Samsung is one of the only companies still producing tablets to rival Apple's iPad. Today the company announced the Samsung Galaxy Tab S6, its latest high-end tablet, for $649. Pre-orders start August 23, and the device ships September 6. Samsung says there will be an LTE version available later. Ars Technica reports: The Samsung Tab S6 features a 10.5-inch 2560x1600 OLED display, a 2.84GHz Snapdragon 855, and a 7040mAh battery. The base version has 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, with a higher tier of 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. For cameras, there's an 8MP front camera, while the rear gets a 13MP main camera and a 5MP wide-angle lens. The device is down to 5.7mm thick and weighs 420 grams. This is Samsung's first-ever tablet with an in-screen fingerprint reader. Interestingly, it's an optical reader instead of the ultrasonic tech that the Galaxy S10 uses. Somehow, on a 10-inch tablet, Samsung couldn't find room for a headphone jack. Even Apple, which ditched the headphone jack two years ago, still puts a headphone jack on iPads. Samsung is apparently declaring war on the headphone jack with this round of updates -- the Galaxy Note 10, launching next week, is expected to dump the headphone jack, too.

The S-Pen comes with the tablet but doesn't stow away inside the body; instead, a groove on the back of the tablet gives it a spot to magnetically attach to. Of course, don't expect the tablet to sit flat on a table with a big pen attached to the back. As with other newer Samsung devices, the S-Pen now comes with a battery and some Bluetooth functionality, allowing it to do things like work as a remote shutter button for the camera. A new "Air action" gesture system lets you do things like change the camera mode or scroll through pictures with a flick of the pen.

No country on earth has benefited from President Trump's trade fight with China more than Vietnam. From a report: The country's factories have swelled with orders as American tariffs cause companies to reconsider making their products in China. Now, more big technology firms are looking to bulk up their manufacturing operations in Vietnam, lifting the ambitions of a nation already well on its way to becoming a powerhouse maker of smartphones and other high-end gadgets. First, though, Vietnam needs to get better at making the little plastic casings on your earbuds.

Vu Huu Thang's company in the northern city of Bac Ninh, Bac Viet Technology, produces small plastic parts for Canon printers, Korg musical instruments, and Samsung cellphones and phone accessories, including earbuds. He said it would be hard for his firm to compete against Chinese suppliers as long as he had to buy 70 to 100 tons of imported plastic material every month, most of it made in China. "Vietnam cannot compare with China," Mr. Thang said. "When we buy materials, it's 5, 10 percent more expensive than China already." And the Vietnamese market is too small, he said, to entice plastic producers to set up plants here.

An anonymous reader quotes Variety: Oculus VR headset users just got one more video service to watch in their virtual living rooms: Amazon's Prime Video service went live on Oculus Go, Quest and Samsung Gear VR headsets with a dedicated Prime Video VR app Wednesday.

In addition to access to the entire Prime Video catalog, Prime Video VR will also feature select 360-degree video films. At launch, these include "Invasion!" from Baobab Studios and "Greenland Melting" from Frontline and NOVA, according to a blog post.

The app offers users a way to watch Prime Video titles in a virtual theater setting, and also comes with voice search for the entire Prime catalog. Prime Video VR is at launch only available to Prime subscribers in the U.S. and the U.K., but there does seem to be a way for users who aren't Prime subscribers to browse their Amazon Video purchases.

Samsung said it has made the necessary improvements to fix the Galaxy Fold and put it back on sale. The April launch of the device was postponed after early reviewers reported broken screens; it's now scheduled to go on sale in September. From a report: "Samsung has taken the time to fully evaluate the product design, make necessary improvements and run rigorous tests," the company said in a statement. Improvements include extending a protective layer to make it clear it is not meant to be removed, as well as strengthening the hinge area with new protection caps. One explanation for the broken screens appears to have been that some reviewers removed a film which they thought was a typical protective layer that came with the phone when first bought.

