samsung

Tech Watch: Why Is Movie Rental Still So Damn Difficult?

Chris Dannen — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 11:30:12 -0500

The year is 1990, and you want to rent Dances With Wolves. You go to the local video store, put down a couple of dollars, and head home with visions of Costner alight in your head. You are happy. Worst case scenario, your movie is checked out, and you have to rent Ghostbusters again. Not exactly a catastrophe; you can buy some Raisinettes at the counter to cheer yourself up.

Samsung's 8MP Touchscreen Phone Coming

Chris Dannen — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 19:18:31 -0400

With Nokia [NOK] announcing their "Tube" touchscreen phone this week, it seems like Samsung [SEO:005930] got a little jealous and decided to let a few details about their Pixon cameraphone slip. The touchscreen phone will feature a massive 8MP digicam, and Samsung is branding it as a phone for the photographic connoisseur. The camera will have auto focus, a twin-LED flash, face recognition functionality and image stabilization.

SanDisk Proposes Memory Card Albums

Chris Dannen — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 09:37:30 -0400

SanDisk [SNDK] is betting that you miss going into a store and buying music the old fashioned way. Well, not the "old-fashioned" way, exactly -- but on memory cards instead of CDs. Memory cards packed with DRM-free music, and sold at Best Buy [BBY] and Wal-Mart [WMT]. The gamble is part of a new strategy the company hopes will allow them to keep up revenues and continue to stave off bids for purchase by Samsung [SEO:005930], who recently offered $5.8 billion USD for the company.

Samsung Attempts Purchase of SanDisk

Chris Dannen — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 18:50:16 -0400

Samsung [005930] had a few billion laying around, so the company decided today to make an unsolicited offer to purchase Flash memory maker SanDisk [SNDK]. In what was apparently an attempt to broaden its influence as the second-largest chipmaker in the world, and perhaps to expand its growing solid-state memory offerings, Samsung bid $26 in cash for the company, or a total of $5.85 billion. That represents a margin of 93% higher than the company's share price the day on September 4th, a day before Samsung expressed industry. SNDK's share price responded by jumping 56% after hours today.

Asus Announces Smartphone

Chris Dannen — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 00:35:49 -0400

Perhaps sensing a hole in their otherwise-comprehensive product line of consumer electronics, Asus has endeavored to create a smartphone called the Galaxy7. Assuming a candy-bar form factor and a touchscreen interface, it looks to be kith and kin with the Samsung [SEO:005930] Omnia, with which it will presumably compete. The Galaxy7 will sport a 5MP camera with auto-focus, a front camera for video calling and a touchpad-cum-trackball controller.

Samsung Announces Eco-Phone

Chris Dannen — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 22:06:37 -0400

If you're a fan of biofuel, you'll love this: a phone made with a corn-based enclosure from Samsung [SEO:005930]. The E200 Eco phone doesn't sport any mind-blowing specs; it simply features a 1.3MP camera and MP3 player functionality along with the regular suite of phone functions. But its enclosure is molded out of a bioplastic made with corn, and when it is made available next month in Europe it will arrive in recycled packaging material.

LG Announces LED-Lit LCD

Chris Dannen — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 10:07:41 -0400

Samsung Introduces Two "New" UMPCs

Chris Dannen — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 13:35:50 -0400

Special Report: What's Up With Solid State Hard Drives?

Chris Dannen — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 20:57:28 -0400

It seems like every new drool-worthy notebook these days -- from the MacBook Air to the VooDoo Envy -- is sporting solid state hard drives instead of traditional hard drives. If you don't know the particulars of what solid state drives do (and if you have a life, you might not), then you might be wondering why the option to add an SSD, as they're abbreviated, can add a whopping $1000+ to the price of your made-to-order laptop.

Samsung Announces New LED LCD TVs

Chris Dannen — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 18:55:53 -0400

Canon Releases Two HD Video Cams

Chris Dannen — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 18:01:31 -0400

Not to be outdone by JVC [TYO:6792] or Samsung [SEO:005930] on its own turf, Canon [NYSE:CAJ] has just churned out two new HD video cams. The first is the iVIS HF11, which sports 32GB of built-in memory as well as an SD/SDHC card slot, full HD recording abilities, and a 12x optical zoon. As step of from that model is the iVIS HD21, which sports a massive 120GB internal hard disk, a 2.7-inch LCD viewfinder and an otherwise similar spec list as the iVIS HF11. No release date has been announced for the US, but Japanese buyers will be seeing these next month for the price of $1,317USD.

