Samsung’s chip foundry business generated $613 million in sales during Q1 2016

According to market research firm IHS, Samsung outran other global integrated device manufacturers operating in the semiconductor foundry sector in the first quarter of this year in terms of sales. The South Korean company is reported to have earned an eye-watering $613 million in sales alone from its foundry business during the three-month period. This figure is three times more than that of runner-up Micron, which pulled in $198 million.

For those who are a little lost and are unaware of the foundry model, please allow me to explain. As it stands, there are currently three main types of microchip producers — an integrated device manufacturer, which designs, produces and sells circuits; a fabless chip company, which designs the chips without manufacturing them; and a foundry business that operates manufacturing facilities for aforementioned design houses.

Samsung operates the latter, turning designs from a fabless chip company into a tangible product that are often included in its smartphones, tablets, computers and televisions. It also ships these chips to other manufacturers all around the world who are working on their own products that required the technology to function, which is likely where the majority of its astonishing $613 million in sales came from during Q1.

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Samsung invests in Darktrace and Blocko to make its IoT systems more secure

Samsung appears to be taking its venture into the Internet of Things (IoT) market very seriously as it has decided to invest in UK-based security solutions developer Darktrace and Korean blockchain venture Blocko. It’s believed that the manufacturer will use its new-found ties with these companies to create a more secure IoT system that’s capable of detecting abnormal behavior and threats, making it significantly harder for hackers to force their way into home networks.

I have to say; I think this is a very smart move on Samsung’s part. At the rate IoT is developing, it won’t be too much longer until everyone has a Wi-Fi-enabled lock on their front door, and while unlocking your door from your smartphone is fantastic and eliminates the need to lug around a set of keys, it’s still pretty dangerous as without the right security precautions in place anyone with hacking experience can trick the system into thinking it’s you.

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Here’s the first look at Samsung Galaxy Note 7′s iris scanning technology

Samsung is yet to unveil the Galaxy Note 7, but various features have been leaked already. One of its most interesting features is an iris scanner that is said to authenticate a user faster than the fingerprint sensor found on Samsung smartphones. Now, images have been leaked that showcase how this iris recognition system works on the Galaxy Note 7.

As you can see in the pictures below, a Galaxy Note 7 user has to place the device at an arm’s length (25-35 cm away) from their face with the screen facing towards them. Also, the user needs to position their eyes in such a way that they are pointing directly towards two circles shown on the display while iris recognition process is underway.

We currently have no information on whether Samsung’s iris recognition will work as widely as Google’s Nexus Imprint system with third-party apps and for Google Play Store purchase authentication. Do you think it’s an intuitive way to authenticate a user?

Samsung will unveil the Galaxy Note 7 on August 2. The device is expected to feature a 5.7-inch QHD curved Super AMOLED display, a 12-megapixel primary camera, a 5-megapixel secondary camera, the latest Exynos or Snapdragon processor, 4GB RAM, 64GB internal storage, a microSD + UFS hybrid memory card slot, IP68 certification, and a 3600mAh battery

 

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Samsung’s appeal against Apple will be heard by US Supreme Court on October 11

The Supreme Court of the United States decided four months ago that it’s going to hear Samsung’s appeal against damages awarded to Apple in a patent infringement case due to which the Apple v. Samsung damages retrial that was due to begin in March this year was postponed indefinitely. The highest court in the land had only said that it’s going to provide an opinion on the matter and didn’t confirm a hearing date immediately. It has now blocked an official hearing date and will hear Samsung’s appeal against Apple on October 11.

The apex court will provide its opinion on whether or not the penalties awarded to Apple in a California federal court case in which Samsung was found guilty of infringing on iPhone design patents were excessive. Samsung paid Apple $548 million in damages last December while reserving all rights to reclaim or obtain reimbursement of any amounts if the partial judgement was reversed, modified or set aside on appeal. Samsung’s petition to the Supreme Court argues that damages in patent cases concerning complex devices like smartphones should only be based on patented components and not total profits from sales of the infringing devices. Apple is of the view that since its case against Samsung is “legally unexceptional” there’s no need for the Supreme Court to review the matter. The US Supreme Court has released a scheduled of its October term sessions and has confirmed that Samsung’s appeal against Apple will be heard on October 11.

