Harman shareholders file lawsuit to oppose Samsung deal

Samsung Electronics confirmed about a month ago that it’s going to acquire Harman International for around $8 billion. Samsung will bring in Harman’s automotive business as well as its premium audio brands through this acquisition but the company’s shareholders don’t appear to be in a mood to allow the deal to pass through easily. There were concerns that they might get in the way of things. Harman shareholders have now filed a class action lawsuit against the company’s CEO and board as they oppose the $8 billion deal with Samsung Electronics.

Latest media reports reveal that Harman shareholders have filed a lawsuit against CEO Dinesh Paliwal and the board in a Delaware court. The lawsuit alleges that the CEO and the board did not act in good faith when making the deal with Samsung. The shareholders believe that the company was sold for too low a value and thus causes financial damage to the shareholders. They’re also opposing Harman’s agreement not to look for a competing bidder.

The acquisition is only going to pass if more than 50 percent of Harman’s shareholders agree in a shareholders meeting that’s due in the first quarter of this year. US hedge fund Atlantic Investment Management owns a 2.3 percent stake in Harman and it has already said that it will vote against the deal as the price is too low. Many minor shareholders are expected to follow in the same direction which might make things hard for Samsung as it looks to close this deal soon.

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Galaxy A (2017) series has already gone on sale in Russia

Samsung officially announced the Galaxy A (2017) series a couple of weeks back. It confirmed that the handsets would go on sale in Europe by early February and that several Asian markets would get them by late January. According to a new report out of Russia, the Galaxy A3 (2017), Galaxy A5 (2017) and Galaxy A7 (2017) have already gone on sale in the country. Multiple online retailers have started selling the device.

The Galaxy A3 (2017), Galaxy A5 (2017) and Galaxy A7 (2017) carry price tags of 22,990 rubles ($387), 27,990 rubles ($471) and 32990 ($555) rubles respectively. The fact that they’re already out in Russia makes it the first country where Samsung has released its latest mid-range handsets. It has only opened pre-orders for the new series in the United Kingdom so far.

The Galaxy A (2017) series brings some great new features to the lineup, including but not limited to IP68 water and dust resistance, 16-megapixel front cameras, USB Type-C and more. Don’t forget to check out our detailed post on some of the best features of this new series.

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Themes Thursday: Here are four themes that you should check out

Welcome back to Themes Thursday! We’re back after a gap of two weeks since we couldn’t find any well-designed theme last week. This week seems better, though, in this regard. Samsung has released a total of 112 themes in the Theme Store this week, and we found four paid theme packs that you can check out.

The [HIO] Arctic Fishing: Live theme goes well with the current winter season. The second theme listed below shows a casual and comfortable lifestyle, and some people might just like it. The Benzhi theme has a clean look with a blurred wallpaper and well-designed iconography. If you’re feeling some 8-bit love, check out the Pixel theme.

[HIO] Arctic Fishing : Live | Paid

A Better Day_Yoonsung – THENEW | Paid

Benzhi | Paid

Pixel | Paid

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Daily Deal: Bag yourself a POWERbot Essential Robotic Vacuum for 27% off

If you’re tired of vacuuming your house, you’ll be pleased to hear that you can now pick up Samsung’s POWERbot Essential Robotic Vacuum for $509.76, which is a total saving of $190.23. However, due to federal and international regulations, the product can only be shipped within the United States — so if you’re in another country, you’re out of luck.

Without a doubt, the best thing about the POWERbot is that it’s completely automated. Using a flurry of different sensors, the device navigates around obstacles, cleaning your house in the process. An integrated scheduling feature also means you can determine different times during the day for the unit to power on.

If you like the sound of the POWERBot Essential Robotic Vacuum and want to take advantage of this promotion, simply hit the big 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

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[Poll] Do you think Samsung released Nougat for the Galaxy S7 quickly enough?

In a surprise move, Samsung released the final version of Nougat for the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge today. Folks part of the beta test are getting the update first, but Samsung will be making it available for everyone shortly. As we noted in our earlier post, this is one of the shortest times that we have had to wait to see Samsung roll out a new version of Android to its devices. But do you think the company has moved fast enough?

