Thursday, January 31, 2019

Digital influencers and the dollars that follow them

Animated characters are as old as human storytelling itself, dating back thousands of years to cave drawings that depict animals in motion. It was really in the last century, however — a period bookended by the first animated short film in 1908 and Pixar’s success with computer animation with Toy Story from 1995 onward — that animation leapt forward. Fundamentally, this period of great innovation sought to make it easier to create an animated story for an audience to passively consume in a curated medium, such as a feature-length film.

Our current century could be set for even greater advances in the art and science of bringing characters to life. Digital influencers — virtual or animated humans that live natively on social media — will be central to that undertaking. Digital influencers don’t merely represent the penetration of cartoon characters into yet another medium, much as they sprang from newspaper strips to TV and the multiplex. Rather, digital humans on social media represent the first instance in which fictional entities act in the same plane of communication as you and I — regular people — do. Imagine if stories about Mickey Mouse were told over a telephone or in personalized letters to fans. That’s the kind of jump we’re talking about.

Social media is a new storytelling medium, much as film was a century ago. As with film then, we have yet to transmit virtual characters to this new medium in a sticky way.

Which isn’t to say that there aren’t digital characters living their lives on social channels right now. The pioneers have arrived: Lil’ Miquela, Astro, Bermuda and Shudu are prominent examples. But they are still only notable for their novelty, not yet their ubiquity. They represent the output of old animation techniques applied to a new medium. This TechCrunch article did a great job describing the current digital influencer landscape.

So why haven’t animated characters taken off on social media platforms? It’s largely an issue of scale — it’s expensive and time-consuming to create animated characters and to depict their adventures. One 2017 estimate stated that a 60 to 90-second animation took about 6 weeks to create. An episode of animated TV takes between 13 months to produce, typically with large teams in South Korea doing much of the animation legwork. That pace simply doesn’t work in a medium that calls for new original content multiple times a day.

Yet the technical piece of the puzzle is falling into place, which is primarily what I want to talk about today. Traditionally, virtual characters were created by a team of experts — not scalable — in the following way:

  • Create a 3D model
  • Texture the model and add additional materials
  • Rig the 3D model skeleton
  • Animate the 3D model
  • Introduce character into desired scene

Today, there are generally three types of virtual avatar: realistic high-resolution CGI avatars, stylized CGI avatars and manipulated video avatars. Each has its strengths and pitfalls, and the fast-approaching world of scaled digital influencers will likely incorporate aspects of all three.

The digital influencers mentioned above are all high-resolution CGI avatars. It’s unsurprising that this tech has breathed life into the most prominent digital influencers so far — this type of avatar offers the most creative latitude and photorealism. You can create an original character and have her carry out varied activities.

The process for their creation borrows most from the old-school CGI pipeline described above, though accelerated through the use of tools like Daz3D for animation, Moka Studio for rigging, and Rokoko for motion capture. It’s old wine in new bottles. Naturally, it shares the same bottlenecks as the old-school CGI pipeline: creating characters in this way consumes a lot of time and expertise.

Though researchers, like Ari Shapiro at the University of Southern California Institute for Creative Technologies, are currently working on ways to automate the creation of high-resolution CGI avatars, that bottleneck remains the obstacle for digital influencers entering the mainstream.

Stylized CGI avatars, on the other hand, have entered the mainstream. If you have an iPhone or use Snapchat, chances are you have one. Apple, Samsung, Pinscreen, Loom.ai, Embody Digital, Genies and Expressive.ai are just some of the companies playing in this space. These avatars, while likely to spread ubiquitously à la Bitmoji before them, are limited in scope.

While they extend the ability to create an animated character to anyone who uses an associated app, that creation and personalization is circumscribed: the avatar’s range is limited for the purposes of what we’re discussing in this article. It’s not so much a technology for creating new digital humans as it is a tool for injecting a visual shorthand for someone into the digital world. You’ll use it to embellish your Snapchat game, but storytellers will be unlikely to use these avatars to create a spiritual successor to Mickey Mouse and Buzz Lightyear (though they will be a big advertising / brand partnership opportunity nonetheless).

Video manipulation — you probably know it as deepfakes — is another piece of tech that is speeding virtual or fictional characters into the mainstream. As the name implies, however, it’s more about warping reality to create something new. Anyone who has seen Nicolas Cage’s striking features dropped onto Amy Adams’ body in a Superman film will understand what I’m talking about.

Open-source packages like this one allow almost anyone to create a deepfake (with some technical knowhow — your grandma probably hasn’t replaced her time-honored Bingo sessions with some casual deepfaking). It’s principally used by hobbyists, though recently we’ve seen startups like Synthesia crop up with business use cases. You can use deepfake tech for mimicry, but we haven’t yet seen it used for creating original characters. It shares some of the democratizing aspects of stylized CGI avatars, and there are likely many creative applications for the tech that simply haven’t been realized yet.

While none of these technology stacks on their own currently enable digital humans at scale, when combined they may make up the wardrobe that takes us into Narnia. Video manipulation, for example, could be used to scale realistic high-res characters like Lil’ Miquela through accelerating the creation of new stories and tableaux for her to inhabit. Nearly all of the most famous animated characters have been stylized, and I wouldn’t bet against social media’s Snow White being stylized too. What is clear is that the technology to create digital influencers at scale is nearing a tipping point. When we hit that tipping point, these creations will transform entertainment and storytelling.



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Samsung posts fourth-quarter profit drop, warns of weak demand until the second half of 2019

Samsung Electronics reported its largest quarterly profit decline in two years during its earnings report today. As the Galaxy maker warned in its earnings guidance earlier this month, its results were hurt by slower-than-expected demand for semiconductors, which had bolstered its earnings in previous quarters even when smartphone sales were slow.

Samsung’s forecast was also dour, at least for the first half of the year. It said annual earnings will decline thanks to continuing weak demand for chips, but expects demand for memory products and OLED panels to improve during the second half.

The company’s fourth-quarter operating profit was 10.8 trillion won (about $9.7 billion), a 28.7 percent decrease from the 15.15 trillion won it recorded in the same period one year ago. Revenue was 59.27 trillion won, a 10.2 percent drop year over year.

