LG poised to flex AI muscle on the V30 smartphone at MWC

Barely a month after whetting the appetites of tech enthusiasts at CES 2018 with its ThinQ AI hub, LG Electronics (LG) is already flexing its AI muscle, and this time in the smartphone category. 

The South-Korean tech giant just revealed a suit of a suite of AI technologies for its V30 smartphones to be featured at this year’s Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, Spain.

The LG V30 is LG’s most advanced flagship smartphone to date.

LG spent more than a year researching how AI should be implemented in smartphones, long before announcing LG ThinQ at CES 2018. 

This research focused primarily on making AI-based solutions that will deliver a unique and more intuitive user experience, focusing on the camera and voice recognition. The result is a suite of AI technologies that is aligned closely with the needs and usage behaviour of today’s users. Here's a taste:

Vision AI: Next Generation Image Recognition 

On top of an already impressive list of camera features that include dual lenses, wide-angle low-distortion lenses, and the all-glass Crystal Clear Lens, Vision AI makes the camera of the LG V30 even smarter and easier to use. 

Check this out. Vision AI automatically analyses the object you are about to capture and recommends the best shooting mode from among eight modes: portrait, food, pet, landscape, city, flower, sunrise, and sunset. 

The angle of view, color, reflections, backlighting, and saturation levels are all taken into consideration as the phone analyzes images in its database to determine what the camera is focusing on in order to recommend the best setting. For example, pointing the camera at a plate of pasta will result in food mode being invoked, resulting in warmer colors and heightened sharpening for the most appetizing shot possible.

LG collaborated with a partner in image recognition to analyze over a 100 million images in order to develop the phone’s image recognition algorithms. Over one thousand unique image categories were created for more accurate image analysis, resulting in better shooting mode recommendations.  

Voice AI: LG-Exclusive Voice Commands 

Another new feature is Voice AI that allows users to run apps and change settings through voice commands alone. Working alongside Google Assistant, the 32 LG-exclusive Voice AI commands – up from 23 commands in 2017 – Voice AI eliminates the need to search through menu options and allows for direct selection of specific functions.

Upgrading and Expanding Smartphone AI 

LG’s strategy for smartphones is to continue expanding its AI capabilities while also refining existing features to make them more convenient to use. Certain AI features will not be limited to new LG models only, but also to existing LG smartphones via over-the-air updates, taking into consideration various hardware specifications and stability of LG smartphone models for maximum user experience.

“As we communicated last month at CES, the future for LG lies in AI, not just hardware specs and processing speeds,” said Ha Jeung-uk, senior vice president and business unit leader for LG Electronics Mobile Communications Company. 

“Creating smarter smartphones will be our focus going forward and we are confident that consumers will appreciate the advanced user experience with the enhanced V30 that many have been asking and waiting for.”