An anonymous reader quotes a report IEEE Spectrum: One of the most striking things about the prototype microLED display that Silicon Valley startup Mojo Vision unveiled in June was its size. At half a millimeter across, it's barely bigger than a single pixel from the microLED TV prototype Samsung showed off in 2018. That both use versions of the same technology is remarkable, and it portends big potential for screens made of superefficient and bright micrometer-scale gallium nitride LEDs. Impressive prototypes have proliferated during the past year, and now that companies are turning to the hard work of scaling up their manufacturing processes, displays could appear in some products as soon as late next year. The driving force behind microLED displays remains a combination of brightness and efficiency that LCD and OLED technology can't come close to. One demo of a smartwatch-size display by Silicon Valley -- based Glo shines at 4,000 nits (candelas per square meter) while consuming less than 1 watt. An equivalent LCD display would burn out in seconds trying to meet half that brightness. Some companies "are making monolithic displays, where the gallium nitride pixels are made as a complete array on a chip and a separate silicon backplane controls those pixels," the report says. Others "are using 'pick and place' technology to transfer individual LEDs or multi-microLED pixels into place on a thin-film-transistor (TFT) backplane. The former is suited to microdisplays for applications like augmented reality and head-up displays. The latter is a better fit for larger displays."

"Future semiconductors may perform logic with 0, 1, or 2 instead of the current binary system of 0 and 1," reports ZDNet: A South Korean research team has successfully realised an energy-efficient ternary metal-oxide semiconductor on a large-sized wafer. Professor Kyung Rok Kim of UNIST's Electrical & Computer Engineering Department and his team successfully created a semiconductor that operates in a ternary logic system instead of the current binary...

Using the ternary system of 0, 1, 2 lessens the amount of information semiconductors need to process and does it faster, resulting in less power consumption, the team said. It will also help in miniaturising chips further. For example, to express the number 128 in the current binary system, 8 "bits" will be required. With the ternary system, only 5 "trits" will be required....

Samsung Electronics has been backing Kim's research since September 2017 via its Samsung's Science & Technology Foundation, which offers grants for promising technology projects. Samsung is currently verifying the technology at its foundry business-run fab.

Russian lawmakers want to make it a legal requirement for all smartphones, computers and smart TV sets sold in Russia to come pre-installed with certain Russian software in a bid to support domestic software producers, according to a draft bill. From a report: The bill, tabled at the lower house of parliament on Thursday, would allow authorities to draw up a list of mandatory, locally-made software. If passed, it would come into force in July 2020. Russia's cell-phone market is dominated by Apple, Samsung and Huawei products. Those who do not abide by the rule, the proposed law says, would have to pay a fine.

Joanna Stern, reporting for the Wall Street Journal: One of the biggest findings of my multi-city 5G review tour: The Samsung Galaxy S10 5G isn't reliable in the summer -- unless, well, you summer in Iceland. When I ran tests, the phone's 5G often switched off due to overheating, leaving me with a 4G connection. Cellular carriers demo-ing or testing the phone have taken to cooling the devices with ice packs and air conditioners. The phone does this when the temperature reaches a certain threshold to minimize energy use and optimize battery, a Samsung spokeswoman said. "As 5G technology and the ecosystem evolve, it's only going to get better," she added. But there is good part, too. The report adds: After nearly 120 tests, more than 12 city miles walked and a couple of big blisters, I can report that 5G is fasten-your-seat-belt fast...when you can find it. And you're standing outdoors. And the temperature is just right. As my findings show, 5G is absolutely not ready for you. But like any brand new network technology, it provides a glimpse of the future. "Holy spit!" I said the first time I saw a speed test hit 1,800 megabits per second on Verizon's network in downtown Denver. [...] Don't speak megabits? I downloaded the whole new season of "Stranger Things" from Netflix -- 2.1 gigabytes of video -- in 34 seconds. The same averaged more than an hour on my 4G connections. And I downloaded a huge, 10GB file full of video and images from Google Drive in 2.5 minutes.

Zac Bowden from Windows Central makes the case for why Microsoft may want to make a Surface phone that runs Android. An anonymous reader shares an excerpt from the report: While a Surface Phone running Android would never sell to the quantity that Samsung smartphones do (or at least not a first- or second-generation phone), Microsoft could utilize the Surface brand to showcase the best of Microsoft's Android efforts all in one place, just like it has done for Windows PCs. I'm picturing a Surface-branded, Microsoft-built smartphone that comes with Microsoft Launcher, Edge, Office, Your Phone phone-mirroring integration, and more, out of the box. In fact, that's one of four unique selling points that a Surface Phone running Android could have:

-- Showcase the best of Microsoft's efforts on Android.
-- Seamless integration with Windows PCs using Your Phone.
-- Provide the best security and update support on Android.
-- Brand recognition that can rival Apple and Samsung.

