Samsung Pay and Gear 360 coming in 2016

Suria KLCC was alive with the sound of roaring fans as Samsung officially launched the Galaxy S7 edge locally, though, we suspect more fans were roaring because of South Korean superstar Lee Kwang Soo, the phone got some hype too I’m sure. Besides the phone launch, Samsung also revealed that two big things would hit our shores later this year — Samsung Pay and the Gear 360.

Starting with Samsung Pay, the South Korean electronics giant revealed at their SEA Forum that the mobile payment service would be coming to Southeast Asian regions later in the year, but there was no indication of when exactly. Today, Samsung Head of Mobile and IT division Lee Jui Siang confirmed at the local launch of the Galaxy S7 edge that Samsung Pay was due to arrive in Malaysia in Q4 of 2016.

It will be interesting to see how well this gets integrated into our payment services as well as what banks will be supported, but based on their ads, the payment service should work just about anywhere you can swipe your card which should mean a relatively easy implementation process.

On to the Gear 360, Samsung has announced that the little 360-degree camera would be making its way to Malaysia later in Q2 of 2016. We got to check out the cute little golf ball camera back in MWC 2016 and were quite impressed with it.

The little device takes full 360-degree video with the help of two 195-degree lenses mounted on the front and back of the device. The fields of view overlap so that there will be fewer problems during stitching. It comes with its own tripod but can be mounted on basically any standard tripod head.

As if to tease us, Samsung also brought a Gear 360 to the launch of the event and discreetly mounted it in the middle of the venue on a tall tripod. The less keen of those might have missed it in the chaos of screaming fans.

Either way, we’re looking forward to both the Gear 360 and Samsung Pay and we’ll keep you updated on any developments that crop up in the future.