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Samsung leads in fitness bands, trails Apple in smartwatch satisfaction rankings

The latest research conducted by J.D. Power and Associates reveals that Samsung ranks the highest among manufacturers of fitness band devices while it trails Apple in second place among manufacturers of smartwatches. It found that reliability and durability are the main drivers for consumer satisfaction with fitness bands while ease of use and comfort make customers satisfied with their smartwatches. The research reports measure overall consumer satisfaction among those who purchased a smartwatch or a fitness tracker over the past 12 months. Satisfaction is examined across 11 different factors and graded on a 1000-point scale.

Samsung scored 859 points and ranked the highest in consumer satisfaction with fitness bands and was found to perform particularly well in reliability, comfort and ease of use. It’s followed in second place by Garmin. Apple took the top spot in consumer satisfaction with smartwatches as it scored 852 points, it did particularly well in comfort, styling and ease of use. Samsung ranks second in smartwatch consumer satisfaction with 842 points and was found to perform well in display size, features and customer service. These figures are based on the responses of 2,949 respondents who purchased a fitness band and 2,696 respondents who purchased a smartwatch within the past 12 months. Samsung recently overhauled its fitness tracking products, the Gear Fit 2 builds upon its predecessor very nicely while the Gear IconX happens to be the first wireless earbuds with activity tracking features from the company.

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Samsung releases the Gear IconX activity tracking earbuds in South Korea this week

Samsung unveiled its first wireless earphones with built-in activity tracking features called the Gear IconX along with the Gear Fit 2 just last month. At that time the company said that they will be available for purchase in the third quarter of this year for $199. It’s kicking off the release from its home base of South Korea. The Gear IconX will be released nationwide in South Korea for 220,000 won ($192) on July 16th.

The Gear IconX has an accelerometer and a heart-rate monitor for activity tracking and it syncs the data with Samsung’s S Health platform. It’s capable of tracking duration, speed, heart rate, distance, and calories burned. The Gear IconX can also function as a standalone music player as it has 4GB of internal storage, and it allows you to take calls as well as it’s paired with a smartphone using Bluetooth 4.1. Customers can purchase the Gear IconX in South Korea from samsungWA.com starting tomorrow while the earbuds will be available from Samsung Digital Plazas across the country starting July 16th. Initially, only the black and white colors will be available as Samsung has said that the Gear IconX in blue will be available next month. Samsung has also said that the Gear IconX will go on sale in the United States in August but hasn’t confirmed the pricing yet.

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Galaxy Note 7 release date also said to be August 2

Samsung has already confirmed that it’s going to conduct an event in New York City on August 2 to officially unveil the Galaxy Note 7. It’s calling the next flagship phablet the Galaxy Note 7 to unify its premium product offering with the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge. A new report out of Korea claims that the Galaxy Note 7 release date is the same as its launch date, that it’s going to be released the very same day it’s announced. A telecom industry representative is quoted in the report as saying that Samsung has secured supplies of the Galaxy Note 7 for an August 2 release.

The company is reportedly going to do this in order to take advantage of the stellar performance of its Galaxy S7 series, and to market its latest flagship at the 2016 Rio Olympics where Samsung is going to have a major presence as it’s a big sponsor. There has traditionally been a gap between the day Samsung announces a flagship and the day it actually releases it. The Galaxy Note 5 was announced on August 13 last year but it didn’t start shipping until August 21. The report says that Samsung wants to give the Galaxy Note 7 the best possible chance to establish its dominance like the Galaxy S7 did ahead of the new iPhone’s arrival in September. Given that none of this has been officially confirmed as yet, take it with the proverbial grain of salt.

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Verizon and T-Mobile release July security patch for the Galaxy Note 5 and the Galaxy S6 edge+

It has been over a week since Samsung detailed the July security patch. It bundles Google’s monthly security fixes for Android devices with handset-specific fixes by Samsung, and it goes without saying that users should move up to the latest firmware as soon as the update is available to ensure that their Android device is properly protected. The latest update with the July security patch is gradually being rolled out by Samsung and its carrier partners, it has now been released by Verizon and T-Mobile for the Galaxy Note 5 and the Galaxy S6 edge+.

Verizon is now rolling out software version MMB29K.N920VVRS2BPF4 for the Galaxy Note 5 and software version MMB29K.G928VVRS2BPF4 for the Galaxy S6 edge+, while T-Mobile is releasing software version N920TUVU3DPG1 and G928TUVU3DPG1 for both devices respectively. Since these are not major updates don’t expect any new features but they do bring the all important security patches and fixes so be sure to update as soon as they go live in your region. We’ve already seen T-Mobile release the patch for the Galaxy S7 and the Galaxy S7 edge.

