Replacement Samsung Galaxy Note 7 catches fire on airplane

Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 was supposed to be a cutting-edge halo device with an aggressive set of new features. Samsung’s original plan was to launch the device before Apple could field the iPhone 7, then reap the rewards of positive press while Apple grappled with unhappy customers who don’t want to shell out $160 for plastic earrings and prefer their devices with the ubiquitous headphone jack.

Instead, the Note 7 is mostly known for being a fire hazard. To Samsung’s credit, the company has been extremely proactive about dealing with the problem, and has repeatedly pushed its customer base to return the device for a refund or replacement. Unfortunately, the company’s battery problems might not be over.
Southwest Airlines Flight 944 from Louisville to Baltimore had to be evacuated this morning after passenger Brian Green’s Samsung Galaxy Note 7 caught fire. The Verge spoke to Green, who confirmed that his device showed the characteristic black box that distinguishes between a replacement Note 7 and an original version, and Green stated his battery icon had been green. That’s how Samsung has visually distinguished the new, safe Note 7s from the defective variants. The phone began smoking after Green turned it off and placed it in his pocket at the request of the flight crew. While the plane was still at the gate and could safely be evacuated, reports suggest that the phone (which was left on the plane for obvious reasons) burned through the carpet and into the subfloor of the aircraft.

Brian Green’s Galaxy Note 7 box, with the black box. (Image from The Verge)

Right now, it’s not clear if this failure was a one-off or a sign that Samsung’s battery problem isn’t as fixed as the company thought it was. At this point, either is possible. The fact is, a certain percentage of smartphones will suffer catastrophic battery failure. Even so, there are battery chemistries that are more-and-less susceptible to thermal runaway. It’s also possible to include safety systems that can react and stop a thermal runaway from causing a catastrophic fire, though I’m not aware of any of these being used in the space-constrained mobile environment, where manufacturers simultaneously slash thickness and push for improved battery capacities.

Right now, the explanation for Samsung’s battery failures is that one of the batteries the company uses was slightly too thick for the battery compartment. While this did not prevent the battery cover from fitting on the device, the cells of the lithium-ion battery were slightly compressed and therefore more likely to short-circuit. It’s possible that Samsung truly fixed the problem and this particular failure is unfortunately timed. It’s also possible that either some flawed batteries were mistakenly shipped in new units, or that the company’s initial recall failed to completely address the problem.

If this is a one-off for the replacement devices, Samsung shouldn’t have too much of a problem moving forward — but if more “good” Note 7’s keep catching fire, the company’s entire Note product could be tarnished for good. Earlier, we had praised Samsung’s quick response to the problem, but if it turns out they didn’t catch every instance of failure, it’ll blow up even larger than before.

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Samsung unveils next-generation 960 Pro, 960 Evo M.2 SSDs with blistering speeds, up to 2TB capacity

Samsung has been pushing the boundary of SSDs for several years — it was the first company to release a commercial 3D NAND drive, and it’s been aggressively pushing the new NVMe and PCI Express-based M.2 drive standard. Now, the company has taken another step forward with the 960 Pro. This is the successor to the 950 Pro that launched last year as Samsung’s first M.2 drive for the consumer PCI Express market. The Korean company is also launching the 960 EVO — and like its previous EVO drives, this one is based on TLC NAND.

What’s new, this time around, is the type of 3D NAND (Samsung calls it V-NAND) that the company is using. The 950 Pro relied on Samsung’s 32-layer NAND, while the 960 Pro is based on a denser, 48-layer NAND variant. More vertical NAND stacks translates directly to packing more NAND into the same area — Samsung’s 950 Evo was limited to 256GB and 512GB drives, while the 960 will be available in capacities up to 2TB. Previously, Samsung’s 32-layer V-NAND topped out at 128Gbit, while the new 960 Pro has 256Gbit chips.



While Samsung is keeping the same PCI Express 3.0 x4 lane defined in the M.2 specification, it has built a new controller, Samsung Polaris, rather than using the UBX controller in the 950 Pro, Anandtech reports. The already-excellent performance of the 950 Pro is expected to be even higher now, with the 960 Pro 2TB offering 3.5GB/s of sequential read and 2.1GB/s of sequential write, compared with 2.5GB/s and 1.5GB/s for the 950 Pro. The theoretical sequential read speed on the 960 Pro hasn’t quite bumped into the practical limit of the PCI Express 3.0 bus, but it’s getting close.

Meanwhile, the 960 EVO may use TLC NAND, but that doesn’t mean it’ll be slow. The new drive sports a 13-42GB SLC cache to speed reads and writes (13TB at 250GB, 42GB at 1TB). Sequential read speeds of 3.2GB and write speeds of 1.9GB are nearly as fast as the full 960 Pro, and while we saw multiple problems with the old 840 EVO drives, those issues appear to have been eradicated with the shift to 3D NAND instead of older 2D planar NAND.

Image by Anandtech

The new controller reportedly uses a five-core solution (up from three cores), with one dedicated to host management and four used for NAND flash communication. Samsung has also reportedly improved their own thermal management, resulting in a drive that can hold its peak performance for up to 95 seconds, compared with 63 seconds for the original 950 Pro, as shown above.

Expect to see more drives like this coming online in the next few years, as the SSD industry collectively moves to 3D NAND flash. As far as we know, Samsung is still building its NAND on an older 40nm process — as the industry moves towards smaller nodes for 3D NAND we should see further cost improvements, though the difficulty of building deep trenches at smaller process geometries may lead to slow improvement on this front.

The 960 Pro and 960 EVO will be available in October starting at $329.99 and $129.99.

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Apple A10 teardown sheds light on quad-core SoC, confirms Intel won modem contract

Every time a new Apple device ships, it’s interesting to see how manufacturing technology has advanced. This year is no exception. The Apple device teardown revealed a number of interesting details and confirmed a rumor we’d heard before — Intel did indeed win at least some of the iPhone 7’s modem business (Intel builds the modem inside the AT&T and T-Mobile devices, denoted as the A1778 and A1784). The Verizon and Sprint products (A1660 and A1661) use a Qualcomm modem.

