Samsung’s Oscars 2016 commercial is packed with celebrities

Samsung is always a major sponsor at the Oscars and this year is no different. Fresh off of the Mobile World Congress 2016 stage where it unveiled the Galaxy S7 and the Galaxy S7 edge, Samsung filled the show’s first ad spot with a commercial that’s packed with celebrities. Samsung’s Oscars 2016 commercial runs for about a minute and a half and gives us a peek at celebrities like Wesley Snipes, Lil Wayne, James Harden and William H. Macy. All of them highlight salient features of the Galaxy S7 edge in their cameos.

The company has used the Oscars to push its flagship smartphones in the past as well so it’s hardly surprising that it’s doing it this year as well. Samsung got the best bang for its buck back in 2014 when it sponsored a selfie that host Ellen DeGeneres took on the Galaxy Note 3. Peppered with A-list celebrities that selfie became the most retweeted tweet ever, giving Samsung incredible exposure. The ad doesn’t come close to that but millions of people watching the Oscars certainly got a glimpse of the latest and greatest from Samsung.

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Samsung has restarted talks to acquire Jay-Z’s Tidal music streaming service

A few months ago rap mogul Jay-Z was spotted at Samsung’s headquarters in Silicon Valley. He was seen leaving the office of Samsung Research America where the Samsung MSCA unit is located, this particular unit creates content strategy for services like Milk Music, and Jay-Z was said to have met with Samsung’s SVP of content and services Daren Tsui who is said to be the driving force behind Milk Music. You can see where this is going. It didn’t take long for reports to circulate that Samsung was interested in acquiring Tidal, Jay-Z’s music streaming service.

The New York Post has heard from several sources that Samsung has restarted talks to acquire Jay-Z’s music streaming service. This doesn’t come as a surprise since Samsung has long been rumored as an interested buyer and the scribe claims that it has held on-and-off talks with Tidal. “Samsung is re-engaging; they are working on something really big, and they’re keeping it very quiet in case it leaks,” says a source close to the talks. Samsung and Tidal have not yet commented on this report.

Tidal hasn’t really been doing well in the streaming market and it’s still struggling to bring in more subscribers. With Apple Music performing well and Google rumored to be eyeing a Spotify acquisition it would make sense for Samsung to acquire a running service and use it as a stepping stone to craft it into something better. Like Apple, Samsung can push its music streaming service though its handsets, and possibly end up carving some space for itself in the competitive music streaming market.

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T-Mobile Galaxy S7 pre-orders are being shipped early

It’s hard to wait for your brand new smartphone to arrive once you’ve placed a pre-order and are just counting down the days till it ships. Pre-orders for the Galaxy S7 and the Galaxy S7 edge were opened on February 23 and the Samsung has declared March 11 as the official release date in 60 countries. However, it’s not uncommon to see carriers ship out units ahead of time, T-Mobile did it last year with the Galaxy S6 and it appears to be doing it again with the Galaxy S7.

Shipping notices have started to arrive for several T-Mobile customers who pre-ordered the flagship handsets from Magenta. Several reddit users reached out to T-Mobile through its official Twitter account and were told by representatives that devices that have already been ordered are being packed and getting ready to ship out on Monday, February 29. They may reach customers in a couple of days depending upon the shipping option they chose. If this is indeed true it would mean that customers would get their hands on the Galaxy S7 and the Galaxy S7 edge before the devices are even available in stores on March 11. Looks like several T-Mobile customers will receive the new flagships over the new couple of days, and they say Christmas only comes once a year.

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[Poll] Which feature do you miss on the new Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge?

We won’t lie to you guys: We love what Samsung has done this year with the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge. These new flagships offer all of the major features one would expect and fix every flaw in the Galaxy S6 lineup. But at the same time, we are fully aware that there are quite a few things Samsung could have done to make these handsets even better.

A USB Type-C port and a pressure-sensitive display are major features that were part of the rumors but didn’t make the cut, but a lot of minor things could have been improved as well. For example, the front camera is still a measly 5-megapixel unit, there’s no true dual SIM variant, and the IR blaster is once again not on the spec sheet. Maybe Samsung could have finally upgraded to stereo speakers, or at least put the single loudspeaker at the front of the devices (of course, this would have affected the design, most likely in a negative manner).

No device can be completely perfect, as there will always be some thing or the other that we will complain about being missing from the latest and greatest. What do you think is missing from the Galaxy S7 or Galaxy S7 edge, and what would you like to see on the sequels to these impressive smartphones? Let us know through the poll options, and through the comments!

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