Renault Samsung is making the world’s first electric light commercial vehicle

It was only a few months ago that the Samsung Group announced its intention to pursue other avenues for growth, the company also announced that it was setting up a new team for the advancement of its automotive business. While that part of the company continues to forge partnerships to create the car of the future, a lesser known Samsung business concern has announced that it’s going to build the world’s first electric light commercial vehicle.

Renault Samsung Motors has announced that it’s going to work with mid-size and small local companies to develop a 1-ton electric light commercial vehicle which will have a range of 250 kilometers on a single charge. An official from the company pointed out that much of the development is limited to electric passenger cars these days and that electric commercial vehicles happen to be the next-generation EV market as they are a potential alternative to solve air pollution problems caused by older commercial vehicles. Renault Samsung says that the development is going to take up to four years.

Renault Samsung Motors was first established back in 1994 as Samsung Motors with technical assistance from Nissan and it started selling cars in 1998. The company became a subsidiary of Renault in 2000 but Samsung does maintain a minority ownership stake.

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Samsung announces the first commercial installation of its mirror OLED display

We’ve known for a while now that Samsung has been working tirelessly to kickstart production of its much-anticipated mirror OLED displays, and today marks the day that the panels have been installed in their very first retail environment. The lucky store to receive the 55-inch screens is the LEEKAJA HAIRBIS hair salon located in Seoul, Korea.

It has been revealed that the staff working in the establishment will use the mirror displays to provide a customized hairdressing experience unique to each of their clients. Customers will have the facility to browse through different hairstyles and colors, in addition to viewing information on the latest trends, directly from the display.

Samsung expects its mirror displays to be introduced in a handful of different markets, including fashion, furniture, interior design and retail, over the course of the next new years, with worldwide independent retailers having the facility to purchase the panels starting in Q3 of 2016.

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Samsung uploads its S Note application to the Play Store for easy updating

In an effort to make updating the platform easier than ever, Samsung has today uploaded its S Note application to the Play Store. Unfortunately, the note-taking app remains exclusive to the most recent Galaxy Note-branded devices, but this move means that the South Korean company can now push out timely standalone upgrades for the program without having to bundle the changes into a new firmware build, which has to be distributed as a maintenance update for the entire operating system.

If you happen to be running an older build of S Note on your smartphone and would like to grab the latest version without heading into the Play Store, you’re in luck as we’ve managed to obtain a copy of the APK for you to download and manually install on your handset. All you have to do is click here to download the file. Once the package is saved on your smartphone, open up Downloads, click on the entry entitled “com.samsung.android.snote”, hit Install, then tap the Done button.

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AT&T Galaxy S6 gets Marshmallow at last

AT&T was the only major carrier left in the United States that didn’t release Marshmallow for the Galaxy S6. The carrier updated the support page for this device two weeks ago to show that the update will soon be rolling out. One would have expected that it wouldn’t take more than a couple of days but it has actually taken a couple of weeks, nevertheless, AT&T Galaxy S6 has received the Marshmallow update at last.

Since it’s a major update it weighs in at around 1.5GB. It brings all of the bells and whistles that are included in Marshmallow, this means new features and user interface tweaks. AT&T has started rolling out the update over-the-air. Those who still don’t see the update notification on their handsets can go to Settings » About device » Software update to manually get the update.

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The Galaxy S7 edge and Game of Thrones: can you watch an entire season on a single charge?

These devices are incredibly powerful, but they also require a lot of power. We know battery life is a big deal; that’s why we say our phone is ‘about to die.’ I mean, that’s how grim it feels. With these devices, we’ve broken new ground: we engineered batteries that were incredibly large in terms of amps (mAh), but incredibly small in terms of size…so they fit perfectly into your slimmed-down phones while giving you the power to go the distance. In fact, with the strides we’ve made, you can now comfortably binge-watch a whole season of Game of Thrones on one charge. – Justin Denison, Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge announcement at Mobile World Congress 2016, Samsung Mobile Live Stream

These words from Justin Denison gave hope to Samsung faithful who witnessed the company’s announcement at Mobile World Congress on Sunday, February 21st. After a number of Galaxy devices released have held 2,000mAh batteries (the Galaxy S6 and S6 edge had 2,550mAh and 2,600mAh batteries), Samsung finally decided to bring a 3,000mAh battery to the Galaxy S7 and a 3,600mAh battery to the Galaxy S7 edge – firsts for the Galaxy S lineup. The Galaxy S6 Active houses a 3,500mAh battery, and the Galaxy S7 edge has surpassed that now by just a slight 100mAh.