That last point is more for Microsoft fans, but the first three are important. A Surface Phone running Android would be the only smartphone out there that's always guaranteed to work with all of Your Phone's features. I have a wide array of Android smartphones, yet 90 percent of them don't support all of Your Phone's features on Windows 10. Screen mirroring is only available on select devices, and while that may improve, there's no guarantee your smartphone will ever get it, or if it'll work well. Microsoft could also provide enhanced features, such as the ability to take cellular phone calls on your PC directly from your Surface Phone. It could also build out dedicated Phone and SMS apps that sync up with the Messages app on your PC, instead of having to relay it through the Your Phone app. There's so much more potential when you build your own Android phone.

US mobile network operator Sprint said hackers broke into an unknown number of customer accounts via the Samsung.com "add a line" website. From a report: "On June 22, Sprint was informed of unauthorized access to your Sprint account using your account credentials via the Samsung.com 'add a line' website," Sprint said in a letter it is sending impacted customers. "The personal information of yours that may have been viewed includes the following: phone number, device type, device ID, monthly recurring charges, subscriber ID, account number, account creation date, upgrade eligibility, first and last name, billing address and add-on services," the US telco said. Sprint said the information hackers had access to did not pose "a substantial risk of fraud or identity theft," although, many might disagree with its assessment. The company said it re-secured all compromised accounts by resetting PIN codes, three days later, on June 25.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNN: South Korea has warned that an escalating trade dispute with Japan could hurt the global tech industry. President Moon Jae-in said Wednesday that Japan's decision to restrict exports to South Korea of materials used in memory chips are a "blow to the economy" and threaten to disrupt global supplies. Japan announced earlier this month that companies would need a government license to export three materials to South Korea. The materials -- fluorinated polyamides, photoresists and hydrogen fluoride -- are used to make memory chips and smartphones.

The export controls are a massive headache for South Korean firms Samsung and SK Hynix, who between them control over 63% of the global memory chip market, according to the latest figures from the Korea International Trade Association. South Korean firms sourced 94% of fluorinated polyamides, 92% of photoresists and about 44% of hydrogen fluoride from Japan In the first quarter of this year, data from the association showed. Samsung, the world's biggest seller of smartphones, said in a statement to CNN Business that it was "assessing the current situation and reviewing a number of measures to minimize the impact on our production."

Samsung has been one of the only large smartphone manufacturers to insist on keeping the headphone jack in its flagship phones. But that is about to come to an end with the Galaxy Note 10. According to photos published by the FCC, showing both the bottom and top of the phone, there's no headphone jack in sight. The Verge reports: The FCC seems to have briefly shared these images by mistake. Samsung followed the usual protocols in requesting confidentiality for external photos of the Note 10 test device, and yet here we are. Whoops. There are two different models at the FCC, but neither includes 5G. So as with the S10 series, Samsung will likely produce a standalone 5G model. Aside from the headphone jack being a goner -- renders of the phone had already suggested this was coming -- we get a look at the triple-camera system on the back. There's another sensor positioned under the flash, which could be the same 3D time-of-flight depth sensor that Samsung included in the Galaxy S10 5G. The Note is usually where the company throws in everything it can, so it makes sense for it to carry over everything from the top-tier S10 model. The center-aligned front camera cutout is also faintly visible in one shot. Samsung is expected to formally announce the Note 7 at an August 7th Unpacked event in Brooklyn, New York.

After years of its on and off interest in smartphones, Google today produces some of the best phones on the planet. The Pixel 3 and the 3 XL take better pictures than most smartphones -- certainly any phone that predates them. But the whole idea of Google making handsets -- being also the company that maintains Android and has relationship with hundreds of OEM partners that themselves make and sell Android handsets -- has also been peculiar. Additionally, Google itself has an alarmingly long track record of losing interest in things, including hardware projects -- and especially when they finally appear to have courted a large following. Richard Windsor, director of research firm Radio Free Mobile, adds: While the wires are already speculating on the form factor of the Google Pixel 4 due to be launched in Q4, I am wondering whether this will be the last smartphone that Google makes. Ever since it wasted $12.5bn of shareholder's money on Motorola Mobility in 2012, Google has had a bad condition of what I refer to as engineering disease (see here and here and here). I diagnose engineering disease as a condition where engineers often get so excited about whether they can develop something that they forget to ask whether they should develop that something. Engineering disease almost always ends in financial disaster and I calculate that Google's hardware business has done nothing but burn cash since the day it was created. Worst of all, I can find no logical rhyme or reason why Google needs to make hardware other than a foolhardy attempt to take on Apple.

