​As we expected, the ‘Metaverse’ is going to be the CE buzzword for CES 2022, which begins on Wednesday.  Samsung has announced that it will showcase a ‘multi-dimensional take on the Metaverse’ called 'My House', which allows users to directly experience a total of 18 Samsung products.  ‘My House’ uses Naver’s (035420.KS) ZEPETO Metaverse platform.  The ZEPETO platform, which is said to have over 200m users, is based on Unity (U) tools and allows PC users to create Metaverse worlds and avatars, while providing items that can be purchased to clothe or fill out those new worlds or archetypes.  The Metaverse worlds created by ZEPETO vary from game sites to ‘chat’ worlds, with the games being relatively primitive and the now 3 dimensional chat having the same issues as voice chat rooms, which is a 14 year-old could be speaking with 35 year old without knowing it, as there is no visual confirmation as to the person an avatar represents. 
That said, more to the ‘Metaverse’ point, is the application that Samsung is including on a number of its TV platforms, including its Micro-LED TVs, Mini-LED/QD TVs and ‘The Frame’, Samsung’s TV that becomes wall art when not in use.  The application allows users to search for, purchase, and trade art work using NFTs (Non-fungible tokens) rather than hard currency.  Details are still a bit thin but the idea is why not let everyone see your vast artwork collection on your TV, rather than making them squint to see it on your smartphone.  According to the promo you can see artwork from artists who ‘share their art with the world’, letting potential buyers preview their work in true fashion.  In order to do that a ‘smart’ feature on the TV will automatically adjust display settings to the artist’s preset values, so you can be comfortable that you are seeing the work the same way the artist has, and you can learn about NFTs and blockchain at the same location.  As an early supporter of NFTs, Samsung is the first TV producer to give such support to this crypto, and while it will be a few months before the new sets and options become available, we doubt other competitors will not jump on the chance to do the same.  Five years from now we will either be using NFTs to buy groceries or there will be a picture of an empty NFT ‘wallet’ in the keepsake box along with a Furby, some POGs, and a Beanie Baby. 

​Influencers are an integral part of e-commerce, whether you believe in them or not, and live streaming events by influencers can be a way for companies to sell lots of items in a very short time.  There is little that is not sold this way, from makeup to bananas, but can influencers sell financial products the same way?  They do, and because of the popularity of such events, the Chinese government has ‘proposed’ new rules regarding the sale of financial products by influencers that are not licensed or regulated.
The new rules, which are expected to go into effect after a public comment period, not only make it illegal for influencers and celebrities to aggrandize financial products but now make it illegal for them to sell banking, insurance, and securities services on-line unless they are appropriately licensed, ending a lucrative business that has flourished in China over the last few years and given celebrities a second income source.  Chinese government regulators have been watching the sale of such products online for a number of years with a 2020 notice by the Chinese Banking & Insurance Regulatory Commission highlighting fraudulent and misleading claims by unlicensed celebrities on the internet, but have left the online market untouched until now.  If this trend is picked up in the US, does it mean that Tom Selleck will not be able to hawk reverse mortgages online? 