Broken out by business, Samsung’s semiconductor unit recorded quarterly operating profit of 7.8 trillion won, down from 10.8 trillion won a year ago. Its mobile unit’s operating profit was 1.5 trillion won, compared to 2.4 trillion won a year ago.

Smartphone makers, including Samsung rival Apple, have been hit hard by slowing smartphone sales around the world, especially in China. Upgrade cycles are also becoming longer as customers wait to buy newer models.

This hurt both Samsung’s smartphone and chip sales, as “overall market demand for NAND and DRAM drop[ped] due to macroeconomic uncertainties and adjustments in inventory levels by customers including datacenter companies and smartphone makers,” said the company’s earnings report.

Samsung expects chip sales to be sluggish during the first quarter because of weak seasonality and inventory adjustments by its biggest customers. The company was optimistic about the last two quarters of 2019, when it expects demand for chips and OLED panels to pick up thanks seasonal demand and customers finishing their inventory adjustments.



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Wednesday, January 30, 2019

Your smartphone may soon pack 1TB in storage thanks to Samsung’s new memory chip

Sick of filling the limited space on your phone with apps, photos and videos? Sometime in the near future, your smartphone could ship with more than one-terabyte (1TB) of internal storage and run 10 times faster than a standard memory card.

Samsung is best known for making smartphones but the company’s memory division — one of its most profitable units — just announced that it has begun mass-producing a 1TB flash storage chip for phones. There’s no word on when they’ll be inside smartphones but Samsung said it plans to increase production during the first half of this year.

“Smartphone enthusiasts will soon be able to enjoy storage capacity comparable to a premium notebook PC, without having to pair their phones with additional memory cards,” Samsung said.

That 1TB capacity is double the previous highest that the Korean firm has produced. Its newest chip gave the Galaxy Note 9 a 512GB model which passes the terabyte milestone when a 512GB SD card is added. This new breakthrough promises to offer that without the help of a card, but the company also boasted of improved performance.

Samsung said its new tech reaches speeds of up to 1,000 megabytes per second (MB/s) — that would transfer a 5GB-sized full HD video in just five seconds to transfer, as opposed to nearly one minute with conventional microSD cards. Increased memory will also enable better quality high-resolution video shooting thanks to faster random read speed, it said.

Sounds good, but might this ship before the end of the year? The Samsung rumor mill is already speculating that the upcoming Galaxy Note 10 could include a 1TB model, but at this stage there is no concrete evidence. Keep an eye out for future leaks for more hints.



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Sunday, January 27, 2019

Samsung is ditching plastic packaging

Samsung Electronics said Sunday it will replace plastic packaging used for its bevy of products from mobile phones and tablets to home appliances and wearables with paper and other environmentally sustainable materials like recycled/bio-based plastics.

Samsung will start making the switch in the first half of the year. The company aims to only use paper packaging materials certified by forestry initiatives by next year. By 2030, Samsung says it plans to use 500,000 tons of recycled plastics and collect 7.5 million tons of discarded products (both cumulative from 2009).

The company said it’s formed an internal task force to come up with innovative packaging ideas that avoid plastic.

For instance, the plastic trays used to hold mobile phones and tablets will be replaced with ones made from pulp. Samsung said it will also alter the phone charger design, swapping the glossy exterior with a matte finish and eliminating plastic protection films, reducing the use of plastics.

Plastic bags used to protect the surface of home appliances such as TVs, refrigerators, air conditioners and washing machines as well as other kitchen appliances will also be replaced with bags containing recycled materials and bioplastics. Bioplastics are made from plastic wastes and non-fossil fuel materials like starch or sugar cane.

The company also committed to only using fiber materials certified by global environmental organizations like the Forest Stewardship Council, Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification Scheme and the Sustainable Forestry Initiative for packaging and manuals by 2020.

The company will adopt more environmentally sustainable materials even if it means an increase in cost,” Gyeong-bin Jeon, head of Samsung’s Global Customer Satisfaction Center, said in a statement.



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Saturday, January 26, 2019

What (we think) we know about the Samsung Galaxy S10

The Galaxy S10 will be revealed at an event in San Francisco on February 20. This much we know for sure. Samsung sent out invites for the event sporting a giant number a few weeks back. It’s clear the company’s looking to get out ahead of what should be a fairly action-packed Mobile World Congress this year. 

We know, too, that the event will be occasion for the company to talk up its forthcoming foldable. Samsung told up as much during its last developer conference — and for good measure, the invite also sported a large crease down the middle. The S10, however, will almost certainly be the real star of the show.

And in typical Samsung fashion, the new flagship has been leaking out like crazy since late last year. By now, it seems, we’ve seen handset from every conceivable angle. So here’s what we know — or, what we think we know, at least.

For starters, Samsung is skipping the notch altogether, jumping straight from skinny top bezel to pinhole cutout — what the company called its “Infinity O” display. It’s more or less the same as the one found on the recently revealed Galaxy A9 Pro. The S10+, meanwhile, will feature an oblong version of hole punch, seemingly in order to include a second front-facing camera.

Interestingly, there are believed to be three S10 models set to be announced on the 20th. You’ve got your standard S10 (6.1-inch), the S10 Plus (6.4-inch) and a budget version (5.8-inch), which will be something akin to Samsung’s take on the iPhone XR. Among other things, the product may be devoid of the curved screens that have become a mainstay for the Galaxy line.

With Samsung’s Note woes well in the rearview mirror, the company is reportedly amping up to once again boost the battery life, with the S10 sporting a 3,100mAh and the Plus carrying a whopping 4,100mAh. Huge if true.

Less surprising is the inclusion of the Snapdragon 855 — that’s going to power practically every non-iPhone flagship this year. Ditto for Android Pie. 5G is much less certain, however. While it’s true that Samsung has already announced that not one but two handset will arrive from the company sporting the next-gen cellular tech, we can’t say for sure whether the S10 will be among them.

That said, rumors about a Galaxy S10 X sporting the tech aren’t out of the real of possibility. That seems more likely than Samsung shoehorning it into the base model. After all, 5G won’t be hitting a saturation point this year. That could bring the number of S10 models up to four. 

