Samsung patents hingeless dual-display smartphone

A patent application Samsung filed back with the US Patent & Trademark Office in 2012 showcased a dual-display smartphone with an almost negligible seam between the two displays and the latest application shows that the company has improved the initial idea. The new patent builds upon that idea. It’s not positioned as a device that has a single seamless display when opened and would be great for watching movies, TV shows, etc. It’s positioned as a professional notebook meant for students and business customers which they can use along with an S Pen to get stuff done. For this purpose, Samsung has designed it to be a very light smartphone and has thus eliminated the heavy mechanical hinge that we saw in previous dual-display designs from the company.

The latest design has two displays and the second display doubles as a functional unit. It’s the one that’s going to have the input devices, sound devices, sensors, wireless charging pads, antennas, and other components. Other features will include ultrasonic input  over and above multi-touch, a project, sensors of UV, grip, biometrics, and more. It may even have a TV module. The patent also notes that this device may also include at least one medical device which could either be a heart rate, blood pressure, body temperature or blood glucose monitor. Samsung filed this patent application back in November last year. As is the case with patents it may take a long time before the inventions we see here are turned into reality, so it’s not like you can expect this new and unique smartphone to arrive in a few months.

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Surge in second-quarter smartphones sales likely helps Samsung to best quarter in two years

There’s a consensus among market analysts that Samsung is going to have a pretty good second quarter owing to the stellar performance of its smartphone business which has primarily been aided by the Galaxy S7 and the Galaxy S7 edge. Samsung is expected to issue guidance for its best quarterly profit in over two years.

Analysts expect a 13 percent increase in operating profit over the same period last year. Samsung is likely to post an operating profit of 7.8 trillion won ($6.8 billion) which will be the highest since the 8.5 trillion won profit it posted back in the first quarter of 2014. Samsung’s mobile and memory chips business are believed to be its top earner for the second straight quarter, even though the company has not provided official figures yet some analysts believe it shipping around 16 million Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge units between April and June this year. Samsung is going to reveal its earnings estimates for the second quarter later this week.

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Samsung takes the wraps off the Galaxy Wide in South Korea

Samsung has today taken the wraps off a new smartphone that will launch exclusively on SK Telecom in South Korea later this month. The handset has been named the Galaxy Wide and carries the model number SM-G600S, which is almost identical to the identification credentials that the Galaxy On7 bears, with the only difference being the addition of the ‘S’ at the very end of the tag. This leads us to believe that the Galaxy Wide is actually a rebranded, slightly souped-up variant of the Galaxy On7 that has been optimized for the carrier bands operating in Samsung’s home country.

With regards to internals, the Galaxy Wide sports a 5.5-inch TFT display, a 1.2GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 CPU, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of expandable internal storage, a 13MP rear-facing camera, a 5MP front-facing shooter and a 3,000mAh removable Li-Ion battery. The handset will ship running the latest build of Marshmallow, skinned with Samsung’s TouchWiz user interface. However, things start to get interesting when you delve into the connectivity options the device offers as it sports a T-DMB chip, which permits users to tune into digital terrestrial broadcasting in the region.

The Galaxy Wide will carry a price tag of 319,000 Korean Won ($276) when it hits the shelves in South Korea in a couple of weeks time.

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Samsung Galaxy A8 starts getting the Android 6.0 update in India

The Galaxy A8 received Wi-Fi certification running Android 6.0.1 two months ago, but the device has just started receiving the Marshmallow update. Samsung has started rolling out Android 6.0 update to the Galaxy A8 (SM-A800F) in India.

The update has a file size of 1112.27MB that brings Android 6.0 to the Galaxy A8. Android Marshmallow comes with Google Now on Tap, granular app permission management, Nexus Imprint API for the fingerprint sensor, newer UI design, Doze mode, and some other features.

If you haven’t received the update already, head into the Settings » About device » Software update menu on your Galaxy A8 to start downloading the update. If you’ve installed the update already, let us know about the phone’s performance or any new features that you might spot.

Thanks for the tip, Sai Harish Pathuri!