Chipworks, which performed the teardown and analysis, doesn’t dive into the implications of a dual-sourced modem between Intel and Qualcomm, but this may have practical repercussions depending on how you intend to use the device. Because Intel’s modems don’t support CDMA, you won’t be able to take AT&T or T-Mobile devices to non-GSM networks. The Qualcomm modems, in contrast, support both GSM and CDMA, meaning they should be compatible on any carrier network across the country.

Still, this is a huge feather in Intel’s cap. The company hasn’t had great luck pushing its XMM modems into high-profile device wins — at least, none it has prominently discussed. Apple’s sheer volume should drive materially higher profits for Chipzilla’s networking division.



Unlike the iPhone 6s, which featured dual-sourcing between Samsung and TSMC, the iPhone 7 may be a TSMC-only design. Die size on the new chip is 125mm sq, a 20% size increase over the A9’s 104.5mm sq (at TSMC, the Samsung variant was smaller). According to Chipworks, the A10 is considerably more dense than the A9 thanks to better packing on Apple’s part — a straight scale-out of the A9 would’ve left Apple with a chip nearly 150mm sq, as compared to a relatively svelte 125mm sq.

The chip is built on TSMC’s 16FFC process. The “C” stands for compact, and the new node is intended for use in mainstream and low-power markets. Compared with 16nm FF+ (second-generation FinFET), FFC reduces SRAM area, leakage, and supports ultra-low power voltage modes (down to 0.6v). The diagram above shows Chipworks estimate on where specific features are located, after Anandtech helped them narrow down potential feature locations on the “little” CPU cores.

The battery is a 1960mAh unit, compared with the 1810mAh pack used in the iPhone 6s. The batteries that failed on Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7, in contrast, are nearly twice this size. Overall, the iPhone 7 is a significant manufacturing step forward for Apple, a solid debut for TSMC’s 16FFC process node, and a major win for Intel, which can claim a significant design win for its own modem technology.

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TECNO Camon C9 Eye Scanner, Overrated or Not?

 
Upon the release of the Camon C9, a lot of people thought the Camon C8 was the best camera phone, nonetheless, they felt the next phone in the Camon series will be better than the former.

What’s peculiarly interesting about the device is the eye scanner feature. Ideally, you need a backup passcode if you are to unlock your phone when there’s blackout.

Most people use their phones in bed when there is a blackout or when the lights are turned off, the passcode will come in handy here.
 

The Pros of the eye scanner
• You are allowed to register five different identities on the eye scanner
• In a situation where you choose not to use the eye scanner, there is an option of using pass codes.
• The scanner makes a lovely scientific sound that can make anyone feel ‘geeky’.
Con(s)
• It can be subject to light. Sometimes you have to re-register your eye print in the dark, especially if it was registered in good light.
If the eye scanner can be subject to light, then you need the backup passcode to gain access to your phone.
 
For a price of N49,900 the TECNO Camon C9 is good value for money. TECNO always gets their pricing right in order to steal the show.

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Samsung Just Killed The Micro Sd Card And This Is What Will Replace It

Samsung and SanDisk are looking to one-up each other when it comes to expandable memory for smartphones and any other device that supports a microSD card. SanDisk made a 200GB card last year that is quite affordable, and then Samsung came up with a 256GB model.

A few weeks ago, SanDisk matched Samsung’s 256GB card with two new microSD options of its own , both more affordable than Samsung’s card. But Samsung stepped up its game and killed the microSD card completely.

The company’s latest memory offering is a UFS 2.0 storage solution that will work with any device that has microSDXC support, but it offers the same lightning-fast storage experience as the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S7. In fact, these new cards are just as fast as SSD drives.

Samsung last year switched to UFS 2.0 storage for high-end mobile devices , with the Galaxy S6 being the first to get these new ultra-fast memory chips. Short for Universal Flash Storage, UFS can significantly improve the smartphone experience, allowing faster access to the contents of a phone. Expanding UFS 2.0 support to swappable cards seems only logical for Samsung, and the move would let diehard Android fans to take advantage of Android’s adoptable storage feature – here’s how to enable it on the Galaxy S7 .

Oddly enough, Samsung does not mention Android devices in its press release , saying the new memory card has been designed for “mobile shooting devices such as DSLRs, 3D VR cameras, action cams and drones.” Samsung did not announce actual release dates or pricing details for the UFS 2.0 memory cards either, but it did reveal performance details.

The cards offer “more than five times faster sequential read performance compared to that of a typical microSD card,” as they’re able to read sequentially at 530 MB/s, which is on par with SSD sequential read speeds.

“With this UFS card, consumers have the ability to read a 5GB, Full-HD movie in approximately 10 seconds, compared to a typical UHS-1 microSD card, which would take over 50 seconds with 95MB/s of sequential reading speed,” Samsung writes. “Also, at a random read rate of 40,000 IOPS, the 256GB card delivers more than 20 times higher random read performance compared to a typical microSD, which offers approximately 1,800 IOPS.”

UFS cards will read a 5GB Full HD movie in 10 seconds, compared to 50 seconds for a microSD card that can do up to 95MB/s sequential reading.

As for write speeds, the 256GB UFS card reaches a top speed of 170MB/s, or almost twice the speeds the fastest microSD card can achieve. “To shoot 24 large/extra fine JPEG photographs (1,120 megabyte (MB)-equivalent) continuously with a high-end DSLR camera, the 256GB UFS card takes less than seven seconds, compared to a UHS-1 microSD card which typically takes about 32 seconds, at 35MB/s,” Samsung explains.

Well, SanDisk, the ball is in your court now.

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Hackers claim DDoS knocked Pokémon GO offline last weekend

Pokémon GO has been an unbridled success since it launched about two weeks ago, and that comes amid sometimes crippling server issues. Developer Niantic was forced to slow its global rollout so it could add server capacity, and there are still some days that the game just won’t connect. This past weekend was particularly bad, and now a hacking group called OurMine is claiming responsibility for the downtime.

