Galaxy Home continues inching towards release, pops up in Smart Things

Yet more evidence suggesting the Galaxy Home smart speaker is just around the corner emerged this week, this time through Samsung’s own Smart Things app. As seen in the image below, shared with us on Twitter by one of our readers, the Smart Things setup process now features imagery of the Galaxy Home, strongly hinting that the smart speaker’s market debut should be just around the corner.

Galaxy Home teasers continue with no firm launch date in sight

The Galaxy Home is one of Samsung’s most elusive smart products. It’s been more than a year since it was officially unveiled along with the Galaxy Note 9, but 2018 passed, April 2019 came and went, and there was still no Galaxy Home in sight. Rumors claimed it may have been canceled before its market debut but we exclusively debunked this, and hints of the product’s existence continued to emerge through various channels including Spotify.

The Galaxy Home is a Bixby-powered smart speaker and will be the first Samsung product of its kind. We don’t have a lot of details about its capabilities but we know it won’t be a direct Amazon Echo competitor. Instead, it will put a higher emphasis on audio quality, and AKG will play a role in tuning the directional audio speakers.

Samsung has been very quiet about the Galaxy Home but it doesn’t seem like it ever stopped developing the product. It’s unclear why the company decided to push back the original April 2019 release. Even the Galaxy Fold made a return to the market in the meantime, and that product’s original launch was marred by glaring technical issues and negative press coverage.

Whatever the reasons behind the Galaxy Home’s delay may be, we seem to perpetually be getting closer to the release of the product and there’s a chance that it will be unveiled later this month at SDC. Kim Hyun-suk, CEO of Samsung’s Consumer Electronics Division previously stated that the Galaxy Home should hit the shelves in the second half of the year, and the holiday season is looming.

We’ll keep you up to speed once we find out more about the Galaxy Home’s whereabouts. Stay tuned and feel free to let us know in the comment section if you still have an interest in Samsung’s upcoming Bixby-powered smart speaker.

Thanks for the tip, @BattagliaMilo

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SamMobile has a new design! Let us know what you think

As our longtime readers will know, we often make changes to the site design for SamMobile.com. It’s all done to make sure that our readers can quickly find the information that they’re looking for and that their visit to our website is a pleasant one. To that end, we have made some significant changes to the design once again and would like to walk you through them.

There’s great news for people who love a darker theme. Our Dark Mode, a feature that was previously limited to premium members, is now available for everyone. You’ll find the toggle in the upper right hand corner, just click on the moon to enable Dark Mode. Eagle-eyed users will notice that the font seems familiar. We’re using the same Samsung One font as the one used for One UI.

The homepage now has a list view so that visitors can see more news articles on the homepage and quickly get up to date on the latest Samsung news. A fire icon has also been added to show the hottest news stories, you know, the ones that you should absolutely read. We will continue to make tweaks and improvements as we go along.

Please do leave a comment below and let us know what you like or dislike about this new design. We’re always happy to consider any suggestions that our readers have.

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Benchmark listing hints at a taller 20:9 display on the Galaxy S11

The Galaxy S11 is at least five months away from the official unveiling, but leaks and rumors have already started appearing online. Today, Galaxy Club has spotted a disguised Galaxy S11 on the HTML5Test browser benchmark website, revealing a tiny bit of information about its display and the onboard Android version.

Going by the benchmark listing, the Galaxy S11 (or whatever the next Galaxy flagship is called) will come with a 20:9 display, which means it will be taller than the 19:9 screens on the company’s 2019 flagships. Samsung already has a couple of mid-range devices such as the Galaxy A70 and the A80 with 20:9 ratio displays

The benchmark also suggests that the Galaxy S11 will launch with Android 10 onboard, but that’s not surprising and is on expected lines. The listing reveals information about the screen resolution as well, but it’s inaccurate, as is often the case with these benchmarks.

If you’re wondering about the SM-G416U model number in the benchmark, do note that Samsung has been using the SM-G4xx series for years to disguise its flagship devices while testing. The company usually replaces the first two digits while retaining the last digit and the latter in the model number, which suggests the benchmark result probably belongs to the SM-G986U model. This could be the 5G version of the Galaxy S11 Plus going by the current naming pattern.

