Galaxy Fold 2 is called Galaxy Bloom, Samsung tells secret CES meeting

It has been rumored for the longest time that Samsung has been developing its upcoming clamshell foldable smartphone under the codename “Bloom.” However, it appears that the company is actually going to call the device Galaxy Bloom.

Samsung reportedly revealed the name for its next foldable smartphone at a closed CES meeting with key partners. It also talked about the decision to use Galaxy S20 as the moniker for what many have been calling the Galaxy S11.

Galaxy Fold 2 will be launched as the Galaxy Bloom

According to a report out of South Korea, Samsung’s mobile division CEO DJ Koh talked about the company’s upcoming products at this exclusive CES meeting. The machine translation of the text suggests that Samsung is going to call its upcoming foldable smartphone Galaxy Bloom. The report does provide a reason why Bloom has been chosen as the name. It also includes an image of what appears to be a presentation slide with a render of the foldable smartphone and the Bloom name.

Koh actually explained that the Galaxy Bloom’s design has been inspired by the silhouette of the compact makeup powder from French cosmetics juggernaut Lancôme. The company will be going after a different demographic with this product. It’s planning to aggressively target women in their 20s which is why the product has a design that will feel familiar to them.

It was also confirmed during this meeting that the Galaxy S11 is indeed going to be launched as the Galaxy S20. Samsung apparently decided this in order to ring in the start of a new decade with a new marketing strategy for its devices. The new flagship models will be launched as Galaxy S20, Galaxy S20+ and Galaxy S20 Ultra.

Both the Galaxy S20 and Galaxy Bloom are said to have 8K video recording capability. Samsung has reportedly been working with Google on bringing 8K video streaming to YouTube. The video streaming giant is expected to enable 8K streams soon after these products launch. This solves another problem for Samsung. The company is increasingly pushing its 8K TVs but since there’s not a lot of content out there, most people don’t make the switch.

One of the simplest ways to address the chronic shortage of 8K content is to allow people to capture 8K video through their phones. With YouTube being one of the largest video platforms, many customers can get their money’s worth with an 8K Samsung TV as long as there’s native 8K content available on YouTube.

It’s important to mention here that Samsung almost always has a closed-door session for its key partners at CES. The news about Samsung working on a foldable smartphone first came from one of these meetings as well. So it’s quite possible that whatever this report claims is actually true. It mentions that both of these products are going to be unveiled at the Unpacked event which has already been confirmed for February 11, 2020.

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Samsung awarded for recycling, Eco-packaging that doubles as furniture

It’s the beginning of the year and Samsung already won three awards for its efforts in recycling, upcycling, and waste management. The company has received the ‘Gold’ Tier Award and the ‘Cutting-Edge’ Champion Award from the EPA at the annual Sustainable Materials Management (SMM) Electronics Challenge.

Likewise, Samsung was recognized at CES 2020 for The Serif’s Eco-packaging, which will be used by The Serif TV series in the first half of 2020. As seen below, the Eco-packaging employed by Samsung’s new The Serif TV lineup can be repurposed into a nightstand, a shelve, or even a cat house. Designs and instructions for different furniture pieces are provided through a QR code located on the box.

Moving on to the Sustainable Materials Management (SMM) Electronics Challenge, Samsung won the Gold Tier Award from the EPA for the sixth consecutive year. The Tier Award category recognizes companies that manage to send at least 96% of all used electronics to certified third-party recyclers. Similarly, the global safety certificate company, UL, awarded Samsung Display a Gold certificate a couple of months ago for achieving 95-99% material recycling.

The EPA also gave Samsung the Cutting-Edge Award in the Champion Award category for its efforts in sustainability, specifically through the Galaxy Upcycling program. It repurposed obsolete mobile phones into portable eye examination equipment which, according to the company, has been used in Vietnam to benefit the lives of around 14,000 residents.

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Samsung’s 5G TCU powers BMW’s futuristic iNEXT all-electric SUV

BMW’s 2021 all-electric iNEXT SUV will be the first car in the world to be equipped with 5G technologies supplied by Samsung and HARMAN. The official announcement was made at CES 2020 where the latter two companies have offered a preview of their 5G automotive technologies with the unveiling of a new Digital Cockpit.