Similarly, rumors around the headphone jack are all over the place. The latest images, however, seem to confirm that Samsung’s staying put on that one, steadfastly remaining one of the last flagships to sport the once ubiquitous port.



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The state of the foldable

You’d be forgiven for being cynical. I’ve been seeing foldable display concepts for as long as I’ve been attending tech trade shows (which, quite frankly, is longer than I care to mention). Big names like Samsung and LG have been pumping countless R&D dollars into the technology in hopes of being first to next step in the evolution of the smart phone form factor.

The concept is nothing new, of course. The flip phone pre-dates the ubiquitous smartphone slab by decades. And a number of companies have tried to cheat the system. 2017’s Axon M was one of the more memorable attempts in recent memory — though that device amounted to little more than two screens jammed together on a hinge.

It bold and brash, but more than anything it was completely silly with an execution that left a lot to be desired. In my review, I called it “a fascinating mess.” But hey, ZTE deserves at least some credit for a run of products that attempted — with varying degrees of success — to buck the trend of samey smartphones.

There are plenty of reasons to be pessimistic about the state of technology in 2019, but I humbly offer you a beacon of light. This is the year smartphones become fun again. With their back to the corner, facing flagging sales, smartphone makers are taking leaps. Hell, it’s still January, and we’ve already caught a glimpse of what’s to compete.

At the front of the charger are foldables. That seems to be the term we’ve settled on for now — and it suits the category just fine. What convertibles were to the laptop category, foldables are to phones. True foldables require the display itself to do the folding, so devices can ostensibly transform from a one-handed smartphone to a larger tablet.

The Axon M didn’t fit the description for a number of reason, not the least of which was the gap between the two displays, which, quite frankly, made for a pretty crappy movie viewing experience, among others.

The first real foldable we’ve seen was a surprise contender. If the name “Royole” meant anything to you, prior to the Flex Pai, it was probably followed by the phrase “with cheese.” From the moment we first saw grainy footage of the handset, it was clear that being first and being best are rarely one and the same. “Folding screens are here,” I wrote at the time, “and they look crappy.”

I got some time with an updated version of the handset about a month later in China, and reappraised my initial impressions a bit. Even still, the Flex Pai didn’t and doesn’t strike me as much more than a little known company’s push bid to make a name for itself simply by being first.

Romain spent a bit more time with the device at CES, and appears to have come to similar conclusions. Royole does get credit for actually making the device a reality — even if it’s one that’s more developer focused than consumer. That does, of course, speak to a broader issue around usability.

It was a cause Google was happy to take up in November, when the company announced Android support for foldable displays. Like the notch before it, Google was attempting to get out ahead of the looming trend.

Here’s how Android VP Dave Burke described the category at the time, “You can think of the device as both a phone and a tablet, Broadly, there are two variants — two-screen devices and one-screen devices. When folded, it looks like a phone, fitting in your pocket or purse. The defining feature for this form factor is something we call screen continuity.”

It’s going to be fascinating to see if the industry coalesces around a single form factor here. The Flex Pai is one of the simpler ones — essentially operating like a sheet of paper that (somewhat awkwardly) folds in half so you can slip it in your pocket.

The same day that Google announced Android support, Samsung (briefly) showed off its own version of the technology. In the whooping 45 seconds the company devoted to it during a its two-hour keynote, we caught a glimpse of what looks to be an early prototype. Here, the device sports a display on the outside and unfolds to reveal a larger display within.

The “Infinity Flex Display” appeared at first glance to be more sophisticated than Royole’s — but “glance” is really the operative word here. It was a big, blocky prototype that we’ll be hearing more about at Unpacked next month.

Earlier this week, meanwhile, Xiaomi debuted what’s since come to be regarded as the most advanced of the bunch, but like Samsung, we only got a glimpse. And here it was in a much more controlled environment of a short, pre-recorded clip and extremely low resolution. That said, “the world’s first ever double folding phone” looks like a thing out of a sci-fi film.

The company, telling, tossed around the word “prototype” quite liberally there.

And then there’s Huawei. Mobile Chief Richard Yu highlight plans to announce a 5G folding phone at Mobile World Congress next month. As ever, details are scarce. Same goes for Motorola’s Razer, a $1,500 folding throwback, which is firmly in the rumor stages.

If that price point gives you pause, well, get used to it. The Flex Pai is already available at $1,300, and most other handsets are appear on track to hit roughly the same price point, making the latest iPhone and Samsung Galaxy devices look like a downright bargain.



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Thursday, January 24, 2019

Samsung Galaxy S10+ leak shows headphone jack, dual hole-punch camera

The Samsung Galaxy S10 is slowly being revealed through unofficial means. Several leaks have revealed key details and the latest report is the most detailed yet. According to All About Samsung, the upcoming Samsung flagship will have tiny bezels, front-facing cameras that poke through the display, a USB-C port and a headphone jack.

This report meshes with past leaks. There could be three variations of the phone: the S10, S10+ and a new version called the S10E. It’s been reported that Samsung will position the S10 as the main model with the S10+ being the large screen model (and the only with dual-front facing cameras). The S10E will likely be a less expensive version and could even have an LCD screen instead of an OLED screen.

Most of phone’s details have leaked out but a few questions remain. Will the phone have a fingerprint reader embedded into the screen? Will the phones have improved facial recognition to compete more directly with Apple’s Face ID? And lastly, will Samsung jack the prices in line with the latest iPhone prices?

Samsung plans to unveil the Galaxy S10 at an event in San Francisco on February 20. We’ll have a team on the ground to tell you more about the device.



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Wednesday, January 23, 2019

LG hints at gesture interface for smartphone flagship next month

LG has put out a gesture-heavy hint ahead of the annual unveiling of new smartphone hardware at the world’s biggest mobile confab, Mobile World Congress, which kicks off in a month’s time.

The brief video teaser for its forthcoming MWC press event in Barcelona, which was shared today via LG’s social media channels, shows a man’s hand swiping to change on screen content, including the message “goodbye touch”.

The title of LG’s teaser video includes the name “LG Premiere”, which could be the name of the forthcoming flagship — albeit that would be confusingly similar to the mid-tier LG Premier of yore. So, hopefully the company is going to make that last ‘e’ really count.

