Samsung Announces New 85-Inch UHD TV and Curved Sets

Samsung announced three new UHD televisions on Tuesday, including two curved sets and a monstrous $10,000 addition to its HU8550 series.

At a whopping 85 inches, the new TV is the largest set in Samsung's HU8550 lineup, though it's not the company's largest UHD TV, which is 110 inches. The television will sell for $10,000 when it becomes available later this month.

The two new curved sets — part of Samsung's new HU7250 lineup — come in more manageable 55- and 65-inch varieties, and will retail for $2,200 and $3,300, respectively, when they hit stores in August. The new curved offerings are powered by a quad-core processor, and include Samsung's UHD Dimming feature, which adjusts the display's brightness and contrast. They also have the ability to display content from four different sources onscreen, simultaneously.

Finally, Samsung announced its new HU6950 series, new flat screens meant to be more affordable UHD TV offerings. The sets come with some of the same features as Samsung's flagships, including UHD Dimming, UHD Upscaling and multiscreen capabilities. The HU6950 lineup come in 40-, 50- and 55-inch options, and will cost between $1,000 and $2,000.

Image: Samsung

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Xiaomi's Mi Pad Is Almost a Spitting Image of the iPad Mini

If you thought Samsung was notorious for copying Apple, China's Xiaomi is in its own class. The company's Mi Pad tablet looks so much like the Apple iPad mini, it's eerie.

The company's first tablet, unveiled in Beijing on Thursday, has display specs that are identical to the iPad mini With Retina Display: a 7.9-inch screen with a 4:3 aspect ratio and 2,048 x 1,536 resolution. The proportions of the bezel look extremely similar — with thin sides and a thicker top/bottom — and Xiaomi even went to the trouble of making the Android-based UI resemble iOS 7, according to CNET.

The design resembles what you might get from a mating of the iPad mini and the iPhone 5C. The tablet is thicker and heavier than the iPad mini at 0.33 inch and 12.7 ounces, and the back is made of plastic. It also comes in multiple colors, including pinkish-red, blue, bright green yellow, gray and white. To Apple, that's a familiar palette.

The Xiaomi Mi Pad packs a quad-core Nvidia Tegra K1 processor with 2GB of RAM and runs Android 4.4.2. The rear camera is 8 megapixels while the front-facing camera is an impressive 5 megapixels. The non-removable battery is relatively large at 6,700 milliamp-hours (mAh). It'll come in 16GB and 64GB versions.

Another important way Xiaomi's tablet differs from the iPad mini is price: While Apple's high-res tablet starts at $399, the Mi Pad is just $240 (both for 16GB). That's even less than the regular ole (low-res) iPad mini, which starts at $299.

While Apple (and even Samsung) knockoffs are commonplace in China, the Mi Pad is notable since it comes from one of China's fastest-rising smartphone makers, and one that appeared to be on the road to mainstream legitimacy.

Founded in 2010, Xiaomi quickly established itself in China's crowded mobile market, recently becoming the country's third largest smartphone vendor. In 2013, the company hired Hugo Barra away from Google's Android division to be its vice president of global operations.

Image: XAIOMI

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Report: Samsung's First Tizen Smartphones Are Coming to Russia and India

It looks like the first Tizen-based Samsung smartphones are finally getting closer to release.

The Korean electronics giant is preparing to launch a Tizen-based smartphone in Russia and India, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The Russian release will reportedly coincide with the Tizen Developer Conference, which takes place in San Francisco this June. Samsung will hold a launch event in Russia that's similar to its global Galaxy launches, WSJ reported.

Tizen is an open-source, Linux-based operating system led by Intel and Samsung. Like Samsung's previous Bada effort, Tizen is focused on emerging markets and low-cost devices.

Samsung's efforts to bring a Tizen-based smartphone to the market have been beset with delays. The first Tizen release was originally planned for 2012, which then became 2013. After 2013 came and went with no Tizen release, Samsung delayed the release of its first Tizen phone again in January.

Meanwhile, carrier partners — including Japan's NTT DoCoMo — have lost interest. Because Tizen is designed to run on a variety of devices, a few Tizen-based products have hit the market, including Samsung's Gear 2 smartwatch.

