Samsung annual reshuffle postponed due to corruption investigation

Samsung finds itself ensnared in a corruption scandal that may very well end up bringing down the presidency of Park Guen-hye in South Korea. The headquarters of Samsung Electronics have already been raided during the course of the investigation and the conglomerate’s heir apparent Lee Jae-yong has been questioned by prosecutors over Samsung’s alleged involvement. The conglomerate has now decided to postpone its annual December reshuffle of top executives to 2017 as it has its hands full with the scandal right now.

Samsung normally reshuffles its top executives in December every year and this is going to be the first time since 2008 that it’s postponing the exercise. The reshuffle was postponed in 2008 as Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Kun-hee was investigated for creating slush funds. A report out of South Korea says that Samsung’s Future Strategy Office has informed affiliates that the annual reshuffle has been postponed until further notice.

The company hasn’t confirmed a new schedule for the reshuffle which is closely watched as new appointments to top positions often signals the direction Samsung is going to take in the future. The scribe’s sources suggest that this exercise may now be conducted in February next year.

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Leap Motion will soon make its way to mobile VR headsets

Leap Motion gives more life to virtual reality by allowing users to include their hands within the VR experience. However, this was only limited to PCs and consoles. But that changes now, to some extent anyway. Leap Motion has just shown off a reference design built on top of a Gear VR, which comes with adjusted sensors to fit mobile VR headsets.

In order to adjust to the smaller screens, the mobile compatible Leap Motion sensors will have a field-of-view of 180 x 180 degrees as compared to 140 x 120 on PC or console variants. The sensor has also been designed to consume less power which is imperative since mobile VR headsets don’t have a readily available power source.

For now, the mobile VR compatible Leap Motion sensor is just a concept and is being sent out to manufacturers. This basically means that it might take a few months for this to become commercially available. But it is no doubt a step in the right direction, as Leap Motion users will have you know.

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November security patch now arriving on the Galaxy S5 in Europe

Samsung is distributing last month’s security patch for the factory unlocked model of the Galaxy S5 in Europe. The upgrade has already started making the rounds in Germany, the Netherlands and Poland, but is expected to make its way to other countries in the continent later this week.

For those in need of a refresher, the November security release bundles dozens of patches for Vulnerabilities and Exposures (SVE) in the Android Operating System (OS), as well as fixes for a total of 14 specific bugs present in the firm’s budget-friendly, flagship and former-flagship mobile devices.

Thanks, Jai. 

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Daily Deal: Bag yourself a brand new ArtPC Pulse for $1,099

If you’re in the market for a new desktop computer, you may want to listen up as we have a fantastic deal for you. While stock lasts, you can pick up the Intel i5 variant of Samsung’s brand new ArtPC Pulse for $1,099.99 and the Intel i7 model for $1,499.99. That’s a total saving of $100 off each device.

Both units pack a full metal body design with circular ambient lighting, a Harman Kardon 360-degree speaker unit, a 256GB NVMe SSD and an AMD Radeon RX 460 GPU with 2GB of dedicated memory. The i7 version also sports a 1TB HDD with 16GB of RAM, while the i5-powered machine has 8GB.

If you like the sound of the ArtPC Pulse desktop computer and want to take advantage of this promotion, hit the Buy Now button below. We strongly advise you to hurry, though, as Amazon only has a limited amount of inventory available for this specific deal, and once it’s gone, it’s gone.

Buy Now – Intel i5 Buy Now – Intel i7

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Samsung ruled the NAND flash market in Q3 2016

The Galaxy Note 7 may have been a catastrophe for Samsung’s mobile division in the previous quarter but the company’s other divisions saw tremendous growth during the same period. A new report from market research firm DRAMeXchange shows that Samsung Electronics ruled the NAND flash market in the third quarter of this year.

Samsung has been investing heavily in this space to maintain dominance. Earlier this year the company expanded 3D NAND flash memory manufacturing facilities in Xi’an, China and Hwaseong, South Korea. Samsung is also setting up a new facility in Pyeongtaek, South Korea to further increase production. The company started manufacturing 64-layer NAND flash memory chips this month and given the rapid rise in demand for solid state drives that use these chips, increasing production rapidly works in Samsung’s favor.

Samsung Electronics brought in $3.744 billion in 3D NAND flash memory sales in Q3 2016, it has a market share of 36.6 percent. Toshiba comes in second place with a 19.8 percent market share while Western Digital and SK Hynix follow in third and fourth place with 17.1 percent and 10.4 percent market share respectively.