Beyond some very unsubtle magic wand sound effects to draw extra attention to the contactless gestures, the video offers very little to go on. But we’re pretty sure LG is not about to pivot away from touchscreens entirely.

Rather we’re betting on some sort of Leap Motion-style gesture control interface being added to the front of the handset, using sensors to detect a hovering hand, for example — probably accompanied by heavy marketing about how filthy-with-germs phone screens are so it’s totally better you don’t actually touch them.

Safe to say, the idea looks terribly gimmicky. Or, well, just terrible. This kind of stuff has been tried (and failed to stick) plenty of times before — as long ago as a decade, in the now no longer mobile-maker Sony Ericcson’s case.

Samsung also added a gesture feature, called Air Gesture, to some of its handsets more than five years old — which lets smartphone users do things like wave to answer a call or swipe through air to scroll up. Some of its smartphones also offer hands-free scrolling via facial tracking.

Yet smartphone users everywhere still seem as hooked as ever on actually fingering their touchscreens. And gesture-based interfaces have, fittingly enough, largely failed to stick.

Although you could view Apple’s Face ID technology as a form of non-touch gesture control, as my TC colleague Ingrid Lunden suggests. Albeit the primary point in that case is security/authentication, so it’s more than just a frictionless way to interact with a device without touching it.

Smartphone makers — and Android OEMs especially — are under acute pressure to stand out in a fiercely competitive and growth-stalled market. So despite a flighty history for gesture interfaces on mobile, a bunch of hardware experiments look to be in play, such as whatever LG’s cooking.

And including — as we noted earlier today — what’s now open flirtation with foldable tablet smartphones (see: Xiaomi teased a double folder phone.)

We’ll be on the ground in Barcelona to bring you news of all the major hardware releases next month — including keeping an eye on whatever LG is preparing to unbox (but not actually touch) on February 24. So stay tuned.

We just hope that another detail in LG’s description for the teaser video, in which it asks its followers whether they’re “prepared to get stunned by the LG Premiere”, does not augur a highly potent new form of contactless haptic feedback.



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Monday, January 21, 2019

Samsung could release three variants of the Galaxy S10

According to a leaked image from Evan Blass, Samsung’s new flagship device could come in three different versions — the Samsung Galaxy S10, the Samsung Galaxy S10+ and the Samsung Galaxy S10E.

That new leak lines up with previous leaks. As you can see on the photo, the new devices don’t have a notch. They feature a hole-punch selfie camera instead. If you’re looking for the fingerprint sensor, Samsung could choose to embed it in the screen.

Just like in previous years, in addition to the main S10, there will be a bigger version of the device — the S10+. On this photo, you can see that the bigger version has two selfie cameras instead of one.

But the S10E is a new addition to the lineup. Samsung is launching a more affordable version of the S10 at the same time as the S10. The S10E features two cameras on the back instead of three for instance. I wouldn’t be surprised if the S10E had an LCD display instead of an AMOLED display as well.

Samsung plans to unveil the Galaxy S10 at an event in San Francisco on February 20. We’ll have a team on the ground to tell you more about the device.



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Monday, January 14, 2019

Samsung’s new Galaxy M smartphones will launch in India first

Samsung will launch its new lower-priced Galaxy M series in India before the smartphones roll out globally. Asim Warsi, senior vice president of Samsung India’s smartphone business, told Reuters that three devices will be available through its website and Amazon India at the end of January and are intended to help the company double online sales.

Samsung is currently trying to recover its lead in India, the world’s second-largest smartphone market behind China, after losing it to Xiaomi at the end of 2017, when Xiaomi’s sales in India overtook Samsung for the first time, according to data from both Canalys and Counterpoint.

Xiaomi’s budget Redmi series gave it an advantage since Samsung had a dearth of competitors in the same price bracket, but analysts noted the Korean electronics giant maintains an edge in terms of R&D and supply chain expertise. Samsung leaned into those strengths last year, opening what it describes as the world’s largest mobile phone factory in Noida, just outside of New Delhi.

Specs about the three Galaxy M smartphones emerged last month, with details appearing on platform benchmark Geekbench about devices called M10, M20 and M30, the latter of which may be powered by an Exynos 7885 chip with 4GB ram.

Warsi told Reuters that “the M series has been built around and incepted around Indian millennial consumers.” The price range of Indian-first smartphones will be from less than 10,000 rupees (about $142) to 20,000 rupees. TechCrunch has emailed Samsung for more information about the new phones.

The company will debut the latest version of its flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S10, in San Francisco on Feb. 20.



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Thursday, January 10, 2019

Taking a stroll with Samsung’s robotic exoskeleton

Samsung’s look but don’t touch policy left many wondering precisely how committed the company is to its new robots. On the other hand, the company was more than happy to let me take the GEMS (Gait Enhancing and Motivation System) spin.

The line includes a trio of wearable exoskeletons, the A (ankle), H (hip) and K (knee). Each serve a different set of needs and muscles, but ultimately provide the same functions: walking assistant and resistance for helping wearers improve strength and balance.

Samsung’s far from the first to tackle the market, of course. There are a number of companies with exoskeleton solutions aimed at walking support/rehabilitation and/or field assistance for physically demanding jobs. Rewalk, Ekso and SuitX have all introduced compelling solutions, and a number of automotive companies have also invested in the space.

At this stage, it’s hard to say precisely what Samsung can offer that others can’t, though certainly the company’s got plenty of money, know how and super smart employees. As with the robots, if it truly commits and invests, if could produce some really remarkable work in this space.

Having taken the hip system for a bit of a spin Samsung’s booth, I can at least say that the assistive and resistance modes do work. A rep described the resistance as feeling something akin to walking under water, and I’m hard pressed to come up with a better analogy. The assistive mode is a bit hard to pick up on at first, but is much more noticeable when walking up stairs after trying out the other mode.

Like the robots, it’s hard to know how these products will ultimately fit into the broader portfolio of a company best know for smartphones, TVs and chips. Hopefully we won’t have to wait until the next CES to find out.



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Is Samsung getting serious about robotics?

