Samsung reveals Galaxy S III Olympic Edition with Visa Paywave

KOREAN PHONE MAKER Samsung will release a limited edition Olympic Galaxy S III handset that will have Visa Paywave technology.

Don't go getting too excited, though, as Visa has said that the 'mobile wallet' won't go on sale to the general public yet, as it will be made available only to sponsored Olympic athletes.

According to Samsung the Paywave enabled smartphone will enable users to "buy merchandise with a wave of the device at thousands of retail locations throughout London", which given that the athletes are unlikely to have to pay, or even want to purchase merchandise, makes the device seem a little unnecessary.

Still, DJ Lee, EVP and head of Sales and Marketing for Samsung's Mobile Communications Business remains optimistic. He said, "Mobile payment services enabled by NFC technology are gaining momentum around the world. The Samsung Galaxy S III has been created with our human needs and capabilities in mind and is the ideal device to showcase the ease and convenience of Visa's mobile payment application at the London 2012 Olympic Games".

Sandra Alzetta, SVP of Mobile at Visa Europe claims that the limited edition device will change the way we pay for goods, saying, "The future is mobile and cash usage will only continue to decline as people use their mobile devices to manage their money, shop and pay."

"This summer our partnership with Samsung will showcase all the advantages of the future of payments: security, convenience, speed and flexibility being forefront among them."

We're not sure that offering a device exlusively to athletes is a good way to push forward NFC payments, since obviously we won't use it if we can't get it. µ

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Samsung unveils Galaxy S III to challenge iPhone

By:David Sarno

Los Angeles Times

Samsung Electronics unveiled its latest hand-held weapon in its war against Apple — a smartphone dubbed Galaxy S III that is lighter and thinner than the iPhone despite having a screen nearly twice as large.

The S III, with voice command, will go on sale in Europe at the end of this month and in the United States and other countries this summer. The company did not offer pricing information or disclose which U.S. carriers would offer the phone, which will run on 4G wireless networks.

Samsung is hoping the new phone will help it leapfrog Apple. During the first quarter of this year, Apple accounted for 29 percent of U.S. smartphones sold, while Samsung was close behind at 24 percent, according to figures released this week by NPD Group, a market research firm. Some analysts believe that Samsung sold more devices than Apple around the world from January to March.

Smartphone observers have attributed Samsung’s success to the growing prepaid-phone market, in which consumers can buy lower-cost handsets without a contract, paying for a limited period of service in advance. Samsung accounted for 4 in 10 prepaid smartphones sold in the U.S. during the first quarter.

For its new phone, Samsung took a page from Apple’s voice-controlled phone helper, Siri, saying the S III “has the enhanced intelligence to make everyday life easier,” including a front-facing camera that will signal the phone to keep its screen bright if it detects that the user is reading or browsing the Internet.

The “S-Voice” feature, like Siri, allows users to dictate emails and text messages, issue voice commands to play songs, and even tell the alarm to “snooze.”

The features will be powered by a souped-up internal computer with four internal processors, called a quad core; most other smartphones including the iPhone still have only two cores. The phone will have an 8-megapixel camera and a 1.9-megapixel front-facing camera, and will run the latest version of Google’s Android mobile operating system, known as Ice Cream Sandwich.

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Samsung Galaxy S3 big on surprises

London - South Korea's Samsung Electronics on Thursday unveiled its latest flagship smartphone at a London launch as it seeks to cement its position as the world's best-selling mobile phone maker.

The Galaxy S3 boasts a 4.8-inch screen (12.2cm), 22 percent larger than the Galaxy S2, the hugely popular predecessor that helped the company overhaul Nokia as the world leader.

Despite the larger screen, Samsung says the phone is not much larger than its predecessor due to its smaller frame.

Other new developments include “intelligent camera features” which use face recognition technology and improved voice-activated controls.

The new model also uses the Android operating system, and its performance in the marketplace is perceived to be crucial to the success of the Linux-based system.

“The importance of the Galaxy S3 to Samsung cannot be underestimated,” Adam Leach, principal analyst at Ovum, told the BBC.

“The company has built its reputation on producing the 'must-have' Android smartphone and in the process has become the poster child for the Android platform.”

The handset goes on sale in Europe in May to be followed by launches in Asia, the Middle East and Africa.

The new SIII will have a 4.8 inch touch screen, 8 megapixel camera and will use the latest version of Google's Android software.

Won-Pyo Hong, head of product strategy at Samsung's mobile business, said it expected sales of the SIII to outstrip predecessor SII's more than 20 million units.

“Definitely, we expect so. The level of interest from our partners has been bigger,” Hong told Reuters in an interview. He said the marketing budget would also increase, even if brand awareness was already quite high.

“We need to spend more on marketing to address consumer interest and to meet requirements of our partners,” he said.

Analysts said the new device represented a formidable challenge to rivals, given a combination of the Galaxy brand, sales support from operators and heavy marketing.

“Samsung must make the most of a 4-5 month window of opportunity with the Galaxy SIII before Apple changes the game once more with its next generation iPhone,” said Geoff Blaber, analyst at CCS Insight.

“Supported by an eye-watering marketing spend aligned to Samsung's Olympics sponsorship, this is going to be the biggest non-Apple smartphone launch ever seen.”

The new Galaxy will be powered by Samsung's quad-core microprocessor, which the company hopes will also be used in handsets made by Nokia, HTC and Motorola, as well as Apple, its biggest customer for components.

The Exynos 4 Quad, based on British chip designer ARM Holdings Cortex A9 technology, enables more tasks in a shorter period of time - for example streaming video can run on one core while the other cores update applications, connect to the web and scan virus-check, simultaneously.

Samsung shares hit a lifetime high after its first-quarter results, pushing its market value to $190 billion, 11 times that of Japanese rival Sony, though still only a third of Apple's, the world's most valuable company.

Apple and Samsung's near duopoly in high-end smartphones was not expected to come under threat this year or next. - AFP-Reuters

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Samsung Galaxy S3

Samsung Electronics Co . has recently announced the latest Samsung Galaxy S3 that will have a high-definition touch screen that's nearly twice the size of the iPhone , while being thinner and lighter than Apple's phone.

The S III screen has a 4.8-inch screen. Meanwhile, the iPhone screen has stayed the same size, at 3.5 inches, but the recent models pack more pixels into the screen, for a sharper display.

The Galaxy line has emerged as the biggest competitor to the iPhone. The Galaxy S III will go on sale in Europe on May 29 and in the US this summer. The Korean company showed off the phone on Thursday at an event in London.

Samsung said the phone will go on sale in 145 countries with 296 phone companies, making it the company's biggest launch so far.

Samsung Galaxy S3 will run Google Inc.'s Android software. The processor, or "brains" of the device, will be upgraded to include four computing cores. The iPhone and most other high-end phones are "dual-core," but there are some quad-core devices on sale already.

The added computing power will be put to use in the S III's expanded voice-command features. When the phone screen is off, owners will be able to "wake" it up by saying "Hi, Galaxy." They can then give further spoken commands. When Apple launched the iPhone 4S last year, it also made advances in voice recognition a central selling point.

In US, Japan and Korea, the phone will use fourth-generation, or 4G, networks for faster data downloads.

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