If you have not heard of Pokémon GO, I can only assume you’ve been living under a rock sans internet access for the last few weeks. Announced last year, the game grew out of a 2014 April Fools prank at Google that scattered all the original 151 Pokémon around Google Maps. It was a big hit, and Niantic (owned by Google at the time) started working with The Pokémon Company to make it into a real game.

Pokémon GO lets you wander the real world, hunting Pokémon and locating gyms in which to do battle.
The number of people playing the game is almost beyond belief — you’ll encounter people out playing the game almost everywhere. Niantic rolled the game out to 26 additional countries over the weekend, which many blamed for the problems. The game was inaccessible most of Saturday, throwing up server errors whenever most players tried to connect. OurMine says it carried out a DDoS attack on Niantic’s servers, and that was to blame for the outage, not an influx of new players.



According to a representative of OurMine, the group only wants to “protect” Niantic’s servers. So, obviously the best way is to flood them with traffic and ruin everyone’s Saturday. OurMine says it will stop attacking Pokémon GO if someone from Niantic contacts the group so they can “teach them how to protect their servers.” That does not seem likely to happen. This situation is very reminiscent of the Lizard Squad hacks of several years ago that targeted popular gaming services like Xbox Live and PSN.

So what now? Since it’s not likely Niantic’s engineers are going to come crawling to some internet pranksters for security tips, the attacks will probably continue until they get bored. A separate group, PoodleCorp, says it has a Pokémon GO DDoS scheduled for August 1st. Hopefully Niantic can at least get its regular server load under control before it’s hit again. You might want to get working on catching ’em all now just in case.

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Nvidia’s GTX 1060 GPU: Fast, cool, and potent competition for AMD’s RX 480

• By Joel Hruska on July 19, 2016 at 3:43 pm
• 36 Comments

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When AMD announced its RX 480 would launch in late June, it was virtually inevitable that Nvidia would follow suit with a midrange challenger of its own. Until now, the two companies have pursued different strategies with their 14nm refreshes — Nvidia chose to do a standard top-down refresh cycle, while AMD rolled out a midrange competitor first. The RX 480 proved to be potent competition for Nvidia’s previous-generation Maxwell products with competitive power consumption, more VRAM, and better overall performance.

Nvidia obviously wasn’t willing to risk losing sales in the larger mass market, even if its GTX 1080 and 1070 have locked down the high-end GPU space. As a result, we have the GTX 1060 — a 6GB Pascal GPU with 1,280 CUDA cores, 80 texture units, and 48 ROPS. Total memory bandwidth is 192GB/s, courtesy of a 192-bit memory bus.



Sample allocation on the GTX 1060 launch was extremely tight, which means our inbound Gigabyte sample hasn’t quite arrived yet. We’ve rounded up a number of GTX 1060 reviews from across the web, including TechSpot, TechPowerUp, THG, Hot Hardware, and Forbes. The major question on everyone’s mind: How does the GTX 1060 compare with the RX 480?

The short answer is: Pretty well — but it’s not the knockout blow that Nvidia wanted.
The GTX 1060 is generally faster than the RX 480, but the gap between the two cards shifts dramatically depending on the benchmark. Of the 23 distinct titles benchmarked by the various websites above, the GTX 1060 wins 14 of them, while the RX 480 takes nine. Pascal is extremely well-positioned against Polaris, with lower power consumption and superior overclocking. THG calculates its overall performance advantage over RX 480 at 13.5% while TechPowerUp reports a 7% difference in overall performance at 1080p.

The GTX 1060’s first problem is its cost. The GPU debuting today is the Founder’s Edition, priced at $299. Partner cards starting at $250 are already on the way, but the $300 version of the GPU is 25.5% more expensive than the RX 480 while offering 7 – 13.5% better performance. That gives the 8GB edition of the RX 480 a clear value advantage. The $250 version of the GTX 1060 will be far more competitive, but AMD has the 4GB RX 480 sitting at the $200 price point. Given that the performance difference between the 4GB and 8GB cards is minimal, a $200 4GB RX 480’s performance-per-dollar will compare extremely well against the GTX 1060.

Second, there’s the matter of which games the RX 480 wins. Four of its nine wins are in games that use new, low-latency APIs. Specifically, the RX 480 wins against the GTX 1060 in Hitman, Ashes of the Singularity, Doom, and even Gears of War: Ultimate Edition (according to Forbes the game is much improved). The GTX 1060 wins Rise of the Tomb Raider and the new DX12 version of the Total War: Warhammer title.

If we segregate the list into DX11 versus DX12, AMD wins 21.7% of the DirectX 11 comparisons and 67% of the DirectX 12 / Vulkan comparisons. That’s a non-trivial difference, and it could speak to the long-term strengths of GCN versus Pascal.

In the past I’ve cautioned readers against assuming that early DirectX 12 performance figures would be valid over the long term. We’re just shy of Windows 10’s one-year anniversary, and I have to say that the titles we’ve seen thus far have tended to favor AMD. There are a variety of explanations for this, including the argument that the reason Nvidia’s performance is flat in DX12 is because it did a far better job than AMD at maximizing performance under DirectX 11. Regardless of the reason, AMD is building a potent narrative about its own DirectX 12 performance — and Nvidia has yet to offer much in the way of an API counter-argument. The 1060 also gets a few dings for lacking SLI — the RX 480 supports Crossfire and comes in at a lower price target to boot.

Conclusions

The general opinion on the GTX 1060 is that it’s a very good GPU with lots of overclocking headroom and excellent power consumption characteristics. Reviewers are split on whether or not it qualifies as “better” than the RX 480. TechSpot declares AMD the overall winner thanks to superior performance-per-dollar and ongoing availability concerns about the GTX 1060, while TechPowerUp thinks the GTX 1060 will be the superior solution in the long term. Hot Hardware gave the overall nod to the GTX 1060 as well, as well as an Editor’s Choice award.