While a lot of this information and conjectures look credible, it’s worth remembering benchmark results can be faked easily. We have to wait for more leaks to get a better picture of the Galaxy S11. Thankfully, that shouldn’t take long as we inch closer to the end of the year.

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Galaxy S10 and Note 10 One UI 2.0 beta will launch in these markets

The Galaxy S10 Android 10 and One UI 2.0 beta program is currently underway in South Korea, Germany, and the US, and Galaxy S10e, S10, and S10+ owners in other markets have been wondering whether they will get the chance to test out the One UI 2.0 beta as well. Samsung made the original One UI beta program available in quite a few countries, and we now have it on good authority that the company will do the same for the One UI 2.0 beta.

The One UI 2.0 beta program will be launched in France, Poland, Spain, the UK, India, and China in the near future, for both the Galaxy S10 and Galaxy Note 10 series. These are the same markets where the Android Pie-based One UI beta was launched last year for the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy Note 9. The Galaxy S10 5G will also be getting an Android 10 beta, but it will only be available in South Korea. We have not been told if Galaxy Note 10+ 5G owners will be able to participate, but we hope they do. After all, the Galaxy Note 10+ 5G is more widely available than the Galaxy S10 5G and also is pretty much the same device as the LTE variant of the Galaxy Note 10+.

Samsung hasn’t revealed a date for when the beta program for the Galaxy S10 series will expand to the markets mentioned above, nor when the Galaxy Note 10 beta will kick off. Samsung’s customer representatives have said that the Note 10 beta should start on October 21, and if that turns out to be accurate, we can expect the Galaxy S10 beta program to get a wider launch on the same day. However, nothing is final until Samsung makes an official announcement.

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Samsung and Jio demo 5G networking and new 4G use cases at IMC 2019

Samsung and Reliance Jio Infocomm have teamed up to offer a taste of 5G networking at the India Mobile Congress (IMC) 2019 in New Delhi, just one week after Samsung heir Lee Jae-yong visited India, presumably for 5G-related discussions. At IMC 2019, the two companies aim to demonstrate how 5G technologies can benefit consumers and enterprises alike.

In addition, Samsung and Jio are also showcasing new use cases for the existing 4G infrastructure which can technically be used for what could become India’s Emergency Communication Network or “OneNet.”

A glimpse of 5G at IMC 2019

Samsung and Jio are showcasing 5G NSA (non-stand-alone) networking through two demonstrations at IMC 2019. One demo called Virtual Classroom allows visitors to watch a 360-degree virtual lecture from a classroom located in Jio’s Corporate Park in Mumbai. Meanwhile, the Massive Full High-Definition Content Streaming demonstration highlights 4K video streaming on multiple 5G tablets simultaneously.

The demos will be performed using Samsung’s 5G product portfolio including its 5G Massive MIMO Unit, 28GHz Access Unit (AU) and CEP device, as well as its virtualized radio access (vRAN) and core.

4G LTE could be used for India’s Emergency Communication Network

Samsung is going to play a big role in the expansion of 5G into India, but the existing 4G LTE infrastructure it helped build over the past decade could also become a part of India’s Emergency Communication Network.

Samsung and Jio will do a live demonstration of “public safety network over LTE” (PS-LTE) at IMC 2019, boasting Mission-Critical-Push-To-X (MCPTX) communication. Public Safety LTE (PS-LTE) using MCPTX opens up a lot more possibilities for first responders to connect in a “geo-fenced” environment. While legacy technologies are limited to voice communications, PS-LTE supports multicast technology allowing multi-lateral voice and video-based communications.

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2020 is said to be the year of 5G, in the sense that the technology will become more mainstream and more 5G-enabled devices across multiple price points will be developed and released. So far, Samsung appears to have secured 5G clients across numerous markets – including Japan – and is seemingly in a very favorable position regarding its 5G market share.