One can always make the argument that Samsung, with all the resources at its disposal, could release software updates faster than it does today. The counter argument to that is the fact that the company sells millions of units of each of its flagship devices, and that necessitates a longer bout of testing than manufacturers with substantially smaller sales figures can get away with. Samsung’s software is also more feature-packed and, dare I say, heavy, which means everything new must be thoroughly tested before it can be rolled out to the public.

But Samsung is slowly and surely making improvements to its update game, and we here at SamMobile think the Nougat update came out very quickly. What do you think? Do you agree with us, or do you think Samsung could have made us wait even less for the seventh iteration of Android? Let us know through the poll below, and also leave your thoughts in the comment section!

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

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Samsung invests in Israeli dual-camera manufacturing company

Samsung takes camera tech very seriously. As per a new Korean report, Samsung has invested in a firm called Core Photonics. Based in Israel, this company is known for its dual-camera modules. This, however, does not indicate that the company is going to launch a new dual-camera smartphone anytime soon, especially since it’s common knowledge that the Galaxy S8 will use a single lens camera.

However, with the rest of the 2017 still pretty wide open for the company, we could see multiple devices equipped with this particular camera module. Samsung makes several investments in key sectors that could prove to be beneficial in the future.

So this particular investment doesn’t necessarily indicate that the results will be visible right away. Perhaps we could see a dual camera module on the Galaxy Note 8, or the fold-out display handset that is expected to launch by Q3 2017. It is said that the likes of Apple, Foxconn, MediaTek and Samsung have collectively invested a total of $15 million in Core Photonics recently.

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Samsung launches its first gaming laptop in South Korea

Following its unveiling at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week, Samsung has today launched its first gaming laptop, the Odyssey, in South Korea. The device, which sports a 15.6-inch display, a GeForce GTX 1050 graphic card, a 256GB SSD and 8GB of DDR4 memory, carries a price tag of 1.8 million won for the Core i5 model and 2 million won for the Core i7 variant.

It’s believed that once the Odyssey makes its way to more regions, Samsung will open up customization; enabling customers to increase the amount of storage and RAM the unit ships with. This will, of course, bump up the price quite considerably. Unfortunately, the whereabouts of the 17.3-inch version that was on display at CES remains unknown, but we’re hoping it’ll launch in the not-too-distant future.

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Here’s a complete list of features that are missing from the Gear S3 on iOS

If you’ve been following SamMobile closely, you’re probably aware that Samsung finally launched its Gear S application for iOS on Sunday, January 8, bringing Gear Fit 2, Gear S2 and Gear S3 owners the facility to connect their device to an iPhone.

We’ve already shown you the easiest way to pair your iPhone with the firm’s latest smarwatches, but after playing around with the newly-introduced compatibility for a while, we started to notice that a few core features are missing.

For starters, due to Apple’s restrictions, users are unable to respond to notifications on their wrist. They can only view short summaries of alerts and mark them as read, which makes the Gear S3 more of a notifier than a smartwatch when paired with an iPhone. That’s not all, though. Many other pieces of functionality that make the Gear S3 such an attractive offering for Android owners are missing on iOS, including Samsung Pay, functional watch faces that integrate calendar events and Find my Device.

Samsung’s also been forced to limit the capabilities of some of the basic features baked into its Tizen operating system in order to make them compatible with iOS, such as preventing call logs from syncing between the handset and the wearable.

Due to the sheer amount of differences between the way the Gear Fit 2, Gear S2 and Gear S3 work with Android and iOS, we’ve decided to create a post highlighting all of their features, and how they function with different operating systems.

