Ever been watching TV on your Samsung Galaxy S II and wish you could record it? TV Tuners inside Android smartphones are nothing new for the folks in Japan and some European countries, but is a new idea for us here in the States. A new patent has revealed that not only is Samsung looking to provide gestures and recording features for Android, but maybe even bring live TV to their US smartphones.
We’ve briefly checked out these phones in the past. For a better look at Samsung’s Galaxy S II with a built-in TV tuner antenna (DMB Tuner) check our our DoCoMo SC-02C hands-on here. What we have today is a discovery from the fine folk at PatentBolt showing multiple new patents from team Samsung regarding TV for Android devices.
The patents filed to the USPTO covers multiple aspects of TV Tuners in Android smartphones and tablets, and then today they even go into gestures. The details outline touch gestures to perform a series of actions by touching your smartphone screen. Using actions like writing the letter “R” to start recording, or simply drawing the channel number to change channels.
Many of these patents reveal DMB Tuners for their devices, which is nothing new. Most Samsung devices in South Korea and Japan already have these, but to possible have this in the US would be amazing. Most European Counties use the DMB standard, but not here. The US uses a different digital TV standard known as ATSCH-M/H, so we can’t really see this coming to the US quite yet. Samsung filed for these patents in early 2012 here in the US, not Japan or South Korea, and now they’ve been granted. Hopefully Samsung has some exciting devices planned for the US, so stay tuned.
[via Android Authority]