Critically, no one seems to think the Founder’s Edition of the card is a good buy; THG calls the $50 premium on the 1060 a “killer in any discussion of value.” If you care about maximum power efficiency and minimal noise, the GTX 1060 is a clear winner over the RX 480. If you’re more concerned with performance in DX12/Vulkan or care about maximizing your game performance per dollar, the situation is murkier and the  RX 480 is still quite compelling. Multiple reviewers recommend waiting for less expensive partner boards and evaluating the card on their characteristics before making a final decision.

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Volvo’s truly keyless entry: your smartphone

• y Bill Howard on March 15, 2016 at 11:27 am
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Is the $4 Freedom 251 Android phone a scam?

 

 A little-known technology firm in India made news a few weeks ago when it announced an Android smartphone that would sell for less than $4 (Rs. 251). While there was plenty of reason to be skeptical of this claim, the device seemed to exist in a few video demos. After taking reservations for the device over several days, Ringing Bells abruptly stopped, citing high demand. That’s about the time Indian government officials started looking more closely at the company. Now, one Indian MP is calling the phone a “ponzi scam.”

A ponzi scheme is a specific type of financial fraud where new victims are used to fund payouts to older ones. It’s not clear exactly what evidence MP Kirit Somaiya has that points in this direction, but he’s confident enough to take things public. The phone was given an air of legitimacy at the announcement by the presence of another MP, one Murli Manohar Joshi. The specs provided for the phone were low-end enough that you could almost believe the device was going to essentially be given away.

The device was said to feature a 4-inch qHD (960×540) LCD, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of storage, a 1,450mAh battery, and a 1.3GHz quad-core processor. Not exactly the fastest phone on the market, but good enough to run a few apps. Perhaps the most damning piece of evidence to emerge since the phone’s announcement is the branding on the demo device. You might notice there’s a white smudge on the face of the phone in many of the photos. That’s actually whiteout covering the “Adcom” branding.

So what is Adcom? It’s a Chinese smartphone maker that builds very low-cost devices. The Freedom 251 is a good match for the Adcom Ikon 4, which indeed has many of the same specs. This makes the last-minute change of the device renders on the Ringing Bells website all the more suspicious. When contacted about its role in the Freedom 251, Adcom denied it built the phone. That’s definitely the Ikon 4 chassis, though, so what’s going on?

From what I can tell, the Ikon 4 is a particularly sketchy phone that is sold throughout Asia for about Rs. 3600 ($50). Many of the promo photos of this phone simply have an iPod touch UI photoshopped in, which is particularly weird. Basically, Adcom is not a reputable company. They are either being dishonest about building the Freedom 251, or someone in the company sold some components to Ringing Bells that they probably should not have. The latter is actually the less troubling option.

If the Freedom 251 is just the Ikon 4, Ringing Bells would have some explaining to do. The Freedom 251 is supposed to be built mostly in India to reduce costs, according to the company’s president. Whether or not this is a scam in unclear, but it’s at least a very poorly planned launch.

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It’s all about precedent: Justice Department wants Apple to unlock 12 additional devices

 

 

One of the arguments the Justice Department has deployed in its bid to force Apple to bypass security protections on the iPhone is that there’s no precedent being set in the case. In a blog post to the website Lawfare, James Comey, director of the FBI, wrote: “The San Bernardino litigation isn’t about trying to set a precedent or send any kind of message. It is about the victims and justice.”

I have no doubt that Director Comey and other FBI agents sincerely believe that breaking into this particular iPhone is a matter of justice. The FBI’s claims that this isn’t about precedent, however, fall flat when you consider that the organization has submitted 12 additional claims under the All Writs Act that would force Apple to unlock other devices in various cases that have absolutely nothing to do with terrorism.



The list of cases runs the gamut, from devices running iOS 4.2.1, to hardware with iOS 9.1. All of these cases involve the All Writs Act, but none of the details have been made public yet. It’s been reported that Apple asked to have the San Bernardino battle sealed as well, but that the DOJ moved to make it public.

The power of precedent

The FBI’s claim that it isn’t trying to set precedent for using the All Writs Act to compel Apple to unlock devices falls apart when you consider the number of times the organization has already asked Apple to unlock its hardware in cases that have absolutely nothing to do with terrorism. The government agency has played up its role in fighting terrorism and dismissed Apple’s attempts to secure its own hardware as nothing more than a marketing strategy, as though consumer and corporate concerns on this front were meaningless. In the aftermath of the Snowden leaks, we know this isn’t true — the NSA (which shares data with the FBI) tapped Google’s international data center linkages as part of a deliberate effort to gain covert access to the company, even though it already had the legal authority to force Google to turn over data on any user it could name.

Some have argued that requiring Apple to bypass its own security standards is analogous to requiring the company to open a safe. But the security implications of forcing a company to hack its own devices go beyond unlocking a single physical device. It’s easy to see why the FBI chose to go public with a test case involving a horrific attack on innocent people, but the 12 other cases floating in the ether put the lie to the idea that this is a one-time or unusual affair.

The All Writs Act that’s being used to compel Apple’s cooperation is not a precisely worded statute that purports to protect device security or lays out the exact circumstances in which companies can be required to break their own device security to aid law enforcement. If concrete law existed on this topic in the first place, the FBI wouldn’t be relying on a 1789 statute to force Apple to comply.
Security expert Bruce Schneier writes:

[T]he hacked software the court and the FBI wants Apple to provide would be general. It would work on any phone of the same model. It has to.
Make no mistake; this is what a backdoor looks like. This is an existing vulnerability in iPhone security that could be exploited by anyone…
What the FBI wants to do would make us less secure, even though it’s in the name of keeping us safe from harm. Powerful governments, democratic and totalitarian alike, want access to user data for both law enforcement and social control. We cannot build a backdoor that only works for a particular type of government, or only in the presence of a particular court order.
Either everyone gets security or no one does. Either everyone gets access or no one does. The current case is about a single iPhone 5c, but the precedent it sets will apply to all smartphones, computers, cars and everything the Internet of Things promises. The danger is that the court’s demands will pave the way to the FBI forcing Apple and others to reduce the security levels of their smart phones and computers, as well as the security of cars, medical devices, homes, and everything else that will soon be computerized.