Gear Fit 2

App	Feature	Samsung & Non-Samsung Android	iOS	Additional Details
Notification	Receiving	O	O	-
	Reply	O	X	Due to iPhone’s limitation
Watch Face	Functional Watch Face	O	O (Doesn’t support Calendar Complication)	-
	Watch Face Store	O	O	-
Music Player	Music Player	O	X	You cannot transfer music files directly from iOS. You need to use the Gear Music Manager PC/Web client.
	Media Controller	O	O	-
Find My	Find my Gear	O	O	-
	Find my Device	O	X	-
Stop Watch		O	O	-
Timer		O	O	-
Alarm		O	O	-
S Health	Monthly, Weekly Report	O	X	-
	Dash Board Edit	O	O	-
	View by Device	O	X	-
	Chart View	O	O	-
	Sync with Partners Co.	O	X	-
	Pedometer	O	O	-
	Floors	O	O	-
	Heart Rate	O	O	-
	Auto Sleep Tracking	O	O	-
	Together Social Challenge	O	X	-
Health Tracking	Walking Running Cycling Hiking Elliptical Exercise Bike Step Machine Tradmill Pilates Rowing Machine Yoga Lunge Crunch Squat Others	O	O	No GPS on iOS.

Gear S2/S3

App	Feature	Samsung Android	Non-Samsung Android	iOS
				Gear S2	Gear S2 (3G)	Gear S3	Gear S3 (LTE)
Messages	Notification	O	O	O (Does not support reply)
	Sync	O	X	X	O (Only through Gear number)	X	O (Only through Gear number)
Call	Notification	O	O	O	O	O	O
	Accept/Reject	O	O (Not available on S2 BT)	O (HFP setting required)
	Outgoing	O	O	X	O (HFP setting required)
	Auto Forwarding (3G)	O	X	X	X	X	X
	Manual Forwarding (3G)	O	O	X	X	X	X
	Log Sync	O	O	X	X	X	X
	Log List	O	O	O (Call Logs through HFP remain)
	Log Details	O	O	O (Call Logs through HFP remain)
	Dialer	O	O	X	O	O	O
Contacts	Sync	O	O	X	O	O	O
	List	O	O	X	O	O	O
	Details	O	O	X	O	O	O
S Health	24H Log	O	O	O	O	O	O
	Activity Tracker	O	O	O	O	O	O
	Exercise	O	O	O	O	O	O
	Heart Rate	O	O	O	O	O	O
Weather	Current Weather	O	O	O (Current location only)
	More Information	O	O	O	O	O	O
Music Player	Music Player	O	O	X (You cannot transfer music files directly from iOS. You need to use the Gear Music Manager PC/Web client)
	Media Controller	O	O	O (No Album Art)
S Voice	Voice Action	O	O	O	O	O	O
	Voice Search	O	O	O	O	O	O
Reminders		O	O	O	O	O	O
Alti/Barometer		O	O	O	O	O	O
Schedule	Notification	O	O	O	O	O	O
	Snooze/Dismiss	O	X	X	X	X	X
Alarm	Create/Edit/Set	O	O	O	O	O	O
	Snooze/Dismiss	O	O (Only for alarms created on the Gear S2/S3)
World Clock		O	O	O	O	O	O
Gallery	View	O	O	O	O	O	O
	Transfer	O	O	O	O	O	O
Find My	Find my Gear	O	O	O	O	O	O
	Find my Device	O	O	X	X	X	X
Email	Notification	O	O	O (Does not support replies)
	Sync	O	X	X	X	X	X
Nike+ Running	Running	O	O	X	X	X	X
	Sync	O	O	X	X	X	X
Sansung Pay		O	O	X	X	X	X
SOS Request (Safety)		O	O	X	X	X	X
Speedometer		O	O	O	O	O	O
Number Sync		O	O	X	O	X	O

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BREAKING: Samsung starts rolling out Android Nougat to the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge

The time has come. Following weeks of testing, Samsung has finally begun rolling out the official Android Nougat update for the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge. Those on the Nougat beta should be seeing an update around 215 MB in size; regular users will get the update as well, although Samsung is giving the early bird advantage to those running the beta version.

Developing…

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Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro to be launched in India on January 18

We reported last week that Samsung would launch the Galaxy C9 Pro in India later this month. We’ve now received information that the upper mid-range smartphone will be launched in the country on January 18. The phone was is already available in China, but it will also go on sale in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Malaysia, and Vietnam in the coming months. The Galaxy C9 Pro could be priced higher than the Galaxy A9 Pro in the country.