Toshiba Announces Massive Notebook Hard Drives

Chris Dannen — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 18:35:43 -0400

Samsung Announces 14.7MP Point-and-Shoot Camera

Chris Dannen — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 07:35:12 -0400

Most digital photo experts will tell you that megapixel rating isn't everything -- in fact, many of the professionally-shot digital images you see published in magazines, newspapers and websites are shot with mere 8MP pro-level digital SLRs like the Canon 20d. But that hasn't stopped the makers of pocket digicams from driving up the megapixel rating on their point-and-shoot cameras to get oohs and ahhs from their customers, and Samsung [SEO:005930] is only the latest to do so.

Samsung Readies 8MP Cameraphone

Chris Dannen — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 08:53:52 -0400

Not to be outdone by Sony Ericcson's [NYSE:SNE] new 8-megapixel phone, word has it that Samsung [SEO:005930] is formulating a competitor dubbed the i8510, complete with -- you guessed it -- an 8-megapixel camera. The phone will run on the Symbian S60 operating system (recall that Symbian was recently bought out from partial ownership by European mobile giant Nokia [NYSE:NOK]) and could provide competition for Nokia's own Symbian-based N96.

Samsung Mass Produces Solid State Hard Drives

Chris Dannen — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 20:02:27 -0400

Sprint's "Instinct" Phone Selling Out, Buoying Stock

Chris Dannen — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 16:24:22 -0400

After months of lagging behind AT&T [NYSE:ATT] and Verizon Wireless [NYSE:VZ], Sprint Nextel [NYSE:S] is finally showing signs of life. That according to a Wall Street Journal article, which is reporting that the company's new iPhone look-alike, the Samsung Instinct, is flying off the shelves, bolstering the company's share price 13% last week alone.

Taking on the Samsung Instinct

Kevin Ohannessian — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 13:40:13 -0400

For the last few days I have been trying out Samsung's new phone, the Instinct. With a touch screen and a similar design, the comparison with the iPhone is unavoidable. So what do I think about it? While it isn't perfect, I am glad that Samung is taking on Apple.

Samsung Releases 1080p Projector

Chris Dannen — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 19:54:25 -0400

Announced nearly a year ago, Samsung's [SEO: 005930] fancy SP-A800B DLP projector will finally be available in the United States this summer. The bulbous black device will feature 1080p picture and a native contrast ratio of 10,000:1, as well as a 95% aperture ratio, 16-microsecond response time, and 1,920x1080 resolution. It's also reportedly super-quiet, and comes with a spiffy two-year warranty. No word on MSRP from Samsung just yet, but all specs and rumors point to a ten thousand dollar ballpark.

iPhone Price Matched by Sprint's Samsung Instinct

Chris Dannen — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 22:13:40 -0400

Symbian Demo's Touch-Screen OS

Chris Dannen — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 22:21:17 -0400

Topping off a week full of touch-screen smartphone news from Apple, Samsung and Nokia, Symbian today released a short video demonstrating some of the features and aesthetics of their touch-based operating system, dubbed S60. Symbian is a joint effort owned by a group of mobile device makers, but the largest shareholder is Nokia [NYSE: NOK], which owns a 48% share.

Samsung Debuts "Omnia" Smartphone

Chris Dannen — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 11:49:43 -0400

In the tech world, today is a red-letter day: Apple's [NASDAQ: AAPL] WWDC is set to kick off this morning (PST) in San Fransisco, and it's presumed that a new, 3G iPhone will be the life of the party. So it's curious that Samsung [SEO: 005930] chose such an auspicious day to announce what may be its most qualified iPhone competitor yet, the Omnia.

Google-Branded Phone in the Works?

Chris Dannen — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 14:09:13 -0400

According to well-respected tech pundit Gary Krakow, Google's [NASDAQ: GOOG] smartphone operating system, dubbed Android, will be ready to launch via several manufacturers by the end of 2008. But what's more interesting is a second assertion that he makes, based on an "unnamed source": that Google itself will release a branded handset, but that it's been delayed until well into next year.

Samsung Announces World's First 82-inch Multi-touch LCD

Chris Dannen — Wed, 21 May 2008 13:11:37 -0400

This week Samsung will announce the world's largest LCD television, coming in at 82 inches, with a resolution of 3,840 by 2,160 pixels at a 120Hz refresh rate (known as a “2160p” rating). This level of clarity qualifies it as an “ultra high definition” display, and its impressive picture quality will be bolstered by a red/green/blue LED backlight that will raise true color saturation to 150 percent. This HDTV tops the former record-holder for World's Largest by a sizable margin; the title once belonged to a 65-inch LCD TV made by Sharp.

Design and Innovation: What's the Problem?

David-Henry Oliver — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 12:28:10 -0400

Innovation requires an environment that is open to new ideas. That's all well and good, but innovation is more than blue sky. In order to encourage new and novel solutions, you have to ask the right questions.

Many brainstorming sessions are centered around questions that boil down to “What should we do in response to our competitor’s product or service?” Now the reason you are having the meeting in the first place may be because your competitor has just taken a big chunk of your market share, so that seems like a legitimate question.