Schneier’s piece doesn’t address the fact that we now know Apple has been hit with 12 other requests for data on various iPhone’s. If the judgment stands, dozens of requests will become hundreds. If Apple protests that this has become too much for it to deal with, the government will undoubtedly offer to perform the forensic analysis itself. Eventually, some or all of the software will likely leak or the techniques to perform the process will be reverse-engineered.

Apple’s defense against the All Writs Act will challenge all three aspects of the ruling. The company will argue that it is too far removed from the device to be required to render aid, that the request is overly burdensome, and that its help is not necessary for the FBI to conduct a criminal investigation given that data is preserved on other devices.

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Samsung Galaxy S7 vs. S6 vs. S5: How does the new model stack up?

 

 Earlier this week, Samsung unveiled the Galaxy S7, with a host of refinements and improvements, including improved water protection, a larger battery, and the return of a microSD slot. While we recommend waiting for device reviews before drawing conclusions on whether or not to upgrade, we now the basic specs and positioning of the new hardware. If you’ve already got a Galaxy S5 or S6, should you be planning to jump for the new model?

This is a much easier to call to make if you’re still using a Galaxy S5 or an even earlier device. The Galaxy S7 is 64-bit, whereas these older products were based on 32-bit processors. It uses ARM SoCs built on Samsung’s second-generation 14nm chips, while the Galaxy S5 was built on previous-generation 28nm HKMG. The quad-core Snapdragon 801 / 805 CPUs at the heart of the S5 are still capable processors, but they’ll be thoroughly outperformed by the Snapdragon 820 and the Adreno 330 can’t hold a candle to expected performance on the Adreno 550.

Samsung’s Galaxy S5

The Galaxy S7 has sealed ports (the S5 used flaps for water protection), improved resolution (1440p, up from 1080p), and a somewhat larger screen if you opt for the S7 Edge (5.5 inch, versus 5.1-inch for both the S5 and S7 standard). The base storage on the S7 is twice that of the S5 (32GB vs 16GB) and the front camera is 5MP, up from 2MP.
If you’re currently using an S5 or earlier device, the S7 should deliver a noticeable improvement across multiple domains. If you’re comparing against the S6, however, the situation is a bit murkier.

Evolution, not revolution

The S7 is generally perceived as an evolution of the S6, just as Apple’s “S” smartphones are typically refined versions of the previous model. The S7 will almost certainly be significantly faster than the S6, but that’s only going to matter if you’re the type of user that’s pushing a mobile device for everything it can handle right now.

The S7 offers superior water protection (IP68 certification vs. IP67 for the S6), a larger battery, the much-beloved microSD slot, either Samsung’s Exynos 8 8890 Octa or Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 820 depending on your market, and 4GB of RAM, up from 3GB. The camera bulge is gone on this model, and as we’ve already covered, the overall display quality is amazing. Burst performance should also be better, thanks to the integrated heat pipe.

The Galaxy S6 Edge

On the whole, however, the S7 is an evolutionary step forward from what the S6 offered. That’s not unique to Samsung — as the pace of technological advance has slowed, so has the need to replace devices on a yearly or even bi-yearly basis.

VR could throw a wrench into some of these arguments, and I think it’s telling that Samsung is including a free Gear VR headset with pre-orders for the Galaxy S7. If you’re already going to buy the phone no matter what, I agree, the VR headset is a great added value. If you’re on the fence about it, it may be worth waiting to see if Samsung can create a library of compelling VR content around the hardware. VR on Android hasn’t received the same attention as VR on Windows, and some reports have suggested that mobile battery life takes a serious beating when VR is in-use.

If you don’t have an application that seriously pushes the Galaxy S6, I don’t think the S7 will be a necessary upgrade — but users on older devices will see significant improvements, and cutting-edge users who want to use VR headsets should also benefit.

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Samsung announces new 14nm, octa-core SoC: Exynos 7 Octa 7870

 

 Mobile World Congress is right around the corner, and that means the various SoC vendors are gearing up to talk about their next-generation hardware. Yesterday, Samsung announced a new Exynos processor built on its 14nm technology and aimed at midrange devices — the Exynos 7 Octa 7870.
Samsung’s verbiage implies that this new chip will tap the company’s second-generation 14nm technology (14nm LPP), rather than the 14nm LPE process that powered both the Galaxy 6’s Exynos 7 7420 and Apple’s iPhone 6. The new midrange SoC will feature eight Cortex-A53 cores clocked at up to 1.6GHz; the Korean manufacturer claims that these chips consume 30% less power than its 28nm HKMG technology while offering identical performance. This appears to be Samsung’s first foray into eight-core Cortex-A53 processors — other companies, like MediaTek and Qualcomm, have launched a number of chips in this family, but Samsung has held off.

It’s not clear how overall performance will compare against other midrange Samsung SoCs. The company’s previous 28nm chips were typically Cortex-A15 + Cortex-A7 cores in a 4+4 big.Little configuration. Data from Anandtech suggests that the Cortex-A53 is as much as 49% faster, clock-for-clock, than the older Cortex-A7 (a direct comparison against the Cortex-A15). Compare the SPEC and Geekbench results for the Cortex-A15 against the A53, and it’s clear that the 64-bit low-power CPU doesn’t compare well against the 32-bit Core-A15 in terms of absolute performance.

Samsung is already expected to launch the Exynos 7 7870 into an updated version of the Galaxy J7 (2015 version pictured here).

While I don’t expect an octa-core A53 to be a high performer, there’s a positive side to this: Samsung is clocking the Cortex-A53 at just 1.6GHz. That’s significantly lower than we saw from MediaTek at 28nm, where its CPUs often hit 1.9 – 2.1GHz — and that means these new cores should be quite power-friendly.

I’m not going to make any promises before we know if smartphones bound for the United States will use this SoC, but Samsung’s 1.6GHz octa-core might make for a great midrange smartphone with modest top-end performance but excellent battery life.

It may face some steep competition from Qualcomm when it launches. The upcoming Snapdragon 625 is also an eight-core Cortex-A53 design built on 14nm LPP at Samsung, but with a top speed of 2GHz. Expect to see both devices duking it out for market share between the two companies, though they may be confined to Asian markets, which have traditionally put more emphasis on CPU core counts.