The companies have revealed that the BMW iNEXT will be equipped with Samsung’s 5G TCU (Telematics Control Unit). Its capabilities extend to linking the vehicle’s onboard electronics with external networks and provide real-time information to drivers.

Samsung 5G TCU will provide ‘the ultimate driving experience’

By employing Samsung’s 5G TCU, BMW’s future SUV will be capable of V2X (Vehicle-to-Everything) communication and will offer features such as high-resolution map downloads. The system will allow drivers to connect their all-electric BMW SUV to other smart devices. Car integration is already confirmed for SmartThings in the United States even for non-5G vehicles, and we assume that BMW’s EV will offer similar functionality over 5G, if not through SmartThings then perhaps through a proprietary app.

Samsung’s 5G solution may have also contributed to streamlining the exterior design of BMW’s bold iNEXT SUV. This is because the 5G TPU can be integrated with a new antenna technology that can replace the conventional shark-fin exterior aerials.

Although it will be the first, the BMW iNEXT will not be the only model to leverage Samsung’s 5G TPU. Klaus Frölich, Member of the Board of Management of BMW AG, revealed that BMW is looking forward to ‘spreading this [technology] over the whole portfolio.’ The BMW iNEXT will launch in 2021.

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Samsung’s Hwaseong incident won’t affect DRAM prices in the first quarter

Samsung ended 2019 on a low note, when a power outage at its semiconductor manufacturing plant in Hwaseong, South Korea has caused tens of millions of dollars in damage. The good news for the consumer market is that the unfortunate event is unlikely to affect commodity DRAM prices in the first quarter of the year.

According to DRAMeXchange – a research division of TrendForce – the global supply of DRAM chips will not be affected in Q1 2020, mainly because numerous PC makers have already stocked up on DRAM chips in Q4 2019 in anticipation of higher US taxes on imported goods from China in 2020. They already have a healthy supply of DRAM chips for their upcoming products, and likewise, their demand won’t be too high in the first quarter of the year.

Nevertheless, even if prices won’t increase drastically because of low supply, DRAMeXchange now expects memory vendors to want and build up their inventories preemptively. Demand is likely to increase and TrendForce has adjusted its price forecast from “mostly holding steady” to “slightly trending upward.”

The situation could change for commodity DRAM vendors in Q2, but there’s no danger of a price hike in Q1 at least. On the other hand, specialty DRAM vendors could take a hit in the first quarter. Unlike commodity DRAM contracts, specialty DRAM orders are placed quarterly and vendors usually don’t have a backup stock. Therefore, DRAMeXchange predicts that specialty DRAMs could see a bump in prices starting this January.

There won’t be a huge demand for 5G chipsets in Q1

Although 2020 will be the year of 5G, TrendForce estimates that demand for 5G chipsets will be relatively low in the first quarter of the year.

Samsung is the biggest mobile 5G chipset vendor and other market watchers expect the company to post an annual profit higher by nearly 40% in 2020, partly thanks to the predicted increase in sales of 5G solutions. However, this boost in revenue will happen gradually, and judging by TrendForce’s estimates, Q1 will represent a relatively slow start for Samsung’s 5G chip business this year.

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Korean celebrities’ Samsung Cloud data hacked and held to ransom

Numerous celebrities from South Korea have reportedly been blackmailed after they’ve gotten their Samsung Cloud personal data hacked, according to a recent report from the local media. More than 10 extorsion cases involving actors, K-pop stars and famous chefs have been confirmed by the authorities.

This security issue is not related to the exaggerated reports of Samsung sending your personal files to China (which it doesn’t), nor is the result of a phishing scam, at least according to a Korean hacker interviewed by Nate. Instead, the problem seems to be caused primarily by a lack of cautiousness from Samsung Cloud users who have reused their passwords and haven’t enabled two-factor authentication (2FA).

Samsung is following in Apple’s footsteps when it shouldn’t

Interestingly enough, these recent events look similar to the incident suffered by Apple and its userbase back in 2014, when private data from celebrities leaked on the web. That was before Apple made it easier for customers to enable 2FA.