When I heard this claim about battery life and the entire TV season on a single charge, I immediately jotted it down and made a mental note to test this out at a later date. Well, it’s taken some time, but I’ve finally been able to test Samsung’s claim.

Is it true? Can you binge-watch an entire season of Game of Thrones with just one full charge (from 0 to 100%)? I decided to put Samsung’s claim to the test with the beast of the Galaxy S line, the Galaxy S7 edge. I won’t spoil the results for you: you’ll have to keep reading to find out.

The Results

The results report three different sets of circumstances for the Galaxy S7 edge and Game of Thrones. I watched season 1 of the TV show first with WiFi and airplane mode enabled. As you know, airplane mode conserves battery life for only the few activities you want to do on your battery charge. Since none was used initially, battery drain was apparent in the course of watching all 10 episodes of season 1.

I then decided to test the Galaxy S7 edge and Game of Thrones offline without airplane mode, meaning that, while going offline would conserve battery, the absence of airplane mode would drain battery life to some extent.

Lastly, I placed the Galaxy S7 edge offline and implemented airplane mode in the third and final scenario. In this circumstance, the presence of airplane mode and the lack of internet data would ensure that the Galaxy S7 edge would perform under what I’d deem optimal conditions. The tech enthusiast in me expected this condition to handle the entire first season of Game of Thrones better than the others.

The WiFi tests were done by internet streaming the Game of Thrones season with Amazon’s Video on Demand app. The offline tests were conducted after having downloaded all 10 episodes of Game of Thrones season 1 to the app itself (not to my 128GB microSD card).

With WiFi, airplane mode 

If a Galaxy S7 edge user has WiFi but wants to “eke” out as much battery as possible, one way to do that would involve the use of airplane mode. Airplane mode turns off all the other processes running in the background that drain your battery. With this mode, as many of you know, it automatically turns off WiFi – but you can re-enable it by tapping on the WiFi quick toggle once again after your WiFi is disabled. In the results below, the SOT times are similar with only a 3-minute difference between them. I conducted the test a third time, with 10% brightness, and got as close as 5 minutes, 29 seconds before the Galaxy S7 edge died. To get this close, though, I had to watch the season in a well-lit room, preferably during the daytime so as to ensure optimal lighting conditions.

In the very first battery test, the Galaxy s7 edge died at about the 39:15 mark in episode 10 of GoT season 1. This fared slightly better than the same test conducted on the Galaxy S6 Active, which died at around 38:05 into the final episode. If you choose to employ this scenario when binge-watching, you may want to slightly charge your device before diving into episode 10.

Offline, no airplane mode

Going offline is a popular thing to do for consumers who don’t have sufficient or unlimited data plans, so I decided to test this mode for users who find themselves watching Game of Thrones in the car or automobile, on a long trip, at least a day or two.

To give you an idea of what to expect, under these conditions, I started episode 5 of GoT season 1 with 65% battery remaining; at the mid point of episode 6, the Galaxy S7 edge had 54% battery remaining. Episode 6 ended with 50% battery remaining, and episode 10 ended with 5% battery remaining.

Offline, airplane mode enabled 

This mode should produce the best results you can expect with the Galaxy S7 edge’s 3,600mAh battery. And I found that it didn’t disappoint. The Galaxy S7 edge had 43% battery life at the end of episode 7 and 31% battery life in the middle of episode 9.

Episode 10 played without any concern of the phone dying, and, after it ended, I had 18% battery remaining — enough for 3 hours, if the battery stats are indicative of any true result. Some may not think this is the best way to watch any TV episode, but if you’re on a trip, 18% extra battery is better than none at all.

Conclusion 

As you can see from the results above, it really does depend on what circumstances you use that will determine how comfortably you can binge-watch any 10-episode season of Game of Thrones. I did not test the device with WiFi and cellular data on (no airplane mode), because testing the Galaxy S7 edge with WiFi and airplane mode enabled made it difficult for the device to get through Game of Thrones. At best, the Galaxy S7 edge made it to within 5 minutes of finishing episode 10 before it died – and that was with 10% brightness (at most). If it’s difficult to survive 10 TV episodes with WiFi and airplane mode, how much more impossible would it be with WiFi and cellular data/network enabled?