In consumer electronics remote controls have been essential devices since the late 1930’s but wires connecting them to TVs made them a bit less attractive to TV or radio owners until 1939 when Philco came out with the “Mystery Remote Radio Control”, the first wireless device for operating CE devices without wires.  The Philco device was a wooden box with a few components (including a vacuum tube) a battery, an antenna, and a dial that could ‘dial up’ your favorite radio station without you having to get up or trip over wires.  The rather large device enabled the user to raise and lower the volume of the radio, mute the sound entirely, or choose one of a few programmed stations to listen to, along with being able to switch to the radio’s built-in phonograph if the radio stations were not playing something to the user’s liking, all through a telephone-like dialing mechanism. 
TV remotes became more popular with the “Lazy Bones” remote control developed by Zenith (066570.KS) in the early 1050’s, but was still connected to the TV with a wire, and was replaced in 1956 with the Zenith “Space Command”, a device that used ultrasonics to change channels and volume.  As when the unit’s buttons were pushed, they created a clicking sound which the TV receiver’s microphone could identify,, giving rise to the term ‘clicker’ for older remote controls.  However, with the cost of transistors decreasing in the 1960’s remote controls began operating at frequencies above the range of human hearing, although dogs could still hear them and metal banging against glass could also change the channel.
By the 1980’s companies like Jerrold Electronics (COMM) were producing more sophisticated ultrasonic remotes, but most were designed to work with a particular brand of TV or CE device, so in 1985, Steve Wozniak of Apple (AAPL) fame, started a short-lived company CL9, whose objective was to develop a universal remote control.  The CL9 product was a well-designed but expensive device that faced competition from other ‘learning’ remotes that were less sophisticated but simpler.  Unfortunately, while ‘learning’ remotes solved the problem of not having to buy an second remote for every device, they are still difficult to program and complicated to use, so we still wind up with a few remotes that are needed to tell the TV to switch to streaming services that are not included in the TV itself or similar functions. 
All of these devices require making sure the batteries in the remote are up to snuff and replacing batteries is a chore, so last year Samsung (005930.KS) came up with the idea of putting solar cells on its TV remotes, allowing them to charge when in a sunny location, in theory a good idea, but not that practical.  This year Samsung is trying something else.  While leaving the solar cells available to the remote during the day, Samsung has included circuitry that can ‘harvest’ the RF signals coming from devices that produce radio waves, such as your router.  Such micro-harvesting is an area of interest in the IoT world, as many of such devices require only small amounts of power to operate and are located in places that would make battery replacement difficult or dangerous.  By collecting the RF energy that is all around us and converting it to electrical energy, such devices are able to power themselves to a large degree.
4G and 5G spectrum have been shown to be near the efficiency of other forms of energy harvesting, such as temperature gradients or vibrations, which means that cities that are blanketed with such RF signals are a fertile ground for energy harvesting, with a study done almost 10 years ago showing that a broadcasting tower located ~4mi from a collector generated enough energy to power a standard microcontroller.  While the amounts of energy gathered are small, usually measured in micro-watts, they are available 24/7 and are free, so the development of RF energy harvesting antennae and conversion components will allow the harvesting to become more efficient and will be applied to devices that don’t require large amounts of power for operation.  Samsung seems to be trying to present itself in an ‘eco-friendly’ light with their remotes, with the idea of both solar cells and RF energy harvesting being one of the few times where in the short run being eco-friendly is also something that is both convenient and ecologically sound.

​Once again speculation runs wild over the potential purchase of OLED panels by Samsung Electronics.  While the last batch of rumors said it was just a matter of the fine details before an agreement between Samsung Electronics and LG Display (LPL) was signed and roughly 2m panels began to be shipped to Samsung as part of its 2022 premium TV line.  Since Samsung has not mentioned an OLED product in blubs before CES, rumors are now moving away from the sale over a difference in negotiated pricing.  According to local Korean trade press, it seems the two companies have been a bit further apart than previously thought, with LGD offering panels to Samsung at ~$650, while Samsung is offering to buy at ~$550. 
Samsung would certainly be a large customer if such a deal would go through, but even with LGD’s offered price, which is ~10% below the price that LGD sells to its parent LG Electronics, Samsung is looking to undercut LGE’s OLED TV pricing by enough that pure OLED TVs will become an option in their TV line, rather than a competitor to its own QD/OLED, Mini-LED/QD, and Micro-LED TV lines, which all fall into the ‘premium’ category.  With two of those three premium lines already established, Samsung seems to want to use OLED to fill out its LCD/QD line, which is situated below the Mini-LED/QD line.
As LG Display is essentially the only volume producer of large panel OLED displays, the growth is OLED TV set shipments and the increasing number of brands that offer them falls directly to them, and Samsung would be taking a sizeable chunk of their production in 2022 (~20%), which could leave some brands unable to meet their own OLED TV goals.  The question then comes down to profitability for LGD and consequently LG Electronics, who would see less profit from the Samsung order than otherwise.  If LGD is confident that they can sell ~10m OLED TV panels in 2022 without Samsung, it would make sense to hardline the price.  If they lack that confidence and are willing to accept a lower margin, they make the deal.