The Galaxy C9 Pro is a multimedia-focussed smartphone with a large 6.0-inch 1080p Super AMOLED display and stereo loudspeakers. It has a metal build, and it features 16-megapixel front and rear-facing cameras. It comes equipped with a Snapdragon 653 processor, 6GB RAM, 64GB internal storage, a microSD card slot, LTE, dual-band Wi-Fi ac/b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.2, and a USB Type-C port. It also features a fingerprint sensor and a 4,000 mAh battery.

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Galaxy X foldable smartphone release now expected in the first half of 2018

The rumor mill can’t seem to decide when Samsung is going to release its foldable smartphone. For the past few days it’s being said that the foldable smartphone, referred to as the Galaxy X, is going to be released in the third quarter of this year. The latest news out of South Korea suggests that Samsung is not going to release the Galaxy X before the first half of 2018.

Unnamed industry sources cited in the report claim that the foldable smartphone tentatively called Galaxy X is likely to be released in the first half of 2018. The estimate is based on product development and mass production plans as well as the production of polyimide film.

Polyimide film is going to be a key component in foldable smartphones. It has a high heat resistance and can remain stable across a wide range of temperatures. It’s a thin and flexible material that’s going to be a core component in flexible devices.

Kolon Industries is believed to be preparing to mass produce polyimide films in South Korea. It’s said to complete the construction of its production facilities and start mass production of the films in the first half of next year. Kolon Industries is said to be a parts supplier for Samsung’s foldable smartphones. When you consider that it takes up to three months to mass produce and supply components, it becomes easy to understand that the foldable smartphone might not see a commercial launch by the end of the first quarter or early second quarter next year.

Recent rumors suggest that the Galaxy X is going to be a 5-inch smartphone that’s going to fold out and transform into a 7-inch tablet. Samsung is expected to initially roll out 100,000 units of this experimental device to gauge market reaction before it decides whether or not it should continue with the foldable smartphone.

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Samsung’s share price surge exceeds Apple’s by 10 percentage points

Samsung’s stock price was off to a very good start last year as investors were convinced that the company would continue to see monumental growth in 2016. The stock nosedived following the Galaxy Note 7 recall but the recovery was quick. It’s hitting fresh new highs every other day now. Since October 2016, Samsung Electronics’ share price surge has exceeded that of Apple by more than 10 percentage points. The company now accounts for more than 20 percent of the market capitalization of the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) for the first time in four years.

The share price hit a fresh new high yesterday of 1.9 million won ($1,596), up 2.79 percent from the previous day’s close. It has been surging for four days straight. This is also the first time that Samsung’s share price has crossed the 1.9 million won barrier after the company went public in 1975. Market data shows that while institutional investors are selling Samsung stock to book profit, foreign investors are gladly buying them and that’s leading to an increase in the price.

The stock’s performance is in stark contrast to that of rival Apple. The Cupertino company’s stock price has been facing volatility caused in part by its sluggish performance over the past few quarters. While Samsung’s Q4 2016 result is expected to beat market expectations, Apple’s Q4 2016 earnings are believed to post a year-over-year decline in annual sales and net profit for the first time in 15 years. That’s something that investors take note of and trim their positions accordingly.

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Samsung to increase focus on wearable healthcare devices

Many of Samsung’s rivals are increasingly focusing on building robots for consumers and businesses, LG showed off a handful of such products at CES 2017 last week, but it appears that Samsung has other plans. The company has expressed its interest in building wearable healthcare devices instead of robots that its rivals are focusing on. It’s believed that wearable healthcare devices will leverage AI software more effectively and will be more beneficial for the future healthcare market.

Samsung apparently made its decision to focus more on the healthcare devices after judging at CES 2017 that home robot technology is still premature. “The roles of home robots recently introduced by home appliance companies can be realized by adding artificial intelligence (AI) to existing devices such as smartphones, TVs and IoT refrigerators,” said a senior representative of Samsung, adding that “Rather, we believe that health care based on wearable appliances has more future growth potential.”

That doesn’t mean Samsung will be leaving the robotics space. The company is working on robots for factory automation but it doesn’t seem to have any interest in developing consumer-focused robots at this point in time.

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