Slide-out, expandable displays join foldable smartphones in latest Samsung patents

We know the foldable smartphone era is soon to dawn upon us, seeing that Samsung has been filing foldable smartphone patents for some years now and continues filing them to this day: patents that are considering biometric ID forms as well as changing the face of its budget-friendly smartphone lineup.

Well, just when you thought foldable smartphones were the only “next big thing,” Samsung takes innovation one step further. In its latest design patents, Samsung is now considering expandable, slide-out displays as an additional phenomenon for its upcoming devices. Slide-out expandable displays would allow users to slide the display in when using the device for basic phone and internet functions, but slide the expandable display out when watching movies and TV shows or gaming.

Of course, foldable smartphones return in one of the two design patents, showing the foldable smartphone that we’ve come to expect of the phenomenon. The smartphone display (a single, flexible display) has a center hinge on the side that will be use to fold the smartphone in half, with it appearing to be something of a book-like shape.

Slide-out, expandable displays are definitely a new area for Samsung, but the Korean giant has spent far more time in creating foldable smartphone designs and plans to showcase a prototype device at MWC 2017. The company has patented foldable tablets as well, particularly one with a built-in keyboard and stand.

Check out more of Samsung’s design at the link below.

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Samsung brings Tizen Store access to 41 additional countries

Samsung has made Tizen a long-term investment, and apps have been considered to be the main priority: get as many as you can on the platform so that users can feel more at home with the novel OS. And yet, at the same time, having a good number of apps without access to those apps is another obstacle that could hinder adoption of Tizen OS for the long haul.

Samsung realizes this, which is why the Korean giant has decided today to open Tizen Store access up to an additional 41 countries, bringing the total of access countries for the platform now to 222 from just around 180 prior. Samsung’s Tizen Store went global (broadly speaking here, not for every country) in 2015.

The new countries with Tizen Store access include American Samoa, Cape Verde, Chad, Cuba, French Guiana, Gibraltar, Guam, the Holy See (Vatican City State), Liechtenstein, Netherlands Antilles, Niger, Palestine, and South Sudan, among others.

Alongside of bringing store access to more countries worldwide, Samsung continues to build its app portfolio for the fledgling platform, having recently brought apps such as Temple Run 2, its own Smart Tutor customer support for Z1, Z2, and Z3 customers, and Nougat Launcher to the Tizen Store. Indonesia has also received a revamped version of the Tizen Store in the last few months.

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Rumor: Samsung could switch to a PowerVR GPU for the Exynos 9810 SoC

The 10nm-based Exynos 8895 chipset was unveiled two days ago. The new chipset is expected to debut with the Galaxy S8 and the S8 Plus. However, that’s not the only high-end SoC Samsung has been developing. The South Korean electronics component giant is also working on the Exynos 9810 processor, and details regarding its existence were revealed earlier this week. Of late, Samsung has been using ARM’s Mali GPUs inside its high-end Exynos chipsets, but that could change next year.

If a recent rumor is to be believed, Samsung could switch from ARM’s Mali GPUs to PowerVR GPUs from Imagination Technologies, at least for the upcoming Exynos 9810. The last time Samsung used a PowerVR GPU inside an Exynos chipset was in 2013 (Galaxy S4 powered by the Exynos 5410). Apple is one of the largest customers for Imagination Technologies. The iPad Pro uses the PowerVR GT7800 GPU with 360 GFLOPS, which is in the same range of graphical grunt as of the Exynos 8895′s Mali-G71 MP20 GPU.

It was rumored that Samsung was planning to develop its own GPUs for smartphones and tablets, and the company was in talks with both AMD and Nvidia for GPU-related technologies. However, its attempt is said to have hit a roadblock due to some patent-related issues.

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