A Google-free OS

Samsung already controls 65% of the Android-device market, so why should it even bother with Tizen?

Two words: Ecosystem control.

Because it uses Android, Samsung's current mobile-device strategy relies on Google. Although Samsung can make some changes and tweaks to the interface, and offer its own unique applications, fundamental aspects of the OS must remain in Google's control. What's more, the future direction of the platform is shaped by Google, not Samsung.

With Tizen, Samsung has the opportunity to build its own platform. Not only can Samsung customize this platform in ways that Google won't let it (say, put in a different default mapping client or make changes to the interface), it also has the potential to build its own app ecosystem — one that Samsung, not Google, can profit from.

So why Russia and India? Samsung already has a strong presence in these markets, and as WSJ noted, the company is hoping users will be swayed by the Samsung brand (and low price point), rather than access to Android and Google apps.

It also aims to capture users in India and Russia who don't have smartphones. Like Facebook, Samsung hopes they will become life-long customers.

In that vein, the point of Tizen isn't to steal business from the 1.5 billion users who already have smartphones, it's to attract the next 2 billion smartphone users.

It's a strategy that could pay off. As long as Samsung ensures that the most-used applications (i.e. WhatsApp, Facebook) are available, it could be enough to take over the lowest end of the smartphone market. These users could then graduate to more expensive, premium Samsung smartphones in the future.

This tactic is similar to what Nokia is trying to do with its Android-based devices. The difference (aside from built-in support for existing third-party Android app stores), is that Samsung is an aspirational brand in a way that Nokia is not.

Will anyone care?

Of course, this is Samsung, so execution will be essential. The company is famous for having great ideas that don't necessarily take off because the experience isn't seamless.

What's more, Chinese and Taiwanese phone makers are increasingly pushing down prices of higher-end, Android-based smartphones. This ruins some of the appeal of a Tizen-based Samsung device, at least in regions that already have some 3G infrastructure.

It's possible that Tizen's true value might not be realized for several years. In the meantime, Samsung's strategy of basing its non-smartphone connected devices on Tizen, might have more of an impact.

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Samsung NX3000 Camera Lets You Get Serious About Selfies

In the NX Mini, Samsung introduced a camera for the selfie-obsessed, including an LCD that flips a full 180 degrees and special settings for self portraits. Now that feature is getting a second home in the NX3000.

Whereas the NX Mini prioritized a slim form factor and speed over all else, the NX3000 is a more "traditional" mirrorless camera. Its APS-C sensor captures the same 20 megapixels as the NX Mini's, but its larger size will give image quality a boost, plus it makes the camera compatible with the diverse NX line of lenses (the Mini's 1-inch sensor requires different optics).

The marquee feature is the flip-up LCD, which gives selfie lovers the perfect way to set up a high-quality shot of themselves. Not only will you benefit from the NX3000's lens and sensor, but the camera's Self Shot mode will also automatically airbrush your selfies by default (you can turn the feature off for the "natural" look). You can also set it up to snap your selfie either after a 3-second countdown, when you smile or when you wink at the camera.

The NX3000 has a shutter speed that maxes out at 1/4,000 of a second and can capture up to six RAW photos per second. ISO is adjustable from 100 to 25,600. Just like the NX Mini, it saves to microSD cards instead of full-size ones, both to cut down on space and make them quickly swappable into a smartphone.

There's a micro USB port for data and charging (it has the same battery as in many Galaxy smartphones) as well as a micro HDMI port for displaying photos and videos on a TV. The body comes in brown, black and white, and it ships with a 16-50mm power-zoom lens that includes optical image stabilization. A detachable flash is included.

The NX300 will be available June 1 for the tidy sum of $529 (with 16-50mm OIS Power Zoom and a SEF-8 Flash), or about as much as the NX Mini (depending on the lens). A version with a 20-50mm lens and SEF-8 flash will also be available for the price of $479.

Whichever you choose is a question of how much you prioritize lens compatibility, overall slimness and that potential extra bump in image quality. But in either case, you'll get the best selfies you've ever taken.

