James Delahunty
6 Sep 2009 20:46
At IFA in Berlin, Samsung is currently showing off a 7-inch touchscreen remote control that can browse through other TV channels than the one showing on your TV screen. The concept remote needs a second tuner and WiFi link between the two devices for it to work correctly. A user can browser through TV listings on the remote control and watch alternative channels on the 7-inch screen itself.
"The advantage is that if you have a family, your wife [can be] watching one channel, and you can browse on your small device some other channel or zap there without annoying anybody else," said Michael Zöller, a marketing director at Samsung Electronics Europe.
In order to switch the channels being viewed on both, the user can hold down the channel icon on the remote control and then sweep the icon toward the top of the screen, which will send the channel showing on the 7-inch screen, to the big screen main TV set. Since it is just a concept remote control, it has no planned release at the moment.