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One UI 2.0 feature focus: Face recognition gets two useful features

With Android 10 and One UI 2.0, Samsung is adding plenty of new features to its devices, and many of them will be easily visible for users after they have updated to the new version of Android. But there will also be new functionality that will be less easy to spot, and falling in that category are two new features that Samsung has added to face recognition.

Add an alternative look, and keep your eyes open!

The first of these is the ability to add an alternative look. Face recognition with the front camera is not a very accurate biometric tool. And unlike fingerprints, Galaxy phones only allow adding one person’s face for use with face recognition. That makes a lot of sense, considering face recognition isn’t very secure. But what if your phone doesn’t recognize you because, say, you recently grew a beard but were clean-shaven when you initially set up face recognition? That’s the kind of scenario where the option to add an alternative appearance should help.

The other new feature is the option to force the phone to only recognize you when your eyes are open. This should make face recognition more secure, especially when it comes to someone being able to take a picture of your face and use that to unlock your device. However, this feature seems to be a work-in-progress as it clashes with the existing “faster recognition” setting that speeds up face recognition by letting the phone recognize you with your eyes closed, so it may or may not make it to the final version of Android 10.

You will find both new features in the face recognition section of the Biometrics and security menu of the Galaxy S10’s Settings app. We can’t exactly say if either of them makes a difference in day-to-day usage just yet, but feel free to test them out and let us know how they work for you! Also look forward to more on the new stuff that One UI 2.0 and Android 10 bring to the Galaxy S10 lineup (and other Galaxy devices) in the coming days through our One UI 2.0 feature focus series of articles.

Galaxy S10e

• Model: SM-G970F
• Dimensions: 69.9 x 142.2 x 7.9mm
• Display: 5.8” (146.5mm) Super AMOLED
• CPU: Exynos 9820 Octa
• Camera: 12 MP, CMOS F1.5/F2.4 (77°) & 16MP, CMOS F2.2 (123°)Ultra Wide

More specifications

Galaxy S10

• Model: SM-G973F
• Dimensions: 70.4 x 149.9 x 7.8mm
• Display: 6.1"(157.5mm) Super AMOLED
• CPU: Exynos 9820 Octa
• Camera: 12 MP.CMOS F2.4 45° Telephoto & 12MP F1.5 77° & 16MP F2.2 123° Ultra-wide

More specifications

Galaxy S10 Plus

• Model: SM-G975F
• Dimensions: 74.1 x 157.6 x 7.8mm
• Display: 6.4"(162.5mm) Super AMOLED
• CPU: Exynos 9820 Octa
• Camera: 12 MP.CMOS F2.4 45° Telephoto & 12MP F1.5/F2.4 77° & 16MP F2.2 123° Ultra-wide

More specifications

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Samsung partners with Mobeewave for deploying mPOS payments worldwide

Samsung Electronics has announced that it will begin deploying Samsung POS worldwide starting today in Canada and expanding availability to other markets in 2020. The company has partnered with Mobeewave for its NFC-based contactless payment acceptance solution on mobile devices.

Both the companies have worked together on a pilot testing Samsung POS in Canada for several months. More than 10,000 merchants and small businesses have downloaded the Samsung POS app during the pilot.

For those unaware, Samsung POS is a mobile-based Point of Sale (POS) solution that enables merchants to accept payments by tapping contactless debit and credit cards, Samsung Pay, Apple Pay, and Google Pay wallets onto NFC-enabled Samsung devices without any additional hardware.

Simply put, it’s a clever solution to turn select Samsung smartphones into POS terminals for small businesses by downloading an app. Anyone who wants to accept mobile payments can just download the Samsung POS app from the Galaxy Store or Google Play Store and register as a merchant.

“We’re excited to launch this solution with our strategic partner, Mobeewave. Their patented contactless payment processing platform is the only mobile-based solution accepting Mastercard, Visa and Interac transactions in pilot in Canada,” said Sunny Park, VP and Head of Service Operation Group, Mobile Communications Business at Samsung Electronics. “Their proprietary technology allows us to launch this new solution on a global scale,” he added.

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