Image: SAMSUNG

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Samsung's Galaxy Beam 2 Smartphone Has a Built-In Projector

Remember Samsung Galaxy Beam? It was one of the first smartphones on the market that included a built-in projector — a trend that never caught on in the global market.

There seems to be some demand for such a gadget in China, as Samsung just launched the successor to the Beam in that market: the Samsung Galaxy Beam 2.

It's a mid-range, Android 4.2 device, with a 4.66-inch, 800x480 pixel display, a 1.2GHz quad-core CPU and 1GB of RAM. If you need a tiny projector to go, though, it's probably your best bet. The projector, which has a WVGA resolution, is located on top of the device.

The device will be available through China Mobile for a yet-undisclosed price. International availability has not been announced.

via :Engadget

IMAGE: SAMSUNG

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Samsung to Launch Android Wear Device, Tizen Phone This Year

Samsung plans to launch an Android Wear device as well as a Tizen smartphone in 2014, Reuters reports.

The first Tizen phone from Samsung will be a high-end model, and should launch around the end of Q2 2014, Yoon Han-kil, senior vice president of Samsung's product strategy team, told Reuters in an interview. It will be followed by a mid-range device, which will launch at an unspecified date.

Samsung was slated to launch a Tizen-based phone as early as 2013, but the device was delayed.

On the wearables front, even though Samsung's Gear smartwatches are Tizen-based, the company still plans to launch an Android Wear wearable device this year. Google officially launched its wearables platform in March 2014, and several major consumer electronic brands, including Samsung, jumped on board.

Without mentioning any numbers Yoon Han-kil also confirmed that the Galaxy S5 is selling "much better" than the Galaxy S5. "(The S5) is selling faster than the S4 so far, though it's difficult to share specific numbers as we're still at early stages," Yoon said.

Image: SAMSUNG

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Samsung Unveils Galaxy Tab4 Mid-Range Tablets

Samsung unveiled the Galaxy Tab4 series, its latest mid-range tablets, on Tuesday.

The Galaxy Tab4 is expected to go on sale in the second quarter, and will come in three sizes: 7-inch, 8-inch and 10.1-inch. The Tab4 will be available in black and white, as well as in Wi-Fi and LTE varieties.

In terms of specs, these tablets won't be able to compete with what Samsung is offering on its Galaxy NotePro and TabPro, but are solidly middle-of-the-road.

The Galaxy Tab4 tablets feature:

> Quad-core 1.2Ghz processor

> WXGA screen (1280x800 resolution)

> Android 4.4 KitKat

> 3 megapixel rear camera and 1.3MP front camera

> 802.11n Wi-Fi

> Bluetooth 4.0

We're a little bit confused as to why Samsung is offering both a 7-inch and 8-inch Tab4, given the similarity in specs. The 7-inch model will also be available in 3G, presumably for emerging markets without LTE, but it still seems odd to have two tablets that are virtually the same size and have the same internal hardware.

If Samsung can price these tablets firmly under the $350 range, it could offer some competition to Apple, Amazon and Google's tablet offerings.

Image: SAMSUNG

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Samsung Names Its Price for Gear Fit, Gear 2 Smartwatch

For those awaiting more details about Samsung's new Gear 2 smartwatch and Gear Fit wristband tracker, the company announced pricing and availability on Thursday.

According to Sammobile.com, which reported Samsung's official pricing for Taiwan, the Gear 2 will cost $299 in the U.S., while the Gear Fit will go for $199.

Samsung later told that the Gear 2 Neo, which is similar to the Gear 2 smartwatch but has a plastic exterior and comes without a camera, will also cost $199.

The devices will go on sale in April, but the pre-sale starts on Friday via BestBuy.com.

Last month, Samsung introduced the Gear 2 as its second-generation smartwatch, touting a heart-rate sensor, music player and infrared emitter that could be used to control a TV. It's also powered by Tizen; the previous Galaxy Gear smartwatch ran on Android.

