about time to brush up on the subject.
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