FCC data suggests that the upcoming Samsung Galaxy J7 will pack a 3300 mAh battery, substantially more than the 2,550 mAh battery used in devices like the Galaxy S6. Combined with the power improvements at 14nm, these new phones should have excellent battery life.  Samsung’s Galaxy S7 is expected to debut the company’s first custom CPU core, but Samsung is leaning on ARM for its midrange products and designs.

P.S.: Samsung, please do something about your product nomenclature before next year rolls around and we’re all forced to say “Exynos 8 Octa” or something equally silly.

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New iOS 9.2.1 update un-bricks iPhones, fixes ‘Error 53′

 

 Earlier this month we reported on Apple’s “Error 53″ message and how it bricked perfectly functional iPhones without warning, often after the devices were upgraded to iOS 9. Apple eventually clarified that the problem, which was limited to devices equipped with Touch ID, occurred if a third-party performed repairs to the device and replaced either the home button or the cable that connected the Touch ID sensor to the smartphone’s logic board.

Now, Apple has released a new build of iOS 9.2.1 that will “un-brick” devices previously crippled by Error 53. This new build of the operating system doesn’t include any other new features or capabilities, and it’s strictly meant for customers who currently have a $600 rectangular paperweight sitting somewhere around the house.

Initially, Apple defended bricking customer devices by claiming it did so to ensure Touch ID and Apple Pay were kept secure. This never made much sense, given the length of time that could pass between when a customer repaired a device and when the device failed. A security system that doesn’t lock down an insecure device for eight to 12 months isn’t particularly secure.

Error 53

Now, Apple has backed away from this explanation altogether. In a statement to TechCrunch, Apple explained the problem thusly:

This reports as an Error 53 in iTunes and appears when a device fails a security test. This test was designed to check whether Touch ID works properly before the device leaves the factory.
Today, Apple released a software update that allows customers who have encountered this error message to successfully restore their device using iTunes on a Mac or PC.
We apologize for any inconvenience, this was designed to be a factory test and was not intended to affect customers. Customers who paid for an out-of-warranty replacement of their device based on this issue should contact AppleCare about a reimbursement.

There is one caveat to this update: Touch ID will no longer function on an iPhone that’s been repaired by a third party. First, kudos to Apple for doing the right thing on this issue. Disabling Touch ID if the component doesn’t authenticate properly is the sane way to deal with the problem, particularly when the alternative was bricking a device with zero warning or explanation. Given that Apple doesn’t license any third-party stores to provide repairs in the United States, this entire situation looked like an attempt to force people to pay whatever “official” rate Apple wanted to charge for device repair, while freezing small competitors out of business.

The Touch ID sensor. Image by iFixit

Giving users the option to decide if they want to pay for Apple to fix their Touch ID system is a much better way to deal with the problem. We’re also glad to see the company acknowledging users who were forced to buy new devices and offering them reimbursements for the expense. Presumably they won’t have to return the devices they purchased, since the original models were likely thrown away.

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Transcend announces ‘SuperMLC’ as an SLC NAND alternative

 

 

 Transcend Information has announced a new type of SuperMLC (multi-level cell) NAND that it believes can satisfy the needs of enterprise customers who prize both speed and reliability, while offering the lower price points and mass manufacturing advantages that characterize conventional MLC memory.

Modern NAND flash can hold one, two, or three bits of information per cell. Single-bit NAND is called SLC (single-level cell), two-bit NAND is MLC, and three-bit NAND is TLC (triple-level cell). While the exact specifications and reliability ratings for each type of flash vary from company to company, SLC NAND is the fastest and most durable, followed by MLC, followed by TLC.

The graph below shows how this plays out in terms of programming voltage for MLC vs. SLC NAND.



Note that when writing, the voltage to write each cell has to be precisely calibrated for MLC, whereas SLC can happily swing across the 1V – 3V range. I couldn’t find an equivalent graph for TLC, but imagine eight distinct voltage squeezed into the same space as MLC’s four curves, and you’ve got the idea. It takes longer to program TLC cells, and the cells themselves degrade much more quickly.

As for endurance, the graph below shows how TLC, MLC, and SLC stack up. The EM-MLC line is for a specific company’s product, and isn’t necessarily relevant to this discussion without knowing a great deal more about what Transcend is implementing.



SLC NAND is very fast, very durable, and extremely expensive, MLC NAND is the middle-of-the-road consumer option, and TLC still offers significant performance improvements compared to conventional HDDs, but is unsuitable for heavy professional use or enterprise deployments.

Over the last 24 months, a number of companies have introduced hybrid drive management schemes to leverage the capabilities of SLC and the cost-effectiveness of either MLC or TLC. Samsung’s 840 EVO and 850 EVO drives use a slice of each TLC NAND chip as SLC, greatly improving performance. Crucial and several other companies also dynamically allocate part of their drive as SLC, adjusting this cache as required depending on how full the drive is.

What Transcend is doing is binning high-quality MLC, then treating it like SLC. In theory, this provides 4x the write performance and up to 30,000 program/erase cycles. That’s not identical to what the graph above illustrates, but it’s close enough for our purposes — specialized MLC-as-SLC can offer better performance and endurance than standard MLC, but at lower costs. Combine this approach with the additional reliability and performance we’ve seen from 3D NAND ,and manufacturers may soon be able to offer MLC-as-SLC products with capabilities that fully rival conventional 2D planar SLC.

For now, Transcend is confining this capability to its industrial hardware. But if the concept proves sound, we’re almost guaranteed to see it deployed in a high-end consumer drive. NAND flash technologies tend to debut in enterprise or industrial settings first, so the fact that Transcend isn’t jumping to push this tech into consumer hardware doesn’t mean we won’t see that happen within a year.

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CES 2016 Preview: Smart Home Gadgets

 
Last year's CES focused a lot on the Internet of Things, a clunky, vague term that came to define products fitted with electronics, software, and Wi-Fi connectivity.