Meanwhile, the Gear Fit comes with a curved Super AMOLED touchscreen with a built-in heart rate monitor. The waterproof fitness tracker comes with an adjustable band and connects via Bluetooth, so you can get notifications directly to the device from your smartphone. Like the Gear 2 Neo, it doesn't feature with a camera.

IMAGE: MANU FERNANDEZ/ASSOCIATED PRESS

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Samsung: Ultra HDTVs Will Make Standard HD Look Better

Looked at objectively, the images on Samsung's curved, Ultra HD TV sets do live up to their name.

When Samsung streams custom-made 4K content, which is four times more detailed than 1080p, on any of the sets (which range from 55-inches to a room-swallowing 105-inches), the effect is surreal (or perhaps, "hyper real"). However 4K content is still in short supply, even with all the 20th Century Fox content Samsung is promising to deliver on a 1 terabyte drive ($299). What about Joe T.V. Watcher, sitting at home with his HD feed from the local cable company? How will his picture look?

We posed that question and a few others on some pressing issues facing the next big wave of HD TV technology to Samsung SVP Joe Stinziano, and more detailed look at its upcoming Ultra HD TV line, including a group of curved displays, some new 4K content options and a few new sound devices. Stinziano was also, famously, Michael Bay's counterpart at the CES keynote that will go down in history.

Standing in the cavernous Guggenheim Museum atrium, right above where Stinziano made his presentation to press, the Samsung exec promised that, thanks to some pretty intense upscaling technology, the 1080i content from your cable or fiber company will actually look better on Samsung's UHD TVs. That sounds great.

Stinziano also shared the based prices for the smallest UHD TV, a 55-inch $2,500 model and talked a bit about the sound limitations of these ultra-thing devices.

Samsung spent some time on Thursday talking about the Shape sound system it introduced last year (they have a new design option) and the new Sound Stand, a 1.5-inch audio device that can sit under 55-inch UHD. Joe admitted that sound really needs air to be powerful and these flat TVs simply don't provide the space. Hence, the sound systems.

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Samsung Upgrades the Chromebook

As many schools have discovered, Chromebooks have a lot of benefits — built-in cloud compatibility, good battery life, low cost — but they sometimes struggle to perform. Samsung aims to upgrade the experience with its Chromebook 2 Series laptops, which sport HD screens and souped-up chips.

The Chromebook 2 Series comes in two screen sizes: 13.3 and 11.6 inches. The big model is a full HD display with 1,920 x 1,080 resolution while the smaller one is 1,366 x 768. Samsung also says the 13.3-inch screen is impressively bright, rated at 250 nits. Each model has an octa-core Samsung Exynos processor (2.1GHz for the big and 1.9GHz for the small).

Yes, those are mobile chips, which means they're efficient: Samsung promises 8.5 and 8 hours of run time for the large and small models, respectively. However, unlike the recent HP Chromebook 11, Samsung's machines don't charge via a microUSB port, instead opting for a normal DC power connector.

These being Chromebooks, they're all about running Chrome OS and the associated apps.

Samsung says they're optimized for Google+ Hangouts messaging, and each has a 720 webcam to help in that regard. Samsung also provides a "premium" package of apps said to be worth $100, including Air Droid Premium, Wunderlist Pro and LittleBridge.com.

LIke other Chromebooks on offer, though, Samsung's new models come with 100GB of Google Drive storage for two years.

Ports include USB 3.0, USB 2.0, HDMI, a microSD card slot and a headphone/mic jack. The 11-inch model comes in black and white while the 13-incher is available only in gray.

Samsung's Chromebooks may be a step up in terms of specs, but their prices are similarly elevated: The 11-inch is $319.99, and the 13-inch is $399.99 — putting them on par with entry-level Windows tablets and laptops. They'll be on sale in April.

Image: Samsung

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Samsung's Humongous Galaxy Pro Tablets Get a Release Date

If big screens make you swoon, you may find a new true love just in time for Valentine's Day: Samsung's extra-large Android tablets, the Galaxy Note Pro and Tab Pro, will be available Feb. 13.