Samsung accounts can actually be protected by 2FA, but the activation process is not very intuitive. Users have to open the Settings app, navigate to Accounts and backup, then Accounts, then they need to select their Samsung account, tap Password and security, and finally switch the Two-step verification toggle ON.

Enabling 2FA would make it more difficult for hackers to access an account even if its password has been compromised. And although it’s easy to say that lack of prudence is at fault here, Samsung shares some blame as well because it makes 2FA authentication unnecessarily obscure.

If you’re using Samsung Cloud – or perhaps One Drive now that Microsoft’s solution is set to replace it – and you wish to alleviate your fears of getting hacked, make sure you don’t reuse your password, and consider enabling 2FA for your Samsung account. Assuming that there’s no actual security loophole in Samsung’s cloud systems, the company will hopefully address this issue in a similar way to Apple and make it easier for users to enable 2FA.

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980 PRO unveiled at CES as Samsung’s first PCIe 4.0 consumer SSD

Samsung unveiled quite a few new products and concepts at CES 2020, ranging from a fingerprint-secured SSD to Odyssey-labeled gaming monitors. Speaking of personal computers, the company also unveiled the 980 PRO M.2 NVMe SSD as its first-ever PCIe 4.0 solution for the consumer market.

Unlike the SSD T7 Touch which already has a price tag and launch timeframe attached to it, Samsung didn’t reveal a lot of information about the 980 PRO on the show floor in Las Vegas. But we know that the SSD is capable of sequential read/write speeds of up to 6,500/5,000 MB/s and that it will be available in three storage capacities including 250GB, 500GB, and 1TB.

According to AnandTech, Samsung intends to reveal more details on the 980 PRO SSD sometime in the second quarter of the year when we should learn more about the controller and type of V-NAND it uses. Not to mention pricing and availability. In any case, it’s safe to assume that the product won’t be available for purchase any sooner than Q2.

In previous news, Samsung confirmed that it’s working on an NVMe SSD solution for gaming consoles, which could be employed by Sony for the upcoming PlayStation 5. It may very well be that the 980 PRO (or a variation of it) is this solution, but given the lack of information at this point, this is just conjecture. We’ll keep you updated as we learn more.

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Samsung SmartThings will integrate with your car later this year

Samsung SmartThings will become the world’s first smart home app to add cars to its portfolio of compatible products and devices. Beginning later this year, SmartThings users in the United States will be able to automate their cars directly from the app, and it’s all thanks to a new partnership announced at CES between Samsung and Smartcar.

Samsung will integrate the Smartcar API into SmartThings, giving customers a way to locate their vehicle and lock/unlock its doors remotely. SmarThings users will be able to check fuel levels – or battery levels in case of electric vehicles – from their smartphones, and they’ll also have the option to create automated tasks.

The automated system sounds similar to Bixby Routines, or indeed the revamped Bixby in the car but without the Digital Cockpit. It’s an IFTTT system whereby certain actions are taken automatically whenever a set of criteria determined by the user is met. For example, you can program your air conditioning unit at home to turn on whenever your car leaves from the office.

Samsung’s SmartThings app has 52 million active users worldwide, and the Smartcar API employed by the app will be able to communicate ‘with most new cars’ in the US. As yet, there’s no information as to whether the feature will become available in other markets.

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Galaxy Tab S6 5G with familiar specs captured in live photos

The Galaxy Tab S6 5G has apparently been spotted in a couple of photos shared by the Korean media. It’s unclear where exactly these photos were taken but the Galaxy Tab S6 5G is expected to debut in South Korea before the end of the first quarter, and so it may have been spotted on a store’s shelves ahead of its official release.

The leaked spec list tells a rather bland story. As you would expect, the Galaxy Tab S6 5G is no different from the LTE model in terms of internal hardware, sans the 5G chip. It has the same 10.5-inch sAMOLED display, Snapdragon 855 chipset, and camera configuration comprising two rear-facing shooters and one 8MP selfie sensor. The 5G variant listed here has 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, but we suspect that a 256GB model with 8GB of storage will also be made available, at least in some markets.