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Europe’s share in Samsung’s total revenue has been on a steady decline

Samsung has revealed that the proportion of its entire revenue that’s contributed by sales in Europe has been steadily declining over the past few years. Samsung made 38.6 trillion won ($33.6 billion) in the European region in 2015 which accounts for 19 percent of last year’s total 200.7 trillion won. The 19 percent proportion of total revenue also represents sales in countries that belong to the Commonwealth of Independent States. This proportion stood at 23 percent in 2013 and at 21 percent in 2014.

The company shared this information in its 2015 sustainability report. The report also revealed that declining revenues from the region have resulted in the number of employees in the region being reduced as well. Employees in the European region have been reduced from 18,362 in 2013 to 15,487 in 2015 even though Samsung created tens of thousands of new jobs in markets like Japan, Southeast Asia, and the United States. Samsung faces a similar situation in China where it has seen a third straight year of sales decline and has also cut more than 10,000 jobs in the People’s Republic.

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Samsung cuts thousands of jobs in Europe, China, and Latin America

Samsung has been working to streamline its workforce and that’s not a small feat if you’re a multi-national conglomerate that employees hundreds of thousands of people. According to the company’s latest sustainability report, it has cut thousands of jobs in Europe, China, and Latin America. On the other hand, the number of employees in Southeast Asia and Japan increased substantially, particularly in Southeast Asia, where the company’s product plants are based.

The report reveals that 325,677 were employed by Samsung globally in 2015 which is a slight increase from the 319,208 people it employed in 2014. Employee numbers have increased over the past year in Japan and Southeast Asia with an additional 28,000 people joining the company to take the combined figure to 140,437.

Samsung made the first reduction at its HQ in Korea since the 2008 financial crisis as it let 2,500 people go. More than 3,000 jobs were cut in Latin America and Europe combined over the past year. The biggest cut was made in China where 12,000 employees were let go. Samsung had more than 60,000 employees in China alone up until 2013 when it was the dominant player in the world’s most lucrative market. The job cuts follow Samsung’s third consecutive year of sales decline in China.

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S Health integration with Fitbit, Jawbone, Strava and others goes live

The S Health app is supposed to be a central hub for all of your health and fitness tracking data so it’s capable of playing nice with other apps and services to pull in their data and provide users with a one-stop destination for all of their health and fitness metrics. S Health has lacked support for some popular fitness services like Fitbit, Runkeeper, and Strava so far which is what makes it unappealing to even those who use Samsung smartphones and have this app pre-installed on their devices because it’s not capable of pulling in data from their preferred services.

Samsung has quietly made amends. It has added support for Runkeeper, Fitbit, Strava, Misfit, Jawbone, and Microsoft Health to S Health but you will have to dig deeper in the app to find them. Instead of listing them under More > Partner apps like other compatible services, this latest crop of supported services is listed under More > Settings > Connected services. Most of these services will share both sleep and exercise data with S Health except Fitbit which only shares sleep and Strava which only shares exercise data. All you need to start pulling in data from these services in S Health is ensure that you’re running version 4.8.0 or above of this app.

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Samsung Display reportedly spins off OLED business

A report out of Korea claims that Samsung Display has spun off its OLED business as part of group-wide efforts by Samsung to restructure unprofitable businesses. An official familiar with the issue cited in the report says that the company has separated its OLED business division and more of Samsung Display’s workforce has joined the new OLED business unit.

Samsung has already been reducing its reliance on LCD, it’s gradually shutting down LCD production lines and even converting some to OLED production lines. The official says that Samsung Display’s decision to separate the OLED and LCD businesses means that the latter’s future is now further in danger. Samsung is believed to be implementing its exit strategy for LCDs as they are no longer promising and have become unprofitable. While a spokesman for Samsung Display said that the company is trying to find ways to offset weak demand for LCD displays he declined to comment on whether Samsung is going to make an official announcement about separating its OLED and LED businesses.

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Samsung’s unorthodox Serif TV goes on sale in the US

Samsung unveiled the unorthodox Serif TV in September last year. It collaborated with French designers Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec to create this TV with the idea of making it feel more like a piece of furniture instead of a large display that most of us mount to the wall and forget about.

The Samsung Serif TV is now finally available for purchase in the United States. Even though Samsung offers the Serif lineup with UHD in 40-inch, full HD in 32-inch, and with regular HD in 24-inch sizes, it’s only offering the 40-inch UHD model in the United States. This LED 4K TV has three HDMI ports, can double as Bluetooth speaker, supports Wi-Fi and is capable of running apps. It’s available exclusively at the Museum of Modern Art for $1,499 in blue or white color.