The official announcement comes just hours after the retail availability of the Galaxy Note Pro leaked on Office Depot, reported by Android Police, listing Feb. 13 as the release date. The price of the 12.2-inch tablet with 64GB of storage is $849.99, and the 32GB version is $749.99, making them some of the most expensive Android tablets you can buy.

The Galaxy Tab Pro has the same large-size screen but lacks the accompanying S Pen stylus. It also comes in multiple screen sizes: The 12.2-inch is $649.99 for 32GB, the 10.1-inch is $499.99 for 16GB, and the 8.4-inch is $399.99 for 16GB. You can pre-order both the Note Pro and Tab Pro now, although the Tab Pro won't ship until March. They'll both come in black or white.

Samsung unveiled the new "Pro" versions of its Note and Tab tablets at CES in January.

Besides big screens, the Pro tablets also boast more pixels (with 2,560 x 1,600 displays), 3GB of RAM, support for 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Android 4.4 "KitKat." They also include a Remote PC app that lets users access and control their home or office Windows PC from the tablet.

Samsung positions its Galaxy Tab line as a "consumption" device, with extras like an infrared port and special software so owners can use it as a TV remote control. The Galaxy Note tablets include all the features of the Tab but also include the S Pen along with several apps that support it, such as S Note. Both tablets can run multiple apps simultaneously, each in a different window on the screen.

Both tablets will also be available in Wi-Fi + LTE versions. Samsung didn't specify exactly when those would be available, but it did say that Verizon would be the first carrier to offer them, and it would be sometime in the winter. Typically, carrier partners announce the availability of devices with a cellular connection.

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Samsung Smart Display Concept Reveals a World Dominated By Screens

Samsung’s Galaxy Gear smartwatch and its rumored Galaxy Glass device indicate that the company plans to rely heavily on experimentation as it innovates its way into the future. The true passion and excitement behind Samsung’s vision of the future is on full display in a concept video quietly released during the company’s most recent Analyst Day in Seoul, Korea. 

“Display Centric World” (see video above) offers a glimpse at a world full of interactive displays in which nearly every surface, window and tabletop has the ability to show the user video content and context-specific data.

One of the first concept devices to make an appearance is an interactive coffee cup embedded with a fingerprint scanner that enables the cup to display the drinker’s health information directly on the cup's surface via an imagined program called "My House Doctor." The wrap-around cup display includes a diagram of the human anatomy as well as a real-time heart monitor.

Next we’re shown display that takes up an entire wall designed to look as though it’s part of the user's real world environment. Shortly after, we see an ultra-thin translucent alarm clock about the height and width of an iPad that folds in half when the user turns off the alarm.

Of course, the use case for such a device might seem like something out of science fiction, that is, until you remember that Samsung has devoted a great deal of its resources toward delivering curved and foldable displays.

Perhaps one of the most immediately realizable concept devices shown in the video is a display-enabled kitchen cutting board that delivers information about the food the user is preparing right under her fingertips. While in use, the display can also be turned into a recipe display panel that lists the nutritional and caloric properties of all the ingredients currently being prepared.

In the area of mobile display concept solutions, the video then puts us inside a car in which the passenger has the ability to control various functions through the car’s interactive display. The window not only shows the current time and temperature, but it also allows direct manipulation of the vehicle’s heating and cooling system controls.

Later, the video puts us in the middle of the classroom of the future, where a teacher uses a transparent interactive blackboard display and children have the ability to play with each other from classrooms in two different remote locations.

Finally, back in the personal use arena, the concept video shows us what at first looks like a purse, but then the object folds out into a fully interactive display unit. That same user then uses her smart bracelet (which looks a lot like a Nike FuelBand) to interact with a nearby smart window display that does everything from show retail items for sale to allowing the wearer of the bracelet to call a family member.

These visions of a display-centric future might have been seen as overly ambitious just a few years ago, but as many of the evolution of display technology from Samsung and many others continues apace, videos like this one are increasingly looking more like a forecast rather than an optimistic prediction.

Image: SAMSUNG DISPLAY

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For First Time Ever, 1 Billion Smartphones Shipped in One Year

For the first time ever, one billion smartphones have been shipped in one year, marking a huge milestone for mobile.

