Mergers and acquisitions helping Samsung boost business overseas

A new report by the Financial Supervisory Service shows that aggressive mergers and acquisitions are helping Samsung boost business overseas. The company has reportedly added eight new overseas subsidiaries in 2015 by either acquiring substantial stakes or setting up new companies. The total number of subsidiaries is said to have reached 159 last year with only six based in the United States and the rest across Asia.

The expansion comes at a time when Samsung is trying to discover next growth engines to reduce reliance on traditionally strong businesses like smartphones or appliances which are increasingly coming under pressure now. The subsidiaries it picked up last year include LoopPay which provided technology that’s integral to Samsung Pay, a printing service company called Simpress as well as a semiconductor technology company called Future Technology & Service. A spokesman for the company said that Samsung has been aggressive in finding new revenue sources over the past few years. “The latest move is also part of our efforts to expand our presence into untapped yet promising areas such as the Internet of Things (IoT).”

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Samsung may expand VR beyond smartphones

Samsung is already a major player in the VR arena due to the fact that it has one of the most affordable VR headsets on the market right now, granted that you need a compatible Samsung device for it to work, but the Gear VR has proven to be a differentiating factor for its smartphones. The company initially started pushing VR to increase the competitiveness of its smartphones but it doesn’t discount the possibility of expanding its VR technology beyond smartphones at some point in the future.

Koo Yun-mo of Samsung’s mobile division said at a press briefing in Seoul that if the opportunity presents itself Samsung may expand its VR technology to other areas, “besides just increasing smartphone competitiveness.” Samsung’s current priority is to build an ecosystem for virtual reality by pushing it with the smartphone business, providing quality content and a veritable platform. Yun-mo gave a few ideas of how VR can be used beyond the smartphone. For example, it can be used in classrooms to display landmarks or show potential investors how an under construction factory will look like once it’s completed.  The possibilities are endless and Samsung surely doesn’t want to stick with VR on smartphones only. It will certainly be exciting to see what steps the company takes in the future to push its VR technology independently.

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Samsung’s latest ’7 Days of Unboxing’ video features an ice sculptor

Yesterday, we stumbled across two videos belonging to Samsung’s “7 Days of Unboxing” series, with each one being more peculiar than the other. Today’s video, however, brings us back to normality, as it includes an ice sculptor giving us his interpretation of what he saw inside that room with the Galaxy S7. The result is a beautifully sculpted structure, but sadly, it’s not enough to tell us much about the device itself.

Needless to say, the hints will get clearer as the days pass with February 21 quickly approaching. There are three more unboxing videos left before Samsung shows us the real thing, and frankly, I’m quite excited to see what the company’s marketing team will have cooked up for Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Samsung’s teaser from earlier today pretty much confirmed the existence of water resistance on the upcoming flagship while an always-on display was hinted at by a tipster report.

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NextVR and Fox Sports will live stream sports in VR to the Gear VR

NextVR has been a very good addition to the content sources available for the Gear VR headset. It has provided VR broadcasts of live sporting events enabling users to get the most out of their headset. NextVR has now inked a five-year deal with Fox Sports to live stream sporting events to the Gear VR through its service.

The company says that it has worked with Fox Sports for over a year to test live VR programming across multiple sports. NextVR and Fox Sports will be providing VR broadcasts of major sporting events, they’ll be kicking things off later this year with the Daytona 500, allowing viewers with the Gear VR and a compatible Samsung smartphone to watch the race from the stands, middle of the infield, starting line and even from the pit lane. The VR live stream will have dedicated audio commentary as well as pop-up graphics telling the user who’s on pole position.

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The Galaxy S7 rumored to have an always-on display

Rumor has it that the Galaxy S7 and the Galaxy S7 edge flagships could pack always-on displays. Eldar Murtazin has revealed this information while mentioning how the device would differentiate itself from the predecessor, the Galaxy S6. This could be a major breakthrough for Samsung as this feature is quickly turning out to be an industry standard. The LG G5 which is expected to be revealed on the same day as the Galaxy S7 (Feb 21) has already been confirmed to be packing an always-on display.

Of course, Samsung is yet to confirm the inclusion of this feature, so we suggest you take it with a grain of salt for the time being. A report from earlier today talked about the possibility of the Galaxy S7 being water resistant, which is quite interesting as well, especially since we’re just a few days away from the release.

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New app from Samsung and BBC micro:bit lets you push code to the phone over Bluetooth

Samsung has just released a new Android app for BBC micro:bit. Using this app, users can push code on their Android devices over Bluetooth. Pushing code previously required a computer, so this is a major breakthrough as far as convenience is concerned. For those unaware, BBC micro:bit is a small hardware programming kit that is offered to students of year 7 in the UK. This kit is given for free to all students fitting the criteria as part of BBC and the government’s goal to encourage programming and computer learning at a very young age.

To make things easier for the students, Samsung has a dedicated micro:bit hub which will get them started on coding. The app requires micro:bit hardware to function. However, it’s not an exclusive to Samsung devices, which ensures that a wide range of users can access it. The ability to write code and push it wirelessly to a smartphone is very intriguing and will surely help the students get a lot more out of the micro:bit.

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Wallpaper Wednesday: Material Design

Welcome to the third edition of our weekly Wallpaper Wednesday segment. If you happen to have missed the previous two posts, let me enlighten you. Every Wednesday, we’ll be bringing you a selection of our favourite backgrounds to download and install on your devices. All images are available in a QHD resolution, which is a perfect fit for the Galaxy S6, Galaxy S6 edge, Galaxy Note 5 and other flagships, but can, of course, be used on different smartphones, too.

If any of the following images float your boat and you want to download and set one as your wallpaper, simply tap on a photo to maximise it, then click and hold to save it. Once the picture is stored locally, open up Settings, locate and select Wallpaper, then just tap the newly-saved image to set it as your background.

Alternatively, you can download a ZIP file containing all of this week’s backdrops by hitting the Download button at the very bottom of this post.

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Snowy Mountain

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Retro Bus

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Steam Train

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Chrome Color Pool

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Red Ribbon

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Iron Man

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Stars

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Download

Note: We’ve tried our best to identify the creators of all of the wallpapers featured in this week’s column. However, the images appear to lack copyright information, artist signatures or any real trace of origin. If you created a wallpaper we’ve posted and would like credit, or would rather we remove the image, kindly contact us.

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