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The Galaxy S7 is outselling the iPhone 6S in the United States

Now this is something that Samsung fans will love to hear about. Latest data about the US mobile market from Kantar Worldpanel shows that the Galaxy S7 series has been outselling the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus in Apple’s own backyard. This follows the first ever sales decline for the iPhone that Apple posted earlier this year.

The report mentions that 16 percent of customers in the country purchased a Galaxy S7 or Galaxy S7 edge while 14.6 percent opted for an iPhone 6S or iPhone 6S Plus instead. It merits mentioning here that the Galaxy S7 came out around six months after the iPhone 6S but the difference between their release dates has never stopped the iPhone from outselling Galaxy S handsets in the past so this is certainly a break from tradition. Samsung captured the biggest share of the US mobile market in the three months ending May 2016, it now stands at 37 percent against Apple’s 29 percent even though Apple commands 88 percent customer loyalty. These numbers show just how big of a hit the Galaxy S7 has turned out to be for Samsung and that’s immediately reflected on the company’s balance sheets. It will now be hoping that the Galaxy Note 7 goes down the same road and becomes just as successful as the Galaxy S7.

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Wallpaper Wednesday: Food

Welcome to the latest edition of Wallpaper Wednesday. This week we’re focusing our attention on six great food-themed backgrounds. All images are available in a FHD resolution, which is a perfect fit for the Galaxy S7, Galaxy S7 edge, Galaxy Note 5 and other flagships, but they can, of course, be used on different smartphones, too.

If any of the following images float your boat and you want to download and set one as your wallpaper, simply tap on a photo to maximise it, then click and hold to save it. Once the picture is stored locally, open up Settings, locate and select Wallpaper, then just tap the newly-saved image to set it as your background.

Alternatively, you can download a ZIP file containing all of this week’s backdrops by hitting the Download button at the very bottom of this post.

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Cherries

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Chili Pepper

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Coffee Cup

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Ice Cream Cone

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Smarties

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Strawberries

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Download

Note: We’ve tried our best to identify the creators of all of the wallpapers featured in this week’s column. However, the images appear to lack copyright information, artist signatures or any real trace of origin. If you created a wallpaper we’ve posted and would like credit, or would rather we remove the image, kindly contact us.

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[Poll] Would you want the Smart Glow notification ring on your Samsung smartphone?

Samsung’s new budget phone, the Galaxy J2 (2016), is pretty run of the mill when it comes to hardware specifications. But the phone also comes with a unique new feature – the Smart Glow notification ring at the back, which is a much bigger and brighter alternative to a notification LED that is missing on all but Samsung’s flagships smartphones. This ring is a bit too big and its placement on the back limits its usefulness for many, but we have been wondering if there are users out there that would prefer their phone to have Smart Glow instead of a regular notification LED.

With the right design, Smart Glow can look great, and it does make notifications more, well, noticeable than a small LED. It’s way more customizable, with Samsung letting users choose different colors through an RGB scale. It is also set to get new features down the line from what we have heard, such as the ability to notify users of weather conditions and help in some way with heart rate monitoring through the S Health app.

Smart Glow is certainly interesting; would you want to see it on other Samsung smartphones, either as a notification LED alternative or as one used in conjunction with a regular notification light? Let us know through the poll below, and leave a comment to let us know your thoughts on Samsung’s most innovative feature on a budget phone yet.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

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Exclusive: Samsung Gear S2 upcoming update preview

We exclusively reported last week that Samsung is preparing a major update, one that adds new features and makes various user experience improvements, for the Gear S2. We managed to get a few images of this new update in action on the watch, and as you will see below there are quite a few new things on offer.

On the convenience front, Samsung has made a huge change – you no longer need to pick up your paired smartphone to install recommended apps on the watch, as you can see in the images below. The same extends to a few watch faces as well.

Over in the world clock app for the Gear S2, Samsung has switched to a flatter design. The clock face now turns white during the day and goes dark at nighttime. Clicking on one of the displayed times will get you sunrise and sunset information as well.