The 4G model offered three color options at launch, namely Cloud Blue, Rose Blush, and Mountain Gray, but the Galaxy Tab S6 5G could be offered only in the latter flavor. Much like the storage options, color choices are generally market-dependent so the leaked spec list above might not tell the whole story for every market.

The Galaxy Tab S6 5G has already been certified by the Wi-Fi Alliance, Bluetooth SIG, and the Korean National Radio Agency, and should soon hit the shelves in South Korea as Samsung’s – and the world’s – first-ever 5G tablet.

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Daily Deal: 47% off Samsung Active InEar Headphones

Bargain hunters looking for an in-ear headphone solution for smartphones equipped with a 3.5mm headphone jack might not want to miss out on the Samsung Active InEar Headphones. They are presently available for 47% off and offer a lot of bang for the buck. They boast large 12mm drivers and a tangle-free flat cable featuring an in-line 3-button remote. They ship with four sets of ultra-soft ear gels designed to reduce unwanted noise, and one set has a winged design for a secure, comfortable fit.

Hit the Buy Now button below to get them while still discounted!

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The latest Galaxy Watch Active 2 firmware update is out now

There’s a new firmware update available today for the Galaxy Watch Active 2. Samsung’s latest smartwatch last received an update two months ago. It was a minor update which brought general stability improvements for the device.

Today’s update is along the same lines. It doesn’t bring any new features to speak of. However, it does address some stability issues. Samsung is now in the process of gradually rolling out this firmware update.

The latest Galaxy Watch Active 2 firmware update comes bearing version number R820XXU1BTA1. It measures in at just under 20MB, as it often the case for these updates. The changelog doesn’t say much beyond that the system stability has been improved with this update.

This update will gradually be released for both 40mm and 44mm variants of the Galaxy Watch Active 2. Germany appears to be the first market where this update has been released. It might take some time before the update becomes available in your country. When it is, you’ll be able to download it the Galaxy Wearable app on your connected device by going to the Watch software update menu and tapping on Download and Install. You’ll also be notified by your smartphone once the update becomes available.

Thanks, @hichamb143!

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No, Samsung phones aren’t really sending your personal files to China

A bit of fuss was caused recently by a post on Reddit which claimed that Chinese spyware was present on all Samsung smartphones and tablets. The insinuation wasn’t that this was due to some security vulnerability, rather that it was by design.

The sensationalist title of the Reddit post aside, its author explained that Samsung has partnered with a Chinese antivirus company of questionable reputation for the storage scanner feature in the Device Care section. When it’s run, the feature pulls some data from your device and sends it to Chinese servers. There’s more here than meets the eye, though, and Samsung has now set the record straight.

Samsung phones aren’t sending your files to China

It’s important to understand what this feature is first. Device Care is part of Samsung’s custom Android experience and it can’t be removed, as such, all of the utilities it offers can’t be removed as well. The storage scanner looks for junk files that can be removed to free up space on your device. It’s a useful feature as you can often free up several GBs worth of space that was taken up unnecessarily.

The Chinese company that Samsung has teamed up with for storage scanner is called Qihoo 360. Its reputation is far from perfect as it has been involved in several controversies. In 2012, a whistleblower had claimed that the company’s 360 Secure Browser had a hidden backdoor. It’s also known for complying with the Chinese government’s censorship directives and may presumably turn over data to it when asked to do so.

The conclusion drawn was that since storage scanners need access to all files on a device to do what they do and that the one in Device Care was communicating with Chinese servers, it could be sending users’ files to China without their knowledge. The redditor conducted packet testing to see which domains his Galaxy S10 was communicating with.

Upon tapping on the option to manually update the database, he noticed that the phone started communicating with Chinese servers. While this did establish that the utility was communicating with Chinese servers, it didn’t reveal exactly what was being sent, as the author himself pointed out. In no way did this confirm that a partner that Samsung had allowed access to was abusing that to lift your files. The option to manually update the library is present in Pie but it has been removed in One UI 2.0.