A funny thing happened at Samsung’s CES press conference. After the PC news, 8K TVs and Bixby-sporting washing machines, the company announced “one more thing,” handing over a few brief moments to announce a robotics division, three new consumer and retail robots and a wearable exoskeleton.

It was a pretty massive reveal in an extremely short space, and, quite frankly, raised far more questions than it answered. Within the broader context of a press conference, it’s often difficult to determine where the hype ends and the serious commitment to a new category begins.

This goes double for a company like Samsung, which has been taking extra care in recent months to demonstrate its commitment to the future, as the mobile industry undergoes its first major slowdown since the birth of the smartphone. It follows a similar play by LG, which has offered a glimpse into its own robotics plans for back to back years, including allowing a ‘bot to copilot this year’s keynote.

We all walked away from the press conference unsure of what to make of it all, with little more to show for things than a brief onstage demo. Naturally, I jumped at the opportunity to spend some quality time with the new robots behind the scenes the following day. There were some caveats, however.

First, the company insisted we watch a kind of in-person orientation, wherein a trio of miced up spokespeople walked us through the new robots. There’s Bot Care, a healthcare robot designed to assist with elder care, which features medication reminders, health briefings and the ability to check vitals with a finger scan. There are also yoga lessons and an emergency system that will dial 911 if a user falls.

There’s also Bot Air, an adorable little trash can-style robot that zooms around monitoring air quality and cleaning it accordingly. Bot Retail rounds out the bunch, with a touchscreen for ordering and trays in the rear for delivering food and other purchases.

The other major caveat was look, but don’t touch. You can get as close as you want, but you can’t interact with the robot beyond that.

The demos were impressive. The robots’ motions are extremely lifelike, with subtle touches that imbue on each a sense of personality rarely seen outside of movie robots like Wall-E. The response time was quick and they showed a wide range of genuinely useful tasks. If the robots are capable of performing as well in person as they do in these brief, choreographed demos, Samsung may have truly cracked the code of personal care and retail robotics.

That, of course, is a big if. Samsung wouldn’t answer the question of how much these demos are being orchestrated behind the scenes, but given how closely the company kept to the script, one suspects we’re largely looking at approximations of how such a human/robot interaction could ultimately play out somewhere down the road. And a Samsung spokesperson I spoke to admitted that everything is very early stages.

Really, it looks to be more akin to a proof of concept. Like, hey, we’re Samsung. We have a lot of money, incredibly smart people and know how to build components better than just about anyone. This is what it would look like if we went all-in on robotics. The company also wouldn’t answer questions regarding how seriously they’re ultimately taking robotics as a category.

You can’t expect to succeed in building incredibly complex AI/robotics/healthcare systems by simply dipping your toe in the water. I would love to see Samsung all-in on this. These sorts of things have the potential to profoundly impact the way we interact with technology, and Samsung is one of a few companies in a prime position to successfully explore this category. But doing so is going to require a true commitment of time, money and human resources.

CES 2019 coverage - TechCrunch



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Samsung will unveil the Galaxy S10 February 20 in San Francisco

CES has never been much of a mobile show for Samsung — not with Mobile World Congress a little over a month away. But the company did use its big platform this week to announce the announcement of its next flagship smartphone.

Turns out the Samsung’s not unveiling the Galaxy S10 in Barcelona, either. In fact, the handset will actually make its debut a week before Barcelona’s big mobile show at a standalone Unpacked event in San Francisco. So thanks, Samsung, for those extra frequent flier miles.

We’ve already caught a few glimpses of the handset via a number of leaks, as has become a bit of a tradition for the company. But this gives us another month and a half or so to see the rest of what the premium handset has to offer.

Most notably so far is the company’s decision to forgo the notch, in favor of the camera cutout design Huawei’s helped pioneer. Also reportedly on-tap for the handset is the ability to wirelessly charge compatible devices on contact. 

As the invite notes, this is the 10th anniversary of the Galaxy line. Between that and the company’s insistence on holding a standalone event this time out, it seems likely that we’ll be seeing more than just the S10. Perhaps we’ll get more insight into the forthcoming foldable handset and some more news on the 5G front.



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Wednesday, January 9, 2019

Facebook is the new crapware

Welcome to 2019 where we learn Facebook is the new crapware.

Sorry #DeleteFacebook, you never stood a chance.

Yesterday Bloomberg reported that the scandal-beset social media behemoth has inked an unknown number of agreements with Android smartphone makers, mobile carriers and OSes around the world to not only pre-load Facebook’s eponymous app on hardware but render the software undeleteable; a permanent feature of your device, whether you like how the company’s app can track your every move and digital action or not.

Bloomberg spoke to a U.S. owner of a Samsung Galaxy S8 who, after reading forum discussions about Samsung devices, found his own pre-loaded Facebook app could not be removed. It could only be “disabled”, with no explanation available to him as to what exactly that meant.

The Galaxy S8 retailed for $725+ when it went on sale in the U.S. two years ago.

A Facebook spokesperson told Bloomberg that a disabled permanent app doesn’t continue collecting data or sending information back to the company. But declined to specify exactly how many such pre-install deals Facebook has globally.

While Samsung told the news organization it provides a pre-installed Facebook app on “selected models” with options to disable it, adding that once disabled the app is no longer running.

After Bloomberg’s report was published, mobile research and regular Facebook technical tipster, Jane Manchun Wong, chipped in via Twitter to comment — describing the pre-loaded Facebook app on Samsung devices as “stub”.

Aka “basically a non-functional empty shell, acts as the placeholder for when the phone receives the ‘real’ Facebook app as app updates”.

Albeit many smartphone users have automatic updates enabled, and an omnipresent disabled app is always there to be re-enabled at a later date (and thus revived from a zombie state into a fully fledged Facebook app one future day).

While you can argue that having a popular app pre-installed can be helpful to consumers (though not at all helpful to Facebook competitors), a permanent pre-install is undoubtedly an anti-consumer move.

Crapware is named crapware for a reason. Having paid to own hardware, why should people be forever saddled with unwanted software, stub or otherwise?

And while Facebook is not the only such permanent app around (Apple got a lot of historical blowback for its own undeleteable apps, for instance; finally adding the ability to delete some built-in apps with iOS 12) it’s an especially egregious example given the company’s long and storied privacy hostile history.

