Samsung Touts Fitness, Privacy Smarts For Incoming Galaxy S7 Flagships

Not to be outdone on the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge leaks that were all over the Internets yesterday, Samsung has published an official launch website for its forthcoming pair of flagships — which includes a new promo video for the S7 Edge with some heavy hints about features, along with some general themes Samsung is pushing for the S7 line. The company’s previous teaser video for the S7 focused on its Gear VR platform.

So what additional details can we glean? In the new video (embedded at the end of this post) — titled “Get Ready for the #NextGalaxy” — a handset that might well be the S7 Edge is shown getting heavily rained on, so check the box for water resistance/water-proofing…

Despite the 2014 Galaxy S5 sporting water resistance, last year’s S6 flagships were not officially water resistant; Samsung reserved that feature for another handset, the Galaxy S6 Active. Boo-hiss! But it looks like the company has had a change of heart and will be bringing water-resistance back to its flagship line. Or at least to the S7 Edge. Let’s hope so.

The promo video also shows an unnamed device strapped to the arm of a runner — Indonesian archer, Dellie Threesyadinda — and being used in conjunction with Samsung’s Gear S2 smartwatch to monitor heart rate, so fitness unsurprisingly remains a core focus. Albeit that’s been true of Samsung’s flagships since at least the S5, which came with a built in heart-rate monitor.

Another feature briefly flagged by Samsung in the video is wireless charging — albeit the company built that into its S6 flagships last year, and has offered support for wireless charging via optional accessories for several generations of its flagship line, so nothing new to see here.

It’s more like Samsung hoping to finally get people excited about a feature that has failed to excite folks for years now…

Frankly speaking, current gen wireless charging is a roundly uninspiring technology. Charging technology that still requires you to place a device onto a charging pad is really no step up from having to plug in a device to charge it. When wireless charging works over the air, without any need for charger pads, then it will finally be a tech upgrade worth having. But we’re not there yet.

Samsung’s promo video ends with a camera-related shot of the incoming device. Since smartphones are far more frequently used to snap pictures nowadays vs time spent being used as an actual telephone that’s entirely as you’d expect. Phones should really be renamed pocket cameras.

One of the teaser slogans on the Samsung website — “bring light to the night” — also includes a close up shot of a camera lens, suggesting further low light camera enhancements are incoming to the S7 line. This is also to be expected, given that trying to squeeze ever better performance out of (relatively) tiny camera sensors has been an ongoing preoccupation of smartphone makers in recent years.

The other Samsung S7 teaser slogans are a little underwhelming, including the awkwardly worded “worry-less discovery”, which looks to be a reference to the aforementioned waterproofing feature.

There’s also the strangely worded “experience privacy at its finest”, which suggests Samsung might be taking a leaf out of Apple’s public pro-privacy stance. Which would be more interesting. Or it might be a ref to Samsung’s long-standing Knox security platform. We’ll find out more on Sunday when the company does its official unboxing.

Judging by yesterday’s S7-related leaks Samsung is not doing any kind of major redesign for its new flagships. So the unnamed handset shown in the video could just as plausibly be the S6 Edge as the S7 Edge, albeit the intention is clearly to showcase features incoming in the next generation models.

What don’t we see being flagged up in this latest promo? There’s no sign of the slated pressure-sensitive screen. Nor an SD card slot, removable battery or USB-C charger port. But the latter sort of techie details aren’t how any company sells to the mass market so that’s also to be expected. Still, hardcore Android fans should probably steel themselves to be disappointed that Samsung might not have had a rethink on bringing user expandable memory back after all.

And if Samsung is spending promo video time flagging up tired old wireless charging vs highlighting faster charging via USB-C, well, that faster charging rumor might not come to pass either. Either way, it’s not long to wait for official confirmation.

TC will be on the ground at Samsung’s press conference in Barcelona on Sunday evening to get hands on with the new kit so stay tuned.

