Samsung wows at CES keynote with flexible phone and Clinton (pictures)

Samsung's keynote address gets widespread attention at CES with the company's new Youm flexible display and a talk by former President Bill Clinton.

CNET News staff

Jan. 9, 2013 12:37 p.m. PT

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Wooing the crowd

Samsung President Stephen Woo on stage at the annual Consumer Electronics Show. Woo tells the audience the talk will focus on three areas: advances in processing, how new memory solutions are speeding up response times, and display technology with new form factors. Also: "new ideas and new focus on mobilizing possibility for all the world's people."

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Ease of use

Woo tells the audience at CES that there are more than 6 billion mobile devices in use and more than half a billion smartphones sold -- and as people become more attached to these devices, they want more things. Today's devices are all about ease of use and experience, he says.

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Gadget dance

In the midst of Woo's talk, dancers appeared on stage to perform a dance that apparently had to do with components. Woo follows the performance by exclaiming that "components are building blocks."

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Doc Octa

Woo debuts Samsung's Exynos5 Octa, a new processor that has two sets of four-core processors each. It's made to run intense apps while also conserving energy when handling basic tasks, Woo tells the audience.

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A lot of chips

The new Exynos5 Octa is the next product in a line of processors using the Exynos name. Woo says the company already has these processors in 53 million devices.

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Eight cores, three dimensions

Electronic Arts VP Glen Roland shows off what the new 8-core processor from Samsung can do for 3D games.

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Data cat

A cat video promoting image processor technology and data use elicits several chuckles from the crowd. "Data isn't getting any wider, and cats are only getting cuter," the announcer says.

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Berkeley on a bender

Youm, Samsung's new flexible OLED display technology, was one of the highlights of the presentation. Here Samsung's Brian Berkeley, SVP of Samsung's display lab, holds up a Youm display and bends it on stage. "Imagine the products you could design with this," he says.

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Windows Phone gets flexi

Microsoft shows off a prototype of how a Windows Phone would look on one of the new Youm displays.

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Rudder references Jobs

"Some companies talk about a reality distortion field. We actually built one," quips Microsoft's chief technical strategy officer, Eric Rudder, as he shows off the prototype of a Windows Phone with the Youm display.

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On the bill: Bill

Former President Bill Clinton appeared on stage as a guest near the end of the keynote to talk about mobile technology in the developing world. He also talked about the need for gun control.

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Looking out for the developing world

"This electronics show shows how much technology has changed, and what we have to look forward to," Clinton told the audience. But let's not forget about the poor countries that can benefit from technology, he added.