Consumers who do not want their digital activity and location surveilled by the people-profiling giant will likely crave the peace of mind of not having any form of Facebook app, stub or otherwise, taking up space on their device.

But an unknown number of Android users are now finding out they don’t have that option.

Not cool, Facebook, not cool.

Another interesting question the matter raises is how permanent Facebook pre-installs are counted in Facebook’s user metrics, and indeed for ad targeting purposes.

In recent years the company has had to revise its ad metrics several times. So it’s valid to wonder whether a disabled Facebook app pre-install is being properly accounted for by the company (i.e. as minus one pair of eyeballs for its ad targeting empire) or not.

We asked Facebook about this point but at the time of writing it declined to comment beyond its existing statements to Bloomberg.



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Tuesday, January 8, 2019

Samsung warns of Q4 profit drop, blames unexpectedly low semiconductor demand

Apple isn’t the only smartphone maker steeling itself (and analysts) for disappointing results. Samsung Electronics issued earnings guidance for the final quarter of 2018 today that not only marks its first quarterly profit decline in two years, but also fell far below analysts’ expectations. The company attributed the drop to lower-than-expected demand for its memory chips, which in previous quarters had helped bolster its earnings even when its smartphone business was lackluster.

Samsung Electronics said it expects consolidated operating profit of about 10.8 trillion won ($9.67 billion), a 28.7 percent drop from the 15.15 trillion won it recorded in the same period a year ago, and below the 13.2 trillion won that analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had predicted. Consolidated sales are expected to be about 59 trillion won, a 10.6 percent decrease from 65.98 trillion won a year ago ($52.9 billion). Analysts had estimated sales of 62.8 trillion won.

In a statement, the company said “we expect earnings to remain subdued in the first quarter of 2019 due to difficult conditions for the memory business,” thanks to unexpectedly weak demand from some of its data center customers.

Last week Samsung rival Apple lowered its first-quarter earnings guidance, as CEO Tim Cook said that the company now expected revenue of $84 billion, down from its initial projection of $89 billion to $93 billion. The company blamed sluggish demand in emerging markets, but, in general, the smartphone market has been underwhelming over the past two years.

About a year ago, Gartner recorded the first ever decline for global smartphone sales since 2004, when it first began tracking the market. It attributed the drop to two main factors: fewer feature phone owners upgrading to smartphones because of the lack of quality “ultra-low-cost” smartphones, and current smartphone owners deciding to buy and keep quality devices for longer periods of time.



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Monday, January 7, 2019

Samsung is launching a bunch of new robots and a wearable exoskeleton

Okay, this is legitimately a fun surprise, In addition to all of the standard TV and appliance talk, Samsung used today’s CES press conference  to announce a number of different robots — an entirely new field for the consumer electronics company. The company offered a sneak preview of the Samsung Bot Care on stage at the event.

The rolling home robot is a health care assistant designed for elderly users and other people in need of home assistants. The ‘bot can offer health briefings, give out medication and check a user’s vitals.

There’s also the Samsung Bot Air, which is an in-home air quality monitor and the Samsung Bot Retail, which brings that technology into a brick and mortar setting. In addition to all of these, we got the briefest sneak preview of Samsung Gems, a mobility assisting exoskeleton that appears to be targeted athletes.

Samsung really blew through all of that as a kind of “one more thing” at the end of an event in which it spent a majority talking about Bixby on washing machines and the like. Between that and the general lack of information around availability, I suspect we won’t be seeing any of these products in stores any time soon. Hardware is hard and robots are harder. 

Still, a fun little glimpse at what might be around the corner from the company.



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Samsung releases a Chromebook-like Windows 10 Home laptop

Samsung is announcing two new laptops at CES. The company is launching a pro-level laptop called the Notebook 9 Pro and a laptop for student called the Notebook Flash.

The Notebook Flash is an entry-level laptop with a textured design. It looks like fabric but it’s made out of plastic. The screen doesn’t look great to be honest — it has a narrow viewing angle.

And specs aren’t that great. 64GB of storage, 4GB of RAM and entry-level Intel CPUs. The good news is that it has a bunch of ports — two USB-C ports, two big USB ports, an HDMI port, etc.

But it’s a laptop for schools and students who just want something basic. The Intel Celeron N4000 version is going to ship for $350 on January 15.

It’s slightly more expensive than Windows 10 S laptops, but you get a full version of Windows for that price.

The 13-inch Notebook 9 Pro features a slimmer bezel and an updated backlit keyboard. There’s a fingerprint reader on the side of the device. You can convert it into a tablet by pushing the screen all the way. And the laptop comes with an Active Pen.

The default configuration comes with 256GB of flash storage, an integrated Intel GPU and 8GB of RAM. There are two Thunderbolt 3 ports, one USB-C port and a microSD slot.

Samsung is swapping the rounded edges for a sharper metal design. It looks more like a MacBook Pro now, but with a touch screen. Pricing hasn’t been disclosed yet.



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Samsung just announced a 98-inch 8K TV because why not

TV makers love to use CES as a launch pad for TVs that they don’t actually expect a ton of people to buy. This year’s “eh, why not?” swing from Samsung: a 98-inch 8K QLED TV.

“Wait, is there even anything to watch in 8K yet?”

Nope, not really. Hell, even content natively shot in 4K still isn’t as common as anyone would like. There’s always upscaling (Samsung says they’ve built some pretty fancy, machine learning-based upscaling here) – but if nearly everything you’re watching is upscaled anyway, you probably would’ve been better off waiting a few years and saving a small mountain of money. I’m all for being an early adopter, but maybe wait until there’s something to adopt.

Like the rest of Samsung’s 2019 lineup, this model should support Bixby (Samsung’s voice assistant) and will be controllable via both Alexa and Google Assistant.

Samsung has yet to disclose a price (we’ll update this post if they drop it somewhere), but their previously announced 85-inch 8K tv costs $15,000 so expect the price on this one to come in somewhere between “lots of money” and “all of the money”.



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Google apps are coming to Bixby

Bixby took centerstage at today’s big Samsung CES presser. The company has been pushing to make its smart assistant a kind of connective tissue across devices, and the the fruits of that labor may finally be taking shape this year.