Basically, it means everything from your oven to your toothbrush to your dog's food bowl will be able to connect to your phone, the Web, and your social networks, where you'll control every possible parameter and share your hygiene and cooking habits with the world. It's a neat if potentially alarming idea, and we're sure to see even more home appliances take advantage of wireless networking at CES 2016.

Beginning to See the Light
Smart bulbs are rapidly replacing traditional incandescent bulbs. They last longer, use less energy, and you can control them with a few taps on your smartphone or tablet. They can also feature a whole host of functions unrelated to lighting. Companies like Sengled and MiPow $69.99 at Amazon will likely show off more bulbs with integrated speakers so you can play music from your phone via Bluetooth. Hopefully the speakers' sound will be improved since most current versions sound a bit tinny.

Sengled already sells a bulb that boosts your Wi-Fi signal to dead zones around your house, and we can expect to see more lighting solutions like that, including ones that respond to your voice, send you reminders, or come with an HD camera so you can monitor your home while away. All of this will simply become more intuitive.

Companies like Caséta $59.95 at Amazon will likely introduce more remote controls to control your lights, as well as wall-mounted or tabletop lights that allow you to record favorite lighting scenes and other light bulbs. Caséta, along with other companies' products, like Philips Hue Bridge 2.0 £49.95 at Amazon, now works with Apple HomeKit, too, so iPhone users can talk to Siri to control their lights. Expect almost every lighting solution on the show floor to connect with HomeKit in some way.

Speaking of Protocols…Bluetooth LE, Lutron ClearConnect, Wi-Fi, Z-Wave, and ZigBee are all home automation and connectivity protocols, and they'll all rear their heads at CES 2016. But the one to look out for may be something called Bluetooth mesh networking, a new standard that will extend the distance for Bluetooth technology. That means you won't need a Wi-Fi network to connect smart bulbs or other appliances across an entire home. No doubt many products at CES 2016 will take advantage of this upcoming initiative.

Appliance PartyRobotic cleaning vacuums like the Neato Botvac Connected £547.97 at Amazon and the iRobot Roomba 980$899.99 at Amazon are another category that will grow even more in 2016. All of the usual appliance manufacturers, from Samsung to LG to GE, will most likely have fridges, ovens, microwaves, and robots with Wi-Fi to debut, so you can check the temperature of your meals, clean your throw rub, and monitor the lettuce while you're doing other things.

We also know that Haier will debut a fridge modeled after R2-D2 at this CES. It bloops and bleeps like you'd expect, but it even moves around on its own, like BB-8£128.60 at Amazon and delivers drinks to you. But don't get too excited. It's going to cost $9,000.

And the Weird…Surely, we'll see some outright strange smart home products at CES 2016, including peripheral devices that make dumb things "smart." They'll automatically turn light switches on and off, close doors and windows, and connect regular smoke detectors to wireless networks via sound recognition. You can find similar things like that on Indiegogo, like the Microbot Push, a robotic finger that, well, pushes buttons. It's gonna be great.
 
That should give you an idea of the tech you're going hear about at this CES. For all of the official announcements, along with photos and video, stay tuned for in-depth coverage from the CES show floor.

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Report: Samsung Pay Coming to Lower-Cost Phones

 
The gift-giving season may be over, but Samsung reportedly has one more present for owners of lower-priced smartphones.
 
Samsung Pay Global Co-General Manager Thomas Ko this week told Reuters that the mobile payment service will expand to more handsets "within the next year."
 
Initially introduced in South Korea via a handful of phones, Samsung Pay arrived in the U.S. in late September alongside the Galaxy Note 5 $349.99 at Best Buy and Galaxy S6 Edge $299.99 at Best Buy devices. The program uses NFC and magnetic stripe transmission (MST) for tap-to-pay functionality compatible with Visa, MasterCard, and American Express.

Currently available on all major U.S. wireless networks and Galaxy S6£389.97 at Amazon, S6 Edge, S6 Edge Plus$349.99 at Best Buy, and Note 5 smartphones, the mobile wallet is expected to reach more lower-priced devices soon. There is no word, however, on which smartphones will join the lineup.

Samsung also reportedly plans to soon add online payment support — a perk already available to Android Pay and Apple Pay users.
 
Samsung did not immediately respond to TCMall's request for comment.

The tech titan entered the mobile payment arena in February with its acquisition of LoopPay, a mobile wallet firm that lets users pay with their phones.

A recent LoopPay breach, however, did not affect Samsung Pay, the company promised in October. An attack by the "Codoso Group" or "Sunshock Group" affected three servers on LoopPay's internal office network, separate from the one that handles mobile payment transactions.

Apple, meanwhile, debuted its own payment system in the fall of 2014 on its iPhone 6, 6 Plus, and new iPads; the service also works on the Apple Watch.

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Phablets, iDevices Popular This Christmas

 
If you turned on a shiny phablet or unwrapped an Apple gadget this Christmas, you're not alone.

According to an annual holiday report from mobile analytics firm Flurry, new device activations and app installs shattered records this year — and tipped a new trend in consumer electronics. As tablet sales continue to sink, the mid-sized phablet is quickly filling the gap between smartphones and PCs.

Two years ago, 4 percent of new device activations in the week leading up to Christmas were phablets, Flurry said. In 2015, the giant phones accounted for 27 percent of activations.

"It looks like this once-derided (even by us!) form factor appears here to stay," the company wrote in a blog post.
Since Apple's iPhone 6 Plus $299.00 at Verizon Wireless hit shelves in September 2014, more folks have been gravitating toward the phablet's big-but-still-able-to-fit-in-my-hand display. And, according to Flurry, Android devices (particularly the Samsung Galaxy Note) are also gaining popularity, especially in Asia.

But phablets aren't necessarily stealing market share from tablets: It appears consumers are opting for the 6-inch-plus handsets instead of smaller-sized smartphones (with 3.5-inch screens), which are nearing extinction.

Meanwhile, whether it was an iPhone 6s Plus, and iPad Pro, or a new iMac, Cupertino won this year's holiday shopping battle — again. Based on Flurry's data, Apple took the top spot with 49.1 percent of all new devices, down 2.2 percent from last year.