According to data from the International Data Corporation (IDC), vendors shipped more than a billion smartphones in 2013, up 38.4% from the 725.3 million devices shipped in 2012.

"It's hard to find any other industry growing at such dramatic increases — the fact that we are seeing this heavy growth shows there is still a huge demand for smartphones," Ramon T. Llamas, research manager of mobile phones at IDC, told Mashable. "Only two years ago, we had half a billion units, so it's a testament to how popular smartphones are and how competitive the market is right now."

The top driving trends in smartphones are the growth of large screen size and cost.

"The phablet market — smartphones with screens that are five inches in size of greater — is only going to get bigger," Llamas said. "At the end of the last year, about 18% of smartphones were phablets, up from 7% from the year before, and this year it could hit 25%. That reveals it's still a niche market — large screens are not for everyone — but there is clearly a market for these things."

Llamas said the smartphone industry will likely continue to grow in the next year, but will slow down in the years to follow.

"Growth will plateau at some point. Probably not this year, but in the next five or six years," he said. "We've already reached saturation in the U.S., so there will be slower growth in the future."

Samsung was the clear leader in global smartphone shipments in 2013, thanks to demand related to the Galaxy S III, S4 and Note. Although Apple experienced record shipment volume in the fourth quarter, due largely to bringing its iPhone 5S and 5C devices to new international markets, the company had the lowest year-over-year increase of all leading vendors. Huawei ranked third for the year, followed by LG and Lenovo, despite not having a presence in North America or Western Europe.

Image: PHILIPPE HUGUEN/GETTY IMAGES

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Report: Samsung to Launch 'Galaxy Glass' in September

Samsung might launch a competitor to Google Glass during the IFA trade show in Berlin in September this year.

The device, named Galaxy Glass, could connect to your smartphone, display call alerts and allow the user to listen to music, reports Korea Times, citing unnamed Samsung executives.

The report doesn't reveal many details about the actual hardware, but it does state that Samsung Electronics would collaborate with another Samsung subsidiary, Samsung Display, to create the Galaxy Glass.

“The new smart glass to be introduced by Samsung is a new concept of wearable device that can lead to an exciting culture of communication," the unnamed official said, according to the report. "The smart glass will present our aim to lead the new market with proven capability. Wearable devices can’t generate profits immediately. Steady releases of devices are showing our firm commitment as a leader in new markets."

Samsung unveiled a wearable device, the Galaxy Gear smartwatch, at last year's IFA, and the company patented a smartglass-type device in October 2013, giving the report some plausibility. However, September is still far off, and even if the report is accurate, it's quite possible that Samsung will change its plans before then.

Korea Times also cites an unnamed executive of a Google parts supplier in Asia, which claims Google Glass — so far available only as a limited beta product — will be commercially available to the general population in the "latter half" of this year.Samsung might launch a competitor to Google Glass during the IFA trade show in Berlin in September this year.

The device, named Galaxy Glass, could connect to your smartphone, display call alerts and allow the user to listen to music, reports Korea Times, citing unnamed Samsung executives.

The report doesn't reveal many details about the actual hardware, but it does state that Samsung Electronics would collaborate with another Samsung subsidiary, Samsung Display, to create the Galaxy Glass.

“The new smart glass to be introduced by Samsung is a new concept of wearable device that can lead to an exciting culture of communication," the unnamed official said, according to the report. "The smart glass will present our aim to lead the new market with proven capability. Wearable devices can’t generate profits immediately. Steady releases of devices are showing our firm commitment as a leader in new markets."

Samsung unveiled a wearable device, the Galaxy Gear smartwatch, at last year's IFA, and the company patented a smartglass-type device in October 2013, giving the report some plausibility. However, September is still far off, and even if the report is accurate, it's quite possible that Samsung will change its plans before then.

Korea Times also cites an unnamed executive of a Google parts supplier in Asia, which claims Google Glass — so far available only as a limited beta product — will be commercially available to the general population in the "latter half" of this year.

Image: JUSTIN SULLIVAN/GETTY IMAGES

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Samsung's First Tizen Smartphone Delayed

Samsung has delayed its first Tizen-based smartphone.