Clarifying the matter to The Verge, Samsung says that the only data that’s sent to Qihoo 360 is non-specific information like the model of your phone, OS version, total storage capacity and other generic data used to optimize storage. Qihoo doesn’t get any data that would enable it to locate a particular file on a user’s device.

What the Chinese company does is simply provide a reference library of unnecessary/junk files that can be deleted to free up space. That library is also stored on the device itself. Device Care’s storage scanner only uses the library to find out which files should be deleted. The deletion process is carried out by Samsung’s own software, Qihoo plays no role in that. “The storage optimization process, including the scanning and removal of junk files, is fully managed by Samsung’s device care solution,” a Samsung representative confirmed.

Instead of diverting its own resources to maintain a library of junk files that its storage scanner could use, Samsung has simply outsourced that job to Qihoo. The Chinese company’s role in this doesn’t extend beyond that. It’s understandable that the words China and spyware in a sentence are enough to cause suspicion but Samsung deserves the benefit of the doubt. You can’t expect a company with the size and experience that Samsung has to make a rookie mistake.

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Samsung’s new portable SSD comes with an integrated fingerprint sensor

Samsung has unveiled the latest in its Portable SSD lineup of external solid state drives, the Portable SSD T7 Touch. The name is a mouthful, but there’s a reason: The SSD T7 Touch comes with a fingerprint sensor built in to help keep your data secure, which is where the “touch” part of the drive’s name comes from. The new portable SSD also boasts transfer speeds nearly twice as high as the older model, the Portable SSD T5.

The T7 Touch can touch read and write speeds of 1,050 MB/s and 1,000 MB/s respectively thanks to the USB 3.2 Gen 2 interface, as long as you connect it to a PC or laptop that also has a USB-C port that supports the USB 3.2 Gen 2 standard (which can be found on many mid-range and higher desktop motherboards and high-end laptops). The SSD also supports Android devices and should instantly show up on a Android smartphone or tablet as external storage when connected with a USB-C to USB-C cable.

Prices start at $129.99 for 512GB storage

The Portable SSD T7 Touch uses AES 256-bit hardware encryption to keep data secure in addition to the fingerprint sensor; it also comes with a “Motion LED” around the fingerprint sensor that glows to indicate the status of the disk. The drive will be available in 500GB, 1TB, and 2TB storage sizes later this month in 30 countries, with prices for the three storage variants set at $129.99, $229.99, and $399.99. Color options will include silver and black, and a version without the fingerprint sensor will also launch sometime in Q2 2020.

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Galaxy Note 10 Lite price in India leaked

If a new report is to be believed, the Galaxy Note 10 Lite may end up finding quite a lot of buyers in India. According to 91Mobiles, the Galaxy Note 10 Lite will be priced at Rs 35,990 for the 6GB+128GB configuration and Rs 39,990 for the 8GB+128GB configuration. Considering the Galaxy Note 9 is still priced north of Rs 60,000, the Galaxy Note 10 Lite would be a solid deal as it shares many of its specs with the Note 9 while also being better in many areas.

The Galaxy Note 10 Lite is powered by the Note 9’s Exynos 9810 SoC and has the same Bluetooth-enabled S Pen, but it trumps the 2018 flagship with features like a 4,500 mAh battery with 25W super fast charging, an ultra-wide camera on the back, a 32MP front-facing camera, and newer software out of the box (Android 10 with One UI 2.0). The Galaxy Note 10 Lite also has a larger screen (6.7 inches) with smaller bezels, although it does have a punch hole that not everyone is fond of.

The Galaxy Note 9 is also better in some other areas, like its IP68 water resistance and the dual aperture primary rear camera, but we don’t think those are enough to justify paying nearly twice as much as what the Galaxy Note 10 Lite will cost. Of course, that’s provided the leaked pricing will turn out to be accurate. The European price tag for the Note 10 Lite is 599 euros, which translates to roughly Rs 48,000, so it remains to be seen if Samsung will actually be able to sell the device in India at the rumored pricing.

The Galaxy Note 10 Lite’s release date for India is currently unknown, but with Samsung teasing both the Note 10 Lite and S10 Lite on its official website, it shouldn’t be long before the two handsets hit retail stores.

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