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Samsung-made circuit board might power the iPhone 8′s OLED display

It has been rumored time and again that Apple is going to shift to OLED displays for the iPhone and given that Samsung has a strong position in the mobile OLED market it’s going to be the one supplying its rival with the display panels. A new report out of South Korea claims that Korea-based suppliers BH and Interflex have ramped up production of flexible printed circuit boards that Apple is going to use for the iPhone 8. Samsung Electro-Mechanics is believed to be in talks with Apple regarding this as well.

All three of these companies are suppliers of Samsung Display – the conglomerate’s display affiliate – and it’s widely believed that Samsung Display will provide the bulk of OLED panels for the iPhone 8. According to the report, up to 70 million units of the flexible circuit board that’s going to power the display are going to be shipped next year. Parts and components from all three of these companies will reportedly be assembled at Samsung Display’s OLED module plant in Vietnam before they’re shipped to Apple.

Since Apple and Samsung don’t comment on supply chain matters it goes without saying that this report won’t see an official denial or confirmation so you shouldn’t keep your fingers crossed. The next iPhone isn’t due until the fall next year.

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Report: Samsung Galaxy Note 7′s aggressive internal design led to explosions

Samsung promised that it would announce the results of its investigation regarding battery problems in the Galaxy Note 7 later this month. However, Instrumental, a company that makes engineering tools, took upon itself to find the cause of fire and explosions in the Galaxy Note 7. According to the Instrumental’s examination of the Galaxy Note 7, the primary cause of the problem wasn’t with the battery itself, but the aggressive internal design of the Galaxy Note 7. The firm found out that the phablet’s design could compress the battery even during normal operation.

The Note 7′s battery is a flattened “jelly-roll” that consists of a positive layer made of lithium cobalt oxide, a negative layer made of graphite, and two electrolyte-soaked separator layers made of polymer. If the positive and negative layers come in contact with each other, it typically results in an explosion (or fire). Samsung said that these layers could have been too thin due to aggressive manufacturing parameters. It looks like Samsung was trying to fit in a large capacity battery into a thin design, leaving tiny room inside the battery casing, which led to explosions.

This could be due to Samsung’s effort to make sure that the Galaxy Note 7′s battery life was longer than that of the Galaxy Note 5 without making it physically larger. With this intent in the mind, Samsung could’ve pushed the boundaries too much for it to be safe for consumer in the end. The company had to run full-page ads to apologize the consumers for the Galaxy Note 7.

While we were doing the teardown, Sam wondered, “Samsung engineers are smart.  Why would they design it like this?”  The answer isn’t a mystery: innovation means pushing the boundaries. - Instrumental

 

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Gear S2 gets loads of features from the Gear S3 in latest update

Samsung today confirmed that it’s releasing the second Gear S2 Value Pack update which brings over loads of features from the Gear S3 to the Gear S2. This update brings additional customization options for the Gear S2 as users will now be able to download and use the Gear S3′s preloaded watch faces via the Galaxy Apps store.

The Gear S2 also gets support for the new Reminders app and the Alti-Barometer app introduced with the Gear S3. The update also enhances the rotating bezel’s functionality by enabling users to accept or reject calls, dismiss alarms, timers and alerts with just a twist of the bezel. A clockwise turn answers or acknowledges a call or alert while a counterclockwise turn rejects it.

Gear S2 gets the new Handwriting Mode with this update which has support for superimposed writing. Users will now be able to scrawl messages on the smartwatch itself in English, Korean or Chinese without having to wait for each letter to be converted into text. Users can also sketch, send emoji and even dictate texts of the go.

S Health has been updated as well to automatically recognize more activities such as walking, running, cycling, elliptical, and more. High-intensity activities will now be logged as “Other Workouts.” The Gear S2 can automatically count reps for gym-standard exercises like star jumps, lunges, squats and more now. The new Auto Pause feature will automatically suspend tracking if a user needs to stop mid-exercise. The tracking functionality resumes automatically when the user gets going again.

Support for third-party widgets from the likes of USA Today, Uber and Yelp is included in this update as well. There are new and improved widgets for contacts, weather, S Health and more. The new Gear S2 update improves safety and security as well by providing support for location tracking. Users can initiate an SOS alert by pressing the Gear S2′s home button three times, their designated contacts will then automatically receive their location via Glympse.

Last but not the least, the update also provides Gear S2 users access to smartwatch games on the Galaxy Apps store, including titles like Monster Vampire and Stack, currently there are more than 100 titles available for the smartwatch on the Galaxy Apps store.

This update bearing Tizen version number 2.3.2.1 and weighing at just over 133MB has been launched in major markets today and Samsung says that it’s going to be available worldwide in the coming weeks.

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