Samsung trailed with a second-place 19.8 percent, up 2.1 percent in 2014 thanks to the new Galaxy Grand Prime, Core Prime, and S6. Microsoft's Nokia, meanwhile, dropped from 5.8 percent to 2 percent, and Sony was knocked out of the top five manufacturers by newcomer Xiaomi.

"This is especially striking since Christmas is not the biggest gifting day of the year in China, and makes Xiaomi's rumored U.S. entry next year even more exciting," Flurry said.

iDevices and phablets weren't the only things weighing down Santa's sleigh this year. Fitbits proved a popular gift: The company's app shot to No. 1 in the iTunes App Store on Christmas Day, as millions of people presumably unwrapped a new fitness tracker and got a head start on New Year's resolutions.

Christmas also marked the biggest day of the year for mobile application downloads, counting 2.2 times as many installs on Dec. 25 as an average day the rest of the month.

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Samsung TVs Will Control Your Smart Home

The connected home is about to get even more connected: Samsung is turning your TV set into a smart home controller.

All of Samsung's 2016 SUHD (or "Superior 4K UHD") TVs will come with Internet of Things hub technology from SmartThings, allowing users to control lights, locks, thermostats, speakers, cameras, and other home appliances, the companies have announced.

Too lazy to leave the couch to dim the lights or turn off the streaming music? Just pick up the TV remote to manage devices directly from the SmartThings app on the big screen. (And when you've lost the controller between sofa cushions, a mobile version of the app is available on smartphones.)

"The 2016 lineup of Smart TVs will offer consumers new possibilities and cement Samsung's market leading position as the first company to launch IoT-ready TVs," Hyun Suk Kim, president of Samsung's Visual Display Business, said in a statement.

Users can pause Game of Thrones to check when visitors arrive and open the front door — without putting down the popcorn.

But to take full advantage of SmartThings-compatible products at home, you'll need more than just a new television set: Connect your SUHD TV with the free SmartThings Extend USB adaptor, which adds support for ZigBee and Z-Wave devices.

"With Samsung Smart TVs working with the SmartThings technology, we have an opportunity to reach millions of households," SmartThings CEO Alex Hawkinson said. "Applying this technology into current household devices is a major step forwards that will make it much easier for everyone to experience the benefits of a smart home."

But keep in mind that while every 2016 SUHD TV does come with built-in IoT technology, functionality will be activated regionally as SmartThings expands platform availability. So you may not be able to tap into these features immediately.

Samsung will show off its SmartThings-enabled Smart TVs at January's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, ahead of the product's 2016 public availability. A specific timeline for the television's rollout has not been revealed.

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Save Big on a Samsung Galaxy Prevail Smartphone

 
Looking for an affordable smartphone for your kids? Check out today's deal from FreedomPop.

For just $49.99, you can get a 4.5-inch pre-owned Samsung Galaxy Prevail, and enjoy 200 voice minutes, 500 text messages, and 500MB of LTE data every month for free for the life of the device.

Get this deal

In terms of specs, the Samsung Galaxy Prevail features a 1.2GHz quad-core CPU, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of internal storage (expandable to 128GB with a memory card), a 4.5-inch 800-by-480 display, a 5 megapixel rear-facing camera, a 2MP front-facing camera for selfies, and a 2000mAH battery. And since it's running Android 5.1 Lollipop, it has access to hundreds of thousands of apps in the Google Play store.

Earlier this year, PCMag reviewed this smartphone, and we had a handful of really nice things to say about it. For example, the build quality here is surprisingly solid. We didn't love the relatively low-res screen or the rear-facing camera, but our biggest complaint was the $129.99 asking price. But since FreedomPop is offering up a pre-owned model for less than half the original asking price, that's a non-issue now.

With your purchase, you'll get a free trial of the Premium Plus service (normally $7.99 per month) and the unlimited text, talk, and 1GB data plan (normally $19.99 per month). To take advantage of the completely free service, you'll need to cancel both trials before the next billing period starts. Once that's done, you won't have to pay for monthly service as long as you stay within your usage allotment.

However, if you find that you do need more texts, talk time, or data, FreedomPop offers the aformentioned  $19.99 plan, or a cheaper $10.99 offering. And since there are no long-term contracts, you're free to cancel whenever you'd like and revert back to the free plan.

For more great deals, check out TechBargains.com.

Our commerce group sources the best deals and products for theTCMall Deals posts. We operate independently of Editorial and Advertising and may earn a percentage of the sale, if you buy something via a link on the post. If you are interested in promoting your deals, please contact us at robinkhay@gmail.com

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Samsung Unveils New Bio-Processor For Fitness Wearables

The wearable device market has exploded over the past couple of years, and Samsung now wants a bigger piece of it.

The tech giant on Tuesday introduced a new chip dubbed the Samsung Bio-Processor, designed for health-oriented wearables. Now in mass production, the all-in-one chip can process numerous "biometric signals" without the need for any external processing parts. Aside from just heart rate, it can measure body fat, skeletal muscle mass, heart rhythm, skin temperature, and stress level.


It's also pretty tiny, which is a good thing when it comes to wearable technology. Samsung said it's about a quarter of the total combined size of its discrete parts, making it "ideal for small wearables, offering a bounty of options when designing new devices."

The company said customers today want their fitness gadgets to do more than just monitor heart rate.

"With improvements in smart, fitness devices and an increase in consumer health consciousness, more and more people are looking for ways to monitor various personal [biometric] data, or fitness data, to constantly manage their health" Ben K. Hur, vice president of marketing for Samsung's System LSI business, said in a statement. "Samsung's Bio-Processor… is the most versatile health and fitness monitoring chip available on the market today and is expected to open up many new health-based service options for our customers."

Samsung said its Bio-Processor will be available in fitness and health devices within the first half of 2016.
Meanwhile, IDC in September predicted that worldwide wearable device shipments will reach 76.1 million units this year, up more than 163 percent from the 28.9 million units shipped in 2014. By 2019, shipments are expected to grow even further—to 173.4 million units.

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