The blog Tizen Indonesia quoted an unnamed official from Samsung Electronics' Media Solution Center who confirmed the delay. The official said Samsung was previously planning on releasing handsets in Korea and Russia during the first half of 2014.

The official did not give a reason for the delay or say exactly how long the release was being pushed back.

The news is the latest in a series of setbacks for the Linux-based OS. Earlier this month, Japan's NTT DoCoMo network canceled a launch planned for March, citing low demand for a third OS in Japanese markets. Tizen is a project within the Linux Foundation but is largely led by employees at Intel and Samsung.

Samsung's Tizen devices were first expected to hit shelves in the first half of 2013, but repeated delays have hindered releases.

Although Tizen enthusiasts may still be able to see a demo of the OS at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February, it probably won't be on a Samsung device.

Image: LEE JIN-MAN/ASSOCIATED PRESS

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Samsung Announces Lighter, Low-End Addition to Galaxy Tab 3 Line

Samsung announced Thursday the Galaxy Tab 3 Lite, a low-end, lightweight addition to its Galaxy Tab 3 line of products.

The 7-inch tablet runs Android 4.2 and comes with a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, a 2-megapixel rear camera, 1GB of RAM and 8GB of storage memory (expandable via MicroSD cards).

Compared to its predecessor, the 7-inch Galaxy Tab 3, the Lite actually fares quite well: The screen, processor and memory size are the same, but the Lite lacks a front camera and has a slightly weaker battery (3,600mAh vs 4,000mAh).

The Galaxy Tab 3 Lite will be available globally in white and black, but the exact price and time of availability have not been announced.

Image: Samsung

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Samsung Galaxy S5 Might Come With an Eye-Scanner

Samsung will release its Galaxy S5 smartphone by April, and the device might include iris scanning technology, a new report from Bloomberg claims.

“Many people are fanatical about iris recognition technology. We are studying the possibility,” Lee Young Hee, executive vice president of the Samsung’s mobile business, told Bloomberg at CES in Las Vegas.

Lee did not reveal many specifics about the upcoming device, but she did mention the company plans to go "back to the basics," with focus on the device's display and the feel of the cover.

Samsung has typically announced its flagship phones a few days before the Mobile World Congress, held in late February each year in Barcelona. It would then hit the market around March or April, and this year will be no different, Lee said.

She also revealed that the new flagship phone will be accompanied by a successor to Samsung's smartwatch, the Galaxy Gear.

“When we release our S5 device, you can also expect a Gear successor with more advanced functions, and the bulky design will also be improved," she said.

Image: David Becker/Stringer/Getty Images

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Samsung ATIV Book 9 2014 Edition: A Sleek Laptop Gets Bigger and Better

Samsung's Book 9 is one of the better laptop designs you can buy, and it's (literally) getting a big upgrade for 2014. The ATIV Book 9 2014 Edition, introduced at CES, is a 15.6-inch model that sports the same curved wedge design that made the original Series 9 a pleasure to use.

Like last year's Book 9 Plus, the Book 9 2014 Edition has a full HD display and includes the SideSync software package that makes the Ultrabook your Galaxy phone's best friend: Notifications are shared, for example, and screen mirroring is effortless.

Although the screen is on the big side (most laptops this size have a 15.4-inch display), Samsung still emphasizes portability with its new ATIV model: It's just 0.63 inch at the thickest point, and 3.92 pounds. By comparison, the 15.4-inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display is 4.46 pounds.

Samsung says it's made some improvements to the display, including a better coating for the screen that cuts down on reflectivity but doesn't compromise its touchscreen response. The viewing angle is 178 degrees, and the brightness gets a bump to 300 nits from 250 in last year's model. With the upgrade to Intel's Haswell chips, battery life jumps up, too: Samsung rates the laptop at 14 hours.

Audiophiles will have lots to celebrate about the ATIV Samsung Book 9 2014 Edition since it contains a Wolfson digital-to-analog converter for lossless audio. That means you'll get studio-quality sound from the device as long as the source is lossless, too. As it happens, Samsung is also introducing lossless audio from its Music Hub (both download and streaming) — the first online music service to do so.