This it will never be able to do unless it takes Android fully proprietary so that it can control the experience from end to end and it has been unable and unwilling to do this to date. Furthermore, Samsung has done a much better job at taking on Apple given its scale, brand, distribution and the fact that its core competence is to take the innovations of others and make them smaller, better and cheaper. [...] This is why I have argued that Samsung and Google should stop wasting money on each other's core competence and throw their lot in together. The problem for Google hardware is that the days of under-performing businesses hiding under the skirts of the giant search cash machine are coming to an end. We have already seen this as in March, the Pixel Slate and Pixelbook team was cut back due to the lackluster sales of the product. The three versions of the Google Pixel have sold in paltry volumes with market share never reliably exceeding 0.3% with 4.5m units sold in 2018. Given the low volume, I would estimate the gross margin of this product is around 20% in the best instance which after product development costs and marketing leaves very little if anything left over.

This is not the kind of performance that Google is used to which combined with an apparent inability to really get the hardware right (see here) means that Dr. Ruth Porat (CFO of Alphabet) will be asking some very hard questions of this division this year. Consequently, I think that Google needs to see a significant step up in performance with the Pixel 4, otherwise, it too may fall under the surgeon's knife. [...] The time to pull the stops out is now as failure is likely to result in there being no Pixel 5. How long do you think Google would keep funding the Pixel phones project?

Over ten million users have been duped in installing a fake Samsung app named "Updates for Samsung" that promises firmware updates, but, in reality, redirects users to an ad-filled website and charges for firmware downloads. From a report: "I have contacted the Google Play Store and asked them to consider removing this app," Aleksejs Kuprins, malware analyst at the CSIS Security Group, told ZDNet this week in an interview, after publishing a report on the app's shady behavior earlier today. The app takes advantage of the difficulty in getting firmware and operating system updates for Samsung phones, hence the high number of users who have installed it. "It would be wrong to judge people for mistakenly going to the official application store for the firmware updates after buying a new Android device," the security researcher said. "Vendors frequently bundle their Android OS builds with an intimidating number of software, and it can easily get confusing."

Australia's consumer watchdog has sued Samsung's Australian unit for allegedly misleading consumers by promoting water-resistant Galaxy smartphones as suitable to use in swimming pools and the surf. From a report: The world's largest smartphone maker did not know or sufficiently test the effects of pool or saltwater exposure on its phones when ads showed them fully submerged, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) lawsuit says. The case is the first filed by a major regulator and could result in multi-million dollar fines. It centers on more than 300 advertisements in which Samsung showed its Galaxy phones being used at the bottom of swimming pools and in the ocean. "The ACCC alleges Samsung's advertisements falsely and misleadingly represented Galaxy phones would be suitable for use in, or for exposure to, all types of water ... when this was not the case," ACCC Chairman Rod Sims said in a statement on Thursday. Samsung said it stood by its advertising, complied with Australian law and would defend the case.

PolygamousRanchKid shares a report from Engadget: Samsung hasn't commented much on its decision to delay the Galaxy Fold and address design flaws, but it's opening up a little today. The company's electronics division CEO, DJ Koh, told those at a media event that he "pushed [the phone] through before it was ready." The setback was "embarrassing," he added. While Koh didn't elaborate on what happened, the statement suggests that Samsung was in a hurry to get the Fold out the door and claim some bragging rights. The Fold was supposed to arrive in late April, but early reviewers quickly discovered problems, including a display cover that was too easy to peel off and gaps that allowed debris to get behind the foldable screen. It was all too easy to break the sensitive panel -- and that would have been a problem with any phone, let alone one costing $1,980. Koh noted that Samsung had over 2,000 devices in the field and "defined all the issues," but didn't give an answer as to when the Fold might go back on sale.