Comments

How ad-free subscriptions could solve Facebook

At the core of Facebook’s “well-being” problem is that its business is directly coupled with total time spent on its apps. The more hours you pass on the social network, the more ads you see and click, the more money it earns. That puts its plan to make using Facebook healthier at odds with its finances, restricting how far it’s willing to go to protect us from the harms of over use. The advertising-supported model comes with some big benefits, though. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has repeatedly said that “We will always keep Facebook a free service for everyone.” Ads lets Facebook remain free for those who don’t want to pay, and more importantly, for those around the world who couldn’t afford to. Ads pay for Facebook to keep the lights on, research and develop new technologies, and profit handsomely in a way that attracts top talent and further investment. More affluent users with more buying power in markets like the US, UK, and Canada command higher ad prices, effectively...

South Korea aims for startup gold

Back in 2011, when South Korea won its longshot bid to host the 2018 Winter Olympics, the country wasn’t widely recognized as a destination for ski and snow lovers. It wasn’t considered much of a tech startup hub either. Fast forward seven years and a lot has changed. For the next 10 days, the eyes of the world will be on the snowy slopes of PyeongChang. Meanwhile, a couple of hours away in Seoul, a burgeoning startup scene is seeing investments multiply, generating exits and even creating a unicorn or two. While South Korea doesn’t get a perfect score as a startup innovation hub, it has established itself as a serious contender. More than half a billion dollars annually has gone to seed through late-stage funding rounds for the past few years. During that time, at least two companies, e-commerce company Coupang and mobile-focused content and commerce company Yello Mobile, have established multi-billion-dollar valuations. To provide a broader picture of how South Korea stacks ...

Trump cites Facebook exec’s comments downplaying Russian ad influence on election

You’d be forgiven for missing Donald Trump’s multiple retweets of Facebook executive Rob Goldman over the weekend. Perhaps you were spending time with family, watching Black Panther or just attempting to forget politics for a moment by ignoring the manic flurry of social media updates from the leader of the free world. But in amongst a deluge of tweets that blamed Democrats for failing to preserve DACA, called out the FBI over the recent school shooting in Florida on the FBI and affectionately referred to a member of congress as “Liddle’ Adam Schiff, the leakin’ monster of no control,” the President cited Facebook’s VP of Ads as evidence against claims that his campaign colluded with Russia. “The Fake News Media never fails,” Trump tweeted over the weekend. “Hard to ignore this fact from the Vice President of Facebook Ads, Rob Goldman!” Trump was citing Goldman’s own Twitter dump over the past week, responding to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s recent indictment of 13 Russian...

3D printing company New Matter is shutting down this month

Perhaps 2014 wasn’t the ideal time to get into the 3D printing game. After years of hype, the even the biggest names have been struggling to stay afloat. Pasadena startup New Matter is joining the growing list of companies who’ve unsuccessfully made a go at it, announcing that it will be closing up shop by the end of the month. It’s not for lacking of trying — and the company’s MOD-t printer was met with decent reviews when it launched in 2016. In his writeup, John praised the pricing ($300 or $400, depending on where you picked one up) and ease of use, though added cautiously, “you get what you pay for.” Initially funded on Indiegogo, the company went back to the crowdfunding well last year, this time taking to Kickstarter to pay for a Model 2. The project managed to exceed its goal in five days, but New Matter still pulled the plug. The company says it ultimately wanted to go back to the drawing board. “We have always strived to listen closely to our customers’ feedback, and...

Here’s how to keep track of Elon Musk’s Roadster and Starman in space

Elon Musk’s Starman, the mannequin driver of the Tesla Roadster SpaceX launched aboard its Falcon Heavy rocket, is taking a trip around our solar system, in a large elliptical orbit that will bring him relatively close to Mars, the Sun and other heavenly bodies. But how to track the trip, now that the Roadster’s onboard batteries are out of juice and no longer transmitting live footage? Thanks to the work of Ben Pearson, a SpaceX fan and electrical engineer working in the aerospace industry, who created ‘Where is Roadster,’ a website that makes use of JPL Horizons data to track the progress of the Roadster and Starman through space, and to predict its path and let you know when it’ll come close to meeting up with various planets and the Sun. The website tells you the Roadster’s current position, too, as well as its speed and whether it’s moving towards or away from Earth and Mars at any given moment. It’s not officially affiliated with SpaceX or Tesla, but it is something Elon...

Exciting Technology

Search This Blog