In the weather app (powered by Accuweather), Samsung has added UV index information. It doesn’t give you tips on what you should do based on the UX levels, but at least you can know if you need to put on some sunscreen before going out.

Now, for the biggest user-facing feature: You can set your own photos as a watchface. You can add up to 10 images, which the watch will cycle through every time you wake up the display.

As we mentioned in our previous exclusive, there are a few other changes as well. S Voice will gain a couple of new functions (like being able to fire up a timer with a voice command), there is a separate contacts app now in addition to phone and messages, and the watch will allow the user to manage notifications when there are no unread notifications. Look forward to this update rolling out in the coming weeks; we will be sure to let you know once it becomes available.

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Black Onyx Galaxy Note 7 leaks in all its glory

We have already seen quite a few leaked pictures of the Galaxy Note 7 but we haven’t seen them all yet. A new batch of photos has been leaked from China and it shows us the Galaxy Note 7 in Black Onyx. It’s interesting to note that the handset is completely black, even the metal frame is black, thus giving a very appealing look to the handset.

This color has previously been seen in renders of the Galaxy Note 7 that were leaked two weeks ago. The handset is also said to come in Silver Titanium and Blue Coral colors. Given that so many pictures have been leaked online now we more or less know what the upcoming flagship from Samsung looks like. Samsung confirmed earlier today that it’s going to formally announce the Galaxy Note 7 at an event in New York City on August 2nd, pricing and availability information will be confirmed after the event.

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Samsung and Nokia announce patent cross-licensing deal expansion

Samsung and Nokia settled their patent dispute earlier this year. The companies have now announced that they have decided to expand their patent cross-licensing agreement by adding certain additional patents (from both companies) to the mix.

This patent cross-licensing expansion will allow Samsung and Nokia to develop, launch, and support more advanced technologies. Details regarding specific patents that are included in this expansion are thin, but Nokia expects revenue of somewhere around €950 million (around $1 billion) with this patent deal.

“With intellectual property portfolios from Nokia Technologies, Nokia Networks and Alcatel-Lucent, Nokia has a wealth of technologies relevant to mobile devices and beyond. We welcome this expanded agreement with Samsung which recognizes the strength of our assets, and we continue to pursue new licensing opportunities across a number of diverse industries.”

- Ramzi Haidamus, president of Nokia Technologies.

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Samsung and IBM partner to develop NAND flash, DRAM alternative

Samsung has seen a decline in DRAM sales and profit, though that could change later this year, but the company has committed itself to consuming more time with NAND flash that has proven it is the better option of the two with faster read/write speeds. Now, though, the company that is bringing UFS-based microSD cards to the industry has partnered with IBM to break another inevitable trend: that of NAND flash dependence.

Samsung and IBM have published a paper detailing their advancements in  Spin-Transfer Torque Magnetoresistive RAM (or STT MRAM) that has resulted in smaller-sized chips to be used in wearables and IoT devices. STT MRAM is small and can fit inside wearables (which are relatively small when compared with most high-end electronics), uses zero power when idle due to its resistance, and can likely outlast current memory chips. STT MRAM also boasts faster read/write speeds, with NAND flash requiring 1 microsecond to write data as opposed to STT MRAM’s 10 nanoseconds. This new MRAM development could result in the eventual replacement of DRAM, despite the fact that upcoming devices such as Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 will still pay homage to the old guard. While DRAM replacement may take a while, embedded flash could be substituted in a much quicker fashion.

You can find out more about STT MRAM and its potential at the link below.

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Samsung reportedly meeting with Xiaomi executives for a components deal

A report out of Korea claims that Samsung Electronics executives are going to meet with their Xiaomi counterparts to discuss a potential deal for components. Xiaomi founder and chief executive Lei Jun is expected to head over to Seoul this week to meet with the president of Samsung’s memory chip business division Jeon Young-hyun. Xiaomi is said to be interested in sourcing memory chips, Samsung certainly knows a thing or two about them.

Lei Jun is also reportedly going to meet with Samsung Display executives as well to talk about sourcing OLED displays which might make their way into future flagship handsets from Xiaomi. It was rumored about two months ago that Chinese OEMs Huawei and Xiaomi were both looking to source curved displays, and recently it was also reported that Samsung is soon going to start supplying Xiaomi with dual-camera modules. If that is indeed the case then perhaps this trip by the Xiaomi chief is going to mark the beginning of a long relationship between Samsung and Xiaomi.

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