Third-party partners have been a long promised addition, and the company just announced a pretty big one.  Sure Google’s pushing its own assistant, but the company will also be bringing some of its top apps to Bixby. The list includes Gmail, YouTube, Google Maps and Google Play.

The news follows today’s earlier announcement that Samsung TVs will be compatible with Google Assistant by way of Google Home and other other smart speakers/screens. This move, meanwhile, should offer a bit more legitimacy to a smart assistant that stumbled out of the gate and ultimately had some trouble picking up speed.

Details about the timing and other implementation have yet to be announced. 



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Samsung TVs are getting Google Assistant compatibility this year

Google continued its unstoppable takeover of CES 2019 by announcing that Samsung TVs will soon offer Assistant compatibility. The feature, which is arriving later this year, will give users the ability to adjust volume, change channels and switch image input.

Compatibility requires a separate piece of Google Assistant hardware — like a Home, Home Hub or third-party smart display or speaker. No surprise the announcement doesn’t include native Assistant support, but it’s still a nice win for Google.

Samsung, for its part, still has a lot of its eggs in the old Bixby basket. For all of the smart assistant’s flaws, it has one key thing that much of the competition doesn’t: native hardware support on a number of appliances and TVs. As such, Samsung’s not really really in a hurry to go all in on of Google Assistant or Alexa.

Bixby, of course, started life as a mobile offering, akin to Apple’s Siri play. Though the assistant has quickly branched out into a wide range of different products, including Samsung refrigerators. The company also recently announced a forthcoming premium smart speaker, the Galaxy Home, with a rumored budget version also arriving soon.



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Samsung updates Family Hub for connected fridges

If your dream home involves a big screen on your fridge, then Family Hub is for you. Samsung has been developing some custom features to turn the fridge into a functional, shared display for all the family. And the company is announcing at CES an update to Family Hub with new features.

The interface has been completely redesigned from the ground up. Apps should be able to talk to each other better than before. And it’s not limited to the fridge anymore. You can start your oven from your fridge, control all your connected devices in your home and more.

With the family board, you can leave notes for other family members, view calendar information and see photos. Even if you’re not at home, you can use your Samsung phone to write down a note for your kid in case you’re going to be home a bit late.

And of course, Bixby is here. Samsung’s voice assistant lets you ask questions, find recipes and control your home.

Family Hub sounds like a neat feature, but the main issue is that you need to upgrade all your appliances to create a home that is completely compatible with the Samsung ecosystem. Also, do we really need yet another screen?



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Samsung CES 2019 liveblog

It’s not really CES until Samsung has taken the stage. The company’s annual keynote is one of the tentpole events for the giant consumer electronics show. Sure, the company keeps its mobile powder dry until Mobile World Congress rolls around, but CES is the time when the rest of company’s businesses can shine.

It’s hard to say for sure what will be on display at today’s event, but if past years are any indication (and they usually are), the event will be focused on PCs, home entertainment and appliances. You can also be pretty sure that we’ll be getting a little Bixby action at the event, as the company looks to expand the appeal of its also-ran smart assistant.

Rumors have offered a peek at a handful of other possibilities, including the addition of a more budget-minded version of the Galaxy Home smart speaker — the HomePod competitor Samsung has yet to actually hit the market. Other possibilities include wearables and, perhaps, some content offerings to go along with the latest wave of 8K sets.

The event kicks off at 2PM PT, 5PM ET. 



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Watch Samsung’s CES press conference live right here

Samsung is holding its CES press conference today at 2 PM Pacific, 5 PM Eastern, 10 PM in London. The company will unveil its new lineup of consumer electronics devices. You should expect a wide range of new products, from smart watches to washing machines.

We’ll have a team on the ground, so you should also check out our live blog for our first-hand impressions of the announcements.



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Samsung steps up its game with the new Notebook Odyssey

Reviews of the Notebook Odyssey line have been…mixed. Hopefully the electronics giant can right the ship as it navigates the tricky waters of high-end gaming systems. At very least, the latest version of the line — unveiled tonight at CES in Vegas — certainly looks the part.

The 15.6 inch laptop features an aluminum design and a display attached with an innovative hinge connected only in the center to mimic a standalone monitor. The bezels have been shrunk down considerably as well, at 6.7 millimeters. The typewriter-style keyboard is backlit, as one would expect from their gaming laptop.

There are a few different performance pre-sets on-board here, too. Per Samsung,

Odyssey Mode allows users to save settings presets under different profiles for various types of games. Beast Mode lets users modulate the Samsung Notebook Odyssey’s performance depending on the software it is running, and the Black Equalizer helps users get a leg up on the competition by improving in-game lighting.

Inside you get an eighth-gen hexa-core i7 processor, 16GB of RAM and either 256GB (SSD) to 1TB (HDD) of storage. Graphics-wise, you’re getting an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080, featuring the new Turing GPU. There’s a fairly healthy selection of ports, as well, including USB-C, three full USB, HDMI and Ethernet.

The new Odyssey is due out at some point “early” this year. No word yet on pricing.



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Sunday, January 6, 2019

Apple is bringing iTunes content to Samsung’s Smart TVs

Ahead of Apple’s plans to introduce its own streaming service this year, the company has partnered with Samsung to allow iTunes content to be accessible on Samsung Smart TVs. Samsung announced this morning that it will offer access to iTunes Movies and TV shows through a new “iTunes Movies and TV” app on its Smart TVs across 100 countries, and it will offer AirPlay 2 support on its Smart TVs in 190 countries worldwide.

Samsung is the first TV maker to have direct access to iTunes content though this new “iTunes Movies and TV” app, but this is not the first time that iTunes content has been accessible outside of Apple’s own ecosystem.

iTunes content is already accessible today through the third-party Movies Anywhere application, alongside purchases from Prime Video, Google Play, Microsoft Movies & TV, Vudu, and others. That app currently works on a number of streaming media devices, like Roku, Fire TV, Apple TV and others, but not yet on Samsung Smart TVs. In addition, Apple Music can today be streamed on Android devices and iTunes is available on Windows PCs. 