In comments submitted to America's Federal Trade Commission, Microsoft says repairing its devices could jeopardize protections from the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) security chip.

"Don't believe them," argues a group of information security professionals who support the right to repair. Slashdot reader chicksdaddy quotes their report: The statement was submitted ahead of Nixing the Fix, an FTC workshop on repair restrictions that is scheduled for mid-July... "The unauthorized repair and replacement of device components can result in the disabling of key hardware security features or can impede the update of firmware that is important to device security or system integrity," Microsoft wrote... "If the TPM or other hardware or software protections were compromised by a malicious or unqualified repair vendor, those security protections would be rendered ineffective and consumers' data and control of the device would be at risk. Moreover, a security breach of one device can potentially compromise the security of a platform or other devices connected to the network...."

As we know: Firms like Microsoft, Lexmark, LG, Samsung and others use arguments like this all the time and then not too subtly imply that their authorized repair professionals are more trustworthy and honest than independent competitors. But that's just hot air. They have no data to back up those assertions and there's no way that their repair technicians are more trustworthy than owners, themselves...

There's nothing inherent in repair or the things called for in right to repair laws like providing diagnostic software, diagnostic codes, schematics and replacement parts that puts the integrity of the TPM or the trust model it anchors at risk. Nor does the TPM require that the devices it secures remain pristine: using the same hardware and software configuration as when they were sold by the OEM. After all, TPMs are in Dell computers. Dell makes diagnostic software and diagnostic codes and schematics available for their hardware and I haven't heard Microsoft or anybody else suggest that a TPM on a repairable Dell laptop is any less secure than the TPM on an unrepairable Microsoft Surface.

Apple has hired one of ARM's top chip engineers as the iPhone maker looks to expand its own chip development to more powerful devices, including the Mac, and new categories like a headset. Bloomberg reports: The company hired Mike Filippo in May for a chip architect position, according to his LinkedIn profile. At ARM, Filippo was a lead engineer behind chip designs that power the vast majority of the world's smartphones and tablets and was leading a new push into parts for computers. ARM, owned by SoftBank, designs microprocessors and licenses technology that is fundamental to the chip development efforts of Apple, Samsung, Qualcomm and Huawei.

Prior to his work at ARM, Filippo was also a key designer at chipmakers Advanced Micro Devices and Intel. For Apple, the hire could help fill the void left by the departure of Gerard Williams III earlier this year. Williams was Apple's head architect of chips used in the iPhone and iPad. Apple's A series chips power its mobile devices using ARM technology. Its Mac computers have used processors from Intel for nearly two decades.

Samsung Electronics' first foldable smartphone, the Galaxy Fold, will launch soon, as "most" issues linked to the screen have been solved, a Samsung Display executive has revealed. From a report: "Most of the display problems have been ironed out, and the Galaxy Fold is ready to hit the market," said Samsung Display Vice President Kim Seong-cheol in his speech at a conference held by industry organization The Korean Information Display Society on June 18 in Seoul. Samsung Display, a subsidiary of Samsung Electronics, is the main supplier of the folding screen. The Fold was initially scheduled to hit the shelves in April in the US and in May in Korea, but the launch has been delayed after reviewers complained of flickering screens and creases in the middle of the screen made after repeated folds.

Two days ago, Egypt's former president, Mohammed Morsi, collapsed in court during a trial and died from a sudden heart attack. Even though Morsi was the first democratically elected Egyptian president, news outlets have scrubbed that information from stories of his demise in what appears to be a government-mandated description sent out to press. The Verge reports: As noted by Mada Masr, a majority of newspapers published the same 42-word story sent to editors as a directive via WhatsApp. In the case of at least one outlet, a news anchor did that a little too well. In the clip below, the anchor can be heard wrapping her report with "sent from a Samsung device."

Morsi was elected in June 2012, though military forcibly removed him about a year later. The former president collapsed on Monday while in the midst of a courtroom hearing. The circumstances of Morsi's death have been called into question by rival regimes, including that of Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was aligned with Morsi during his brief rule due to both men's links to the Muslim Brotherhood. However, human rights groups have cited Morsi's deteriorating health over the years as the probable cause of this death. It's unclear why the current government, led Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, instructed news outlets to scrub Morsi's presidential history.