My recommendation for anyone who wants to binge-watch Game of Thrones (pick your season) should do so, to no one’s surprise, by 1) going offline and 2) enabling airplane mode. Then, whether or not your brightness level is 20%, 50%, or higher, you’ll have more than enough juice to get through the entire 10 episodes comfortably. Battery life on the Galaxy S7 edge will improve with time, so your results may prove to be even better than mine if you attempt to replicate this Galaxy S7 edge survivor edition test we’ve provided here.

Samsung never specified under what conditions you can watch an entire Game of Thrones season, but what’s most impressive is that the Galaxy S7 edge’s 3,600mAh battery has the juice to survive. As for whether or not you’ll survive ten episodes of the show, well, we’ll leave that up to you.

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EyeSight brings gesture control to Gear VR

Virtual reality technology is gradually getting better with time but more work still needs to be done to improve on aspects like gesture control. Currently gesture control in virtual reality requires specialized sensors or powerful PCs so there aren’t a lot of solutions for phone-based VR solutions made possible with devices like the Gear VR. EyeSight Technologies has come up with a solution for that, it uses the phone’s rear camera to enable gesture controls in virtual reality, regardless of whether you’re using Google’s Cardboard VR viewer or the Samsung Gear VR.

The idea is simple enough. Use the phone’s rear camera to enable gesture control in virtual reality. It works best with VR headsets that have head straps otherwise it will be quite a chore for users to hold the VR viewer with one hand and try to use gestures with the other. It will work nicely with the Gear VR though. It remains to be seen though how soon app developers integrate this solution in their VR apps to enable users to control them in virtual reality using gestures.

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Galaxy S7 Active leaks in ‘desert camo,’ launch likely on June 10

We have known for a while now that Samsung has the Galaxy S7 Active in the pipeline and as with previous Active handsets, it’s likely going to be exclusive to AT&T in the United States. The Galaxy S7 Active has leaked again today in a rather interesting gold hue that’s apparently called “desert camo,” and it appears that this handset will be announced on June 10.

Previous leaks show that the Galaxy S7 Active will come with a 5.5-inch Quad HD display, a quad-core Snapdragon 820 processor with 4GB RAM, 32GB internal storage, Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow, a 12-megapixel rear and a 5-megapixel front shooter. Since this is the “Active” variant of Samsung’s existing flagship the handset will have enhanced protection against water and dust so expect a plastic/polycarbonate body with rubberized buttons. The lock screen on this photo suggests that the Galaxy S7 Active will be launched on June 10 and that it’s going to arrive on AT&T first if history is any indication, it’s likely going to be exclusive to the second largest carrier in the US.

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Galaxy Note 4 gets another huge software update in India following Marshmallow

The Galaxy Note 4 was surprisingly the first Samsung device to get the security patches for the month of April, even before the month had come to an end. The security fixes came in a rather large update following Android 6.0 Marshmallow, and Samsung India is now pushing out an even bigger update to the Note 4. It is sized at 523.36 MB and features build number N910GDTU1DPE1, but the changelog is generic with no concrete details on what is new or what has changed.

It’s not often we see such major OTA updates hit devices after they get upgraded to a newer version of Android, especially not in such quick succession, and it’s possible Samsung is fixing and/or improving Marshmallow on its last Note smartphone with a microSD slot and removable battery. In any case, we shouldn’t really be complaining given how Samsung can often go the opposite route and not bring any updates to many of its smartphones and tablets.

You should be seeing the new update on your Galaxy Note 4′s status bar at some point this week; alternatively, you can try to update right away by heading into the Settings » About device menu. Do leave a comment below if you notice anything new or different after installing the update!

Thanks, Jan Mohammad!

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Samsung might supply 60 percent of AMOLED panels for the upcoming iPhone

Newer OLED panels are more color accurate and power-efficient than ever, and they are expected to reach the power efficiency levels of LCD panels by next year even while displaying whites. So, Apple has finally seen the sense in opting for OLED displays for its upcoming iPhones.

We’ve already heard rumors about Apple ordering 100 million OLED panels from Samsung. According to Lee Choong-hoon, president and chief analyst of UBI Research, Samsung will supply 60 percent of OLED panels for the iPhone that is expected to be unveiled in 2018. The company’s Korean rival LG will be handling around 20 to 30 percent of the demand while the remaining panels are expected to come from Japan Display and Foxconn.

Similar to Galaxy S7 edge, Apple might also release an iPhone with a curved OLED display. According to Lee, 30 percent of iPhones built in 2018 will have curved displays, and that number is expected to reach to 80 percent by the year 2020.

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