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Video compares Galaxy Note 7 ‘Grace UX’ beta with TouchWiz on the Galaxy S7

Last week, a relatively lengthy video surfaced online showcasing the long-rumored updated version of TouchWiz that’s expected to make its debut appearance on the upcoming Galaxy Note 7, and now we’re getting our second in-depth look at the interface thanks to early adopter who has pitted the beta build of Grace UX running on his Galaxy Note 5 against the current iteration of TouchWiz that shipped on board his Galaxy S7.

As can be seen in the video below, Grace UX keeps the general shape and form of previous builds of TouchWiz, but has taken a more Material Design approach to appearance of icons. Samsung also appears to have cut down on the number of default applications that it bundles onto its handsets by unifying Action Memo and S Note into one app that has been rather simply named Notes. The notification panel, together with the Settings menu, have also been overhauled.

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Trademark application confirms upcoming Samsung Pay Mini app for non-Galaxy devices

A few weeks ago, the first rumors surfaced concerning Samsung Pay Mini, an application that could make Samsung Pay available to iPhone or non-Galaxy Android users. Now, a trademark application filed in the European Union confirms that Pay Mini is indeed in the works.

Filed last week at the European Union Intellectual Property Office, the application for protection of the trademark Samsung Pay Mini lists ‘Mobile payment application (software) for smart phones’ and ‘Mobile and internet payment services‘ as its main descriptions, leaving little to the imagination.

Previously, it became clear Pay Mini is in essence an app that offers access to Samsung Pay through non-Galaxy phones that lack support for Magnetic Secure Transmission (MST) technology. This will not only include other Android OEMs, but bring iOS support as well. Still, without MST support Pay Mini lacks the distinctive advantage of using the service on a MST-compatible device like the Galaxy S6 or Galaxy S7.

MST is what makes Samsung Pay stand out from the crowd. It enables the payment service to work with existing credit card terminals so merchants don’t need to buy expensive equipment just to support Samsung Pay, and users can easily pay with their smartphone almost everywhere they can already pay by credit or debit card. No other payment service offers that flexibility yet.

No matter the pros and cons of launching what is basically just another payment app, it is not yet known when Samsung intends to launch Pay Mini. Perhaps it will be introduced on August 2, as Samsung holds its next Unpacked event in New York, where we will also get to meet the Galaxy Note 7, but that is just speculation on our side.

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Get your game on this summer, enter our free PlayStation 4 Uncharted 4 bundle giveaway!

Summer is officially here and while some us might enjoy hanging out at the beach, many of us would rather remain in the confines of our air-conditioned rooms and do something else. What better way to kill time than to indulge in some gaming, and the Sony PlayStation 4 is the best machine for that.

You may have read recently that we launched the SamMobile Shop earlier this week and we told you that the Shop is regularly going to offer you great deals and discounts. We have something more amazing this week, it’s a free giveaway of the Sony PlayStation 4 and we’ve even thrown in one of the best games available for the console – Uncharted 4 – for good measure. This is a $399 value and you have a chance to win one for free if you enter our giveaway via the SamMobile Shop. Stay tuned as there’s a lot more where this came from.

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Samsung and Nexus devices recommended by top security researcher

Google has taken various steps to make Android devices more secure. The information giant talked Android device manufacturers into providing monthly security updates, but most brands are not keeping their promises. Now, a top security researcher has recommended Android users to only buy Samsung or Nexus devices.

Duo Labs is reporting that Gal Beniamini, a respected security expert and a member of Qualcomm’s Product Security Hall of Fame, has demonstrated a serious security vulnerability that affects any Android device that didn’t receive May security patch. According to the report, 57 percent Android devices haven’t received May security patch, putting majority devices at risk.

[We] find the only Android devices that we can recommend without major reservations are Nexus and, now, Samsung devices, provided they keep releasing those security updates quickly.

Of all the devices tested, only recently released Samsung and Nexus devices showcased improved security measures. Based on the results, security researchers are recommending only Nexus and Samsung smartphones and tablets for better security. Samsung recently started providing regular monthly security updates to its Galaxy devices.