Besides the Book 9, Samsung is debuting a new all-in-one PC at CES. The ATIV One 7 has a slim design with curved edges that's a conscious callback to the company's Galaxy Tab tablets, and it has many of the new upgrades of the Book 9 2014 Edition including full HD resolution, a 178-degree viewing angle and an anti-reflective screen.

On the audio side, the ATIV One 7 also supports lossless audio, but with a twist: It can also act as a Bluetooth speaker while in sleep mode, and it has the hardware — a pair of 7-watt speakers, with tweeters — to do it. The machine also supports aptX to help minimize the audio artifacts that can happen over Bluetooth connections.

In sleep mode, the ATIV One 7 can also still act as a remote server for your content for when you need to access it remotely.

Both the ATIV Book 9 2014 Edition and the One 7 will be available in the first half of the year. No pricing has been announced.

Images: Samsung

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110-inch Ultra HD-Tv from Samsung unveiled

Samsung promised at CES last January that it would deliver a 110-inch UHDTV this year, and with just a couple of days left to spare here it is. 

Samsung said a 110-inch TV that has four times the resolution of standard high-definition TVs is going on sale for about $150,000 in South Korea.

The launch of the giant television set reflects global TV makers' move toward ultra HD TVs, as manufacturing bigger TVs using OLED proves too costly.

Last year, Samsung and rival LG Electronics, the world's top two TV makers, touted OLED as the future of TV. OLED screens are ultrathin and can display images with enhanced clarity and deeper color saturation.

Apparently rolling out in China, the Middle East and a few European countries first, there's no word on price (the 85-inch version that launched earlier this year had a $40K price tag attached when it launched), but can you really put a price on a TV that's bigger than a king-size bed? That's right, at 2.6-meters by 1.8-meters there's more than enough room for well-heeled VIPs or employees of large companies and government agencies (the target market for the S9110) to catch some z's on it -- and bring a few friends. It's available for custom orders just before we see the new generation of Ultra HD (including a 105-inch curved model) at CES 2014 next week, although most of us will be looking for TVs that actually fit inside our living room.

Image:cbc

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Samsung's 2014 Smart TVs will let you Control Videos by Pointing your Finger

Samsung's 2014 smart TV lineup may revolve around impressive-looking hardware, but the Korean tech giant has revealed that interface improvements will also play an important role. Its new TVs will support finger gestures that should be more intuitive than the whole-hand commands of this year's models; you can stop a movie with a spinning motion, for instance. Voice control will also be more powerful. It's at last possible to change channels or launch apps with a single step, and search results appear in one place. While the gesture and voice upgrades may not be revolutions, they'll likely be welcome to viewers frustrated with unwieldy TV software.

“Samsung’s 2014 Smart TV models deliver significantly improved voice interaction and motion control features so that our consumers will be able to enjoy our Smart TV more intuitively,” said Kyungshik Lee, Senior Vice President of the Service Strategy Team of Visual Display Business, Samsung Electronics. “We will continue to develop content that integrates voice and motion recognition for added convenience.”

With the 2014 Smart TV, finding content is easier than ever. Users can change the channel in one step – by simply saying the channel number. They can even open a website or app using shortcuts. For reference, 2013 models require two steps to change TV channels: ‘Channel Change’ and ‘Channel Number’

The voice search feature is also more convenient to use, letting users find all content results in one place.

Further, when a consumer uses voice interaction to search for daily living information such as weather, stocks and sports while watching TV, a pop-up window appears on the bottom of the page with search results. Consumers can move to the app and see the details by clicking the pop-up.

Along with voice interaction, the motion control has been improved by adding the ‘finger gesture’ feature of the 2014 Smart TVs – a significant improvement to motion control.

Thanks to ‘finger gesture,’ users can change the TV channel, adjust the volume, find and select what they want to watch just by using their fingers. They can also go back to the previous screen and stop the video by motioning their finger counterclockwise – a more intuitive way to control the TV.

Image: Samsung Tomorrow

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