Samsung Pay goes live in the UAE with Mashreq Bank

Samsung has gradually been expanding its mobile payments service in new markets across the globe over the past year and it’s continuing with the expansion efforts in the new year as well. Samsung Pay has now landed in the United Arab Emirates. Mashreq Bank customers get early access to the mobile payments service, the financial institution points out that it’s the first bank in the region to offer access to Samsung Pay.

All Mashreq debit and credit cardholders can now use Samsung Pay to make payments at almost any merchant where they can already pay by card since Samsung Pay has support for both Near Field Communication and Magnetic Secure Transmission technologies which make it work with conventional card readers.

For a limited time, new customers who apply for a Mashreq Solitaire, Smart Saver Global or Platinum Elite credit card will receive a new Galaxy S7 edge smartphone for free which will be preloaded with Samsung Pay.

“We thank Mashreq for its endorsement of our solution as the first Bank in the region to have early access to Samsung Pay as we expand the reach of Samsung Pay globally and realize its full potential for the consumer,” said Mohammad Gharaibeh, Head of B2B, IT and Mobile (IM) Division, Samsung Gulf Electronics.

Mashreq Bank customers can now use Samsung Pay on their Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S6 series handsets as well as the Galaxy Note 5, Galaxy A5 (2016) and the Galaxy A7 (2016).

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Galaxy S6 Nougat release draws near with Wi-Fi certification

Samsung formally announced the release of Android 7.0 Nougat for the Galaxy S7 and the Galaxy S7 edge last week. The company also provided us with a list that included names of devices which are going to receive the Nougat update in the first half of 2017. The list included handsets like the Galaxy Note 5, the Galaxy Tab S2 and the Galaxy S6 series.

The Galaxy S6 has previously been spotted running Android 7.0 Nougat and we now know that the work is going along nicely since the major update has received its certification from the Wi-Fi Alliance. Only the Galaxy S6 (SM-G920) has received its certification on Nougat right now but it goes without saying that the Galaxy S6 edge will follow suit in the very near future.

Going by the timeframe that Samsung has provided, it may take anywhere from several weeks to a couple of months for Samsung to release the Android 7.0 Nougat update for the Galaxy S6. The company is yet to provide a confirmed release date for the update. Users can rest assured that the work is ongoing and their days of having to stick with Marshmallow are numbered.

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Samsung confirms Galaxy S8 will not be unveiled at MWC 2017

For the past few years we’ve seen Samsung unveil its new Galaxy S series handsets on the sidelines of the Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona. MWC 2017 takes place next month and there have been reports that suggest we might get to see the Galaxy S8 at the event even if the company doesn’t start shipping it until April. Samsung has now confirmed that this isn’t going to happen.

Samsung mobile chief Dong-jin Koh has confirmed that the Galaxy S8 is not going to be unveiled at Mobile World Congress 2017 which kicks off on February 27. While Koh confirmed when the handset will not be unveiled, he didn’t share anything about when Samsung is going to launch its new flagship smartphone. Reports suggest that the company is going to conduct an event on March 29 and will likely release the handset in the third week of April.

There is a lot of anticipation for the Galaxy S8 as it’s expected to be a major upgrade over its predecessor. It’s also the first flagship smartphone that Samsung will release after the Galaxy Note 7′s demise last year.

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[Video] Samsung confirms: bad batteries brought about the end of the Galaxy Note 7

Since the very first investigation behind the heating/burning issues in the Galaxy Note 7, Samsung had put the blame on faulty batteries, and the company has now confirmed that the batteries were indeed the reason behind one of the biggest recalls in the smartphone industry. Samsung announced the results at its press conference today, after testing more 2,00,000 Note 7′s and 30,000 batteries.

The original battery – Battery A as Samsung is calling it – was faulty in the way everyone had expected: the component that is supposed to keep the positive and negative electrodes inside the battery from touching each other wasn’t doing its job. Also a contributing factor was an incorrect placement of the negative electrode’s tip, which Samsung says increased the chances of the battery burning up. The “fixed” battery (Battery B) was found to have problematic welding, which was allowing the positive and negative electrodes to come in contact; some of the new batteries also had the insulation tape missing, allowing the excessive heat to travel around the battery and cause failure.

There is a lot of technical jargon, but the basic gist is that the Korean giant messed up with both the original Note 7 battery and the one that was supposed to fix everything. Samsung says that it has found no faults in the design or manufacturing process in other aspects of the device, and it will be implementing a more thorough 8-point testing system for its batteries to prevent issues in the future.

Independent organizations also had their own investigations for the Note 7 battery and are sharing their results at the press conference. Go ahead and see for yourself in the video embedded below, and tells us what you think about Samsung finally coming clean on what caused one of its best smartphones to go out of circulation.

Update: Check out the second video at the bottom of the post, which has Samsung giving a shorter, more condensed version of what went wrong and how it intends to prevent further issues.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QIqAuoC29o

Our commitment to customer safety and satisfaction has never been stronger. http://pic.twitter.com/Dthv7tkf1U

— Samsung Mobile (@SamsungMobile) January 23, 2017

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