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Samsung sees third straight year of sales decline in China

Things aren’t looking so good for Samsung in China even though it has made efforts to improve its fortunes in one of the most lucrative markets on the planet. Samsung has been seeing a decline in sales for three years straight in the People’s Republic, the annual revenue it generates from the country has significantly been reduced during this time period.

Samsung’s annual revenue from China has declined from 40.1 trillion won ($34.9 billion) in 2013 to 33 trillion won in 2014 and 31 trillion won in 2015. The proportion of sales in China has subsequently dropped in Samsung’s entire revenue, it was at 18 percent in 2013 and now stood at 15 percent in 2015. Samsung made these revelations in its sustainability report 2016, this is an annual report that the company releases to provide information on its environmental, social, and economic performance. The company has been taking steps to improve its position in China. The People’s Republic showed overwhelming support for the Galaxy S7 and the Galaxy S7 while Samsung is also catering to the customers there with exclusive handsets like the new Galaxy C series. Even if things slightly improve by the end of this year it will take some time for Samsung to regain the footing it has lost to rivals in China.

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Samsung closing in on Apple in enterprise security

Samsung is striving hard to become a bigger player in the enterprise market. The company’s Knox security solution for mobile devices has been very well-received, and it recently partnered with IBM and BlackBerry to improve security on its smartphones and tablets. Now, a new report claims that Samsung is closing in on Apple regarding BYOD and enterprise security.

According to a report by Tech Pro Research, Samsung devices are approaching Apple levels in the enterprise market. However, vendors seem to think that Apple devices are much more secure than Samsung devices. The report shows Apple clearly winning the enterprise market right now, but Samsung has been able to project its devices as enterprise-friendly, thanks to its Knox and other security solutions.

The report states that Samsung is the best shot at the adoption of Android in the enterprise market. Moreover, BlackBerry could also help Android in the enterprise market with the help of its security intellectual property and legacy inside enterprises. Look at the charts below that rate vendors’ perception of brands in device security.

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Samsung SDI losing ground in the battery market for US electric cars

Recent industry data shows that Samsung SDI – the conglomerate’s battery-making arm – is losing ground in the electric car market of the United States. It accounted for 23 percent of this market combined with LG Chem in May this year, that’s a 12 percent decline from 35 percent in April. During this time, Japanese battery makers saw their market share rise from 65 percent to 87 percent. No wonder Samsung SDI is projected to post another loss this quarter.

The top-selling electric cars of the month all had batteries supplied by Japanese companies with the exception of the BMW i3 which uses batteries from Samsung SDI. Panasonic remains a dominant player in the US electric car battery market as it supplies batteries for Tesla Model S, Model X, the Nissan Leaf, and the Ford Fusion Energi plug-in hybrid. Samsung SDI stock surged recently on rumors that it was closing a deal with Tesla to provide the company with battery cells for its electric cars only to have nearly $600 million wiped from its market cap when Tesla CEO Elon Musk refuted the reports and reiterated that Tesla will continue to work exclusively with Panasonic.

Industry watchers expect things to get better for Korean battery makers in the second half of this year as more cars with batteries from Korean companies are going to hit the roads, this includes new cars from the likes of General Motors, BMW, and Hyundai.

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New Samsung patent details both foldable smartphones and tablets

We have seen countless patents from Samsung that illustrate foldable smartphones and now the United States Patent and Trademark Office has published another such patent, but this one details both foldable Galaxy smartphones and tablets. We exclusively told you that Samsung’s Project Valley is all about a foldable smartphone, many expect that Samsung will come out with its first foldable device in 2017.

The patent details the execution of different modes via a touch gesture when a foldable tablet is unfolded. For example, a user might touch an icon displayed on the edge display area when they are about to unfold the tablet and the corresponding app will already be launched as they unfold the device. It also shows multiple user profiles might be displayed on the first edge display area enabling a plurality of users to punch in their password using the edge display before unlocking the foldable tablet.

Samsung’s new patent illustrates an example of touch recognition in an edge display area, allowing users to control and edge display based on the direction of the foldable device. It even covers a method for controlling a floating display area which is based on the direction in which the foldable device is viewed. Samsung filed this patent application back in November 2015 and has so far not come up with any products that bring these inventions to life, it may be a while before some of what we see here ends up seeing the light of day.

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