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Samsung Sm'art gallery frames bid for your fine art affection (hands-on video)

Samsung Sm'art gallery frames bid for your fine art affection (hands-on video)

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Samsung is prototyping digital picture frames that are purpose built for fine art, and here's the first, developed by Planar.

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Samsung Smart gallery frames stock 1020
Samsung Smart gallery frames stock 1020

Sure, you can pick up a digital photo frame at your corner drugstore, but the resulting images won't look anything like this. Steve Matson's gorgeous jellyfish is swimming in an ocean of pixels so vibrant, you'd swear you were looking at a painting... and then, when it starts moving, you can practically imagine a brush swirling oil and water together. How is that possible? Samsung won't tell us the technical details, but we can tell you what it's called: this is the company's prototype Sm'art Liquid Crystal Canvas, designed for galleries and fine art collectors.

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The idea, Samsung VP Scott Birnbaum told us, is to provide stunning high-end LCD screens that can practically make you feel the texture of a painting, and can handle displaying such images continuously for long periods of time, alongside a Samsung-curated digital marketplace for art where community artists can sell their work while setting their own prices. While this Planar-built screen (21.9" by 33.9", with a 1:1.5 aspect ratio) has a hefty frame, Birnbaum imagines that the final products will look like a single sheet of glass and have touchscreen remote controls. You'll discover art on your tablet by browsing Samsung's data cloud, and then just literally sling it over to the giant screen for long-term viewing. Just a fifteen-minute peek convinced us we wouldn't personally be able to afford one anytime soon, but if you're used to dropping top dollar on physical paintings, perhaps you'll shell out. You should find Planar's first screens for sale by summer of next year.

Truth be told, the brief video we shot doesn't do the display justice (and probably, neither does your own screen), but you can still catch a brief glimpse of the beautiful LCD below.