According to Samsung, Apple’s new “iTunes Movies and TV Shows” app will allow Samsung Smart TV owners to browse their existing iTunes library and the iTunes store, where they can purchase and rent hundreds of thousands of movies and TV episodes, including a large selection of 4K HDR titles. The movies and TV shows will also work with Samsung Smart TV features, like the Universal Guide, the new Bixby, and Search.

Meanwhile, Samsung is making AirPlay 2 support available on a range of Smart TVs, including QLED 4K and 8K TVs, The Frame and Serif lifestyle TVs, as well as other Samsung UHD and HD models. This will allow TV owners to play videos, photos, music, podcasts, and more on their TV.

“We look forward to bringing the iTunes and AirPlay 2 experience to even more customers around the world through Samsung Smart TVs, so iPhone, iPad and Mac users have yet another way to enjoy all their favorite content on the biggest screen in their home,” said Eddy Cue, senior vice president of Internet Software and Services at Apple, in a statement about the launch.

Given Apple’s plans to launch its own streaming service in 2019 – presumably through its existing iTunes app – it makes sense that Apple would make that app available on more devices in the living room, where it doesn’t have as much of a presence thanks to Apple TV’s small footprint.

The new app and AirPlay 2 will be offered on 2019 Samsung Smart TV models this spring. Samsung says. 2018 Samsung Smart TVs will receive a firmware update to enable access.

 

 



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HP releases a monster $5k, 65-inch gaming display

The HP Omen X Emperium is not meant to watch reruns of The Office. Though it can. This display is one of the first in Nvidia’s family of Big Format Gaming Displays. Unlike traditional large displays, these are certified by Nvidia and are said to deliver the best gaming experience through the smoothest motion.

This doesn’t come cheap. The Omen X Emperium is $5,000 and will be available in February.

Last summer Nvidia announced its intention to work with several manufacturers to produce these displays. This is one of the first to be announced and, though it costs significantly more than similar-size displays from traditional TV makers, a good chunk of gamers will likely spend the cash to gain the advantage offered by the incredible picture.

Inside the Emperium is an Nvidia chipset with Nvidia’s G-Sync HDR technology. This technology in the display syncs with an Nvidia GPU in a computer to ensure a proper refresh rate resulting in images that are sharper, more fluid and free of stutter.

The screen its utilizes HP’s fantastic Quantium Dot technology that is among the best available for desktop monitors. It even has a DCI-P3 95%, meaning it has the ability to display a massive amount of the color spectrum. The display packs a resolve rate of 144Hz — and since this display is more monitor than TV, I’m inclined to believe the claim.

Traditionally, large displays from Samsung, LG and others, often claim their displays have a fast refresh rate of 240Hz or higher. And that’s sort of true, but only because of software enhancements that can often make the image look terrible. I’ve yet to see this display in person, but I’m confident that its claims are legit.

Nvidia’s Shield TV software pack is built-into the display, giving the owner access to nearly every streaming service and a wide-range of games through Nvidia’s streaming service.

A soundbar is included with the display because good sound is nearly as important as good images.



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Thursday, January 3, 2019

Samsung’s Space Monitor is practical and minimal

Samsung always has a huge presence at CES, but it isn’t the giant TVs and flashy next-generation gadgets that have my attention this year; it’s this simple, flexible monitor that looks like it would be right at home in any workspace. It’s called the Space Monitor, presumably because it gives you space, not because it’s meant for use in space. I don’t see why you couldn’t, though.

What the Space Monitor does is very simple: it clamps to your desk and sits straight up from the edge — up against the wall if there is one — and takes up about as little space as it’s possible for a display to.

When you want to bring something closer, or lower, or just need to adjust the angle or whatever, the neck of the monitor lets you bring it down all the way to the level of your desk and tilt it up or down as well (though not side to side). Cables go up through the stand so you won’t see them at all.

Combined with very thin bezels on the sides (there’s a thicker, but still very reasonable one on the bottom) this makes for quite a minimal presence, and it could allow someone (like me) to shrink their workspace in some dimension or other. I like my Dell Ultrasharps, but if I was putting together a new desk situation, I’d probably look very hard at these Samsungs.

[gallery ids="1764817,1764820,1764821,1764818"]

Sure, you could do a wall mount, but this is much easier and you don’t have to fiddle around with tools or load calculations. Just clamp it on there.

There are two models, a 27-inch QHD (2560×1440) model and a 32-inch 4K one (3840×2160); the latter costs $500, so the former will probably be a bit less. They use VA panels, which hopefully will be about as good as IPS, though of course not quite so good as OLED (though for that tech you’d have to add another zero to the price).

Only downside: 60 Hz maximum refresh rate. That’s a possible dealbreaker for some. But the specs also list a 4 ms response time, without explaining further. Perhaps I’ve misunderstood, but I asked Samsung to explain the discrepancy. The specs for the 27-inch display could also differ.

It feels nice to have a reason to visit the actual CES main halls this year. And of course, for the maximalists out there, I’ll also be sure to check out the mammoth new ultrawide:



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Hey look, it’s the Samsung Galaxy S10

Well, what have we here? If it isn’t the Samsung Galaxy S10, courtesy of perennial smartphone outer, EVLeaks. This marks one the first good looks we’ve got at the phone, which is likely due out in a couple of months at Mobile World Congress.

It’s a pretty rough photo — the icons are all blurred out and the cropping job isn’t great, likely in an effort to conceal the source. But it’s a pretty decent shot of the front — and hey, we probably have month and change to go for the thing to start leaking like crazy.

The most interesting bit here is probably the least surprising. After holding off on the notch last generation, Samsung has skipped it over entirely, instead opting for the hole-punch camera design we recently noted would be all the rage in 2019 smartphones. Huawei, notably, already beat Samsung to the proverbial hole-punch late last year with the Nova 4.

The “Beyond 1” mentioned here is the working title for the flagship phone. “Beyond 2” will likely be the S10 Plus, while the “Beyond 0” is expected to be a budget version, akin to the iPhone XR.

Another tidbit from the new leak is the phone’s apparent ability to wirelessly charge compatible handsets and perhaps even Samsung wearables. That would put the product in line with another recent Huawei handset, the Mate 20 Pro.



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