Have you ever walked into a hotel and thought, ‘Man, this isn’t how I pictured things when I booked the room.’ While you can’t exactly change the layout or furnishings of the room – unless you switch hotels – a new partnership between Marriott and Samsung could let you escape the reality of your humdrum lodgings for a bit. [More]
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Marriott, Samsung Partner To Offer Hotel Guests Virtual Reality Headsets, Because Why Not?
By 9.9.15
I Signed Up For Samsung’s “Ultimate Test Drive” And All I Got Was A Defective Phone With No Way To Return It
By 9.2.15
A few weeks ago, Samsung announced a new promotion called “Ultimate Test Drive,” wherein iPhone users (and only iPhone users) could sign up to receive a Galaxy smartphone and try it out for a month, for just a $1 processing fee. Consumerist reader Alex figured he might as well take Samsung up on its offer, and signed up to get a Galaxy Note 5 for the month. He’s now stuck with a Samsung phone that doesn’t work, no way to return it and the company hasn’t responded to any of his requests for help. [More]
Samsung Wants iPhone Users To Test Drive A Galaxy Smartphone For 30 Days
By 8.21.15
If you’re an iPhone user who’s been flirting with the idea of switching to an Android phone, it’s understandable that you might be resistant to change — it can take some getting used to when you switch from one operating system to another, in either direction. Samsung wants to take that uncertainty away for iPhone users with a new promo that allows those folks to test drive one of a few Galaxy smartphones for a month. [More]
Google, Samsung, And LG To Start Pushing Monthly Security Patches That You Still Won’t Get
By 8.7.15
There have been a number of very high-profile security flaws in Android phones this summer. The good news is, the makers of the hardware and software are now pledging to roll out updates to everyone more often. The bad news? “Everyone” doesn’t actually mean “everyone.” [More]
Samsung Gives Up On Plan To Create One Remote To Rule All Content
By 8.5.15
A lot of us no longer just watch traditional TV on our television sets. If you’ve seen this episode of House Hunters, maybe you’ll fire up your Amazon Fire Box, or Apple TV, or Roku to see what’s streaming on Netflix, Amazon Prime, HBO, Hulu — all different services each with different interfaces and content listings. Samsung was hoping to introduce a remote control device that would put all of this info at your fingertips without having to switch around between apps, but that dream appears to have died. [More]
Samsung Rolling Out Security Update To Fix Keyboard Vulnerability That Affects Up To 600M Galaxy Phones
By 6.19.15
After a security researcher found a flaw in the way Samsung phones update their SwiftKey keyboard software that leaves Galaxy phone owners open to hack attacks, the company says it’s rolling out a security update in the next few days that will address the vulnerability. [More]
New Exploit Leaves Up To 600M Samsung Galaxy Phones Vulnerable To Hack
By 6.17.15
Bad news for up to 600 million Samsung Galaxy phone owners worldwide: a big fat new vulnerability has been found that could let anyone with the inclination to cause trouble into your phone to read your messages, listen to your mic, watch your camera, and push malware at you. Oops. [More]
Video Shows Galaxy S6 Edge Will Bend; Samsung Says It’s Misleading
By 4.6.15
You might remember a little controversy last fall called bendgate, in which Apple’s new-at-the-time iPhone 6 Plus was found to bend if you applied enough pressure. Following the flurry of stories and issues surrounding that device, it comes as no surprise that Samsung’s newest smartphone, the Galaxy S6 Edge, would be subjected to similar tests, thus introducing us to a possible bendgate 2.0. [More]
Who’s Making The Money When Your Smart TV Watches You Back?
By 2.27.15
We’ve heard plenty of times in the past few years that if you have a smart TV — one that’s internet-enabled, for all that app goodness — that it might be watching you just as much as you watch it. Samsung in particular generates a lot of questions about how secure your data is with your TV, as do LG and Vizio. But there’s a missing piece to the equation. If your TV is watching you, why? Who stands to gain (in the sense of cold hard cash) from your data? [More]
Privacy Advocates Call For Investigation Into Samsung Smart TVs
By 2.26.15
Samsung’s Smart TVs have come under scrutiny recently after people learned the company’s privacy policy hinted that things we say within earshot of our televisions may be recorded and uploaded to third-party transcription services. While executives for the company have worked to calm people’s fears, a privacy group is now asked federal regulators to take a look into the matter. [More]
Samsung Smart TVs Don’t Encrypt Speech Or Transcriptions
By 2.19.15
Last week, the world collectively freaked out when we learned that Samsung’s smart TVs can take things that we say in our living rooms and uploads them to a third-party transcription service. The gadget-maker tried to calm us all down by explaining how the service works, but there’s a problem: people may have assumed that data is encrypted. It’s not. [More]
LG Executives Indicted For Vandalizing Samsung Washers In Germany
By 2.16.15
Last year, Samsung accused employees of competing conglomerate LG of vandalizing some of its high-end laundry machines at a trade show in Berlin. Vandalizing? Yes, the group is accused of pushing down on the door of a front-loading machine to sabotage it. [More]
Smart TV Users Accuse Samsung Of Inserting Pepsi Ads In Their Videos
By 2.11.15
If you own a smart TV, you probably purchased it thinking about all of the ways that you can use it to watch streaming services and your own library of video files. Samsung sees something different, though: they see a great big Internet-connected screen which they can use to splash ads on. It began three years ago with ads on the TV’s home screen, and now users are accusing the company of inserting advertisements where they don’t belong. [More]
Authorities In Three Major Cities Say Smartphone Thefts Have Dropped After Implementation Of “Kill Switches”
By 2.11.15
Times used to be, having a smartphone in your hand meant someone probably wanted to steal it. And while that may still be true, authorities in San Francisco, New York and London say the number of stolen smartphones has dropped dramatically since manufacturers started including “kill switches” that allow phones to be turned off remotely if they fall into the wrong hands. [More]
Samsung Clarifies Smart TV Privacy Policy That Freaked Everyone Out
By 2.10.15
This past weekend, someone noticed that Samsung reserves the right to record things we say near our TVs and upload them to a third party, and for some reason this freaked people out. Samsung has solved the problem by removing the problematic sentence from their privacy policy, replacing it with an expanded explanation of what uploading your speech to a third party really means. [More]
What You Say To Your Samsung Smart TV Is ‘Transmitted To A Third Party’
By 2.9.15
It was almost three years ago that we started to wonder whether it was possible for smart TVs to watch and listen to anyone in the immediate area of the television. It’s possible, but could it really happen? Over the weekend, the Daily Beast pointed out a single incredibly creepy sentence in the privacy policy for Samsung’s smart TVs, and we all began to wonder what our TV sets are really up to. [More]
Best Buy Becomes First Retailer To Sell Samsung’s Gear VR Headset (Galaxy Note 4 Not Included)
By 1.28.15
The Samsung Gear VR headset has been on sale since the fall, but it’s been hiding quietly on the Samsung website, which isn’t exactly the place most of us do our shopping. But now the virtual reality headgear has popped up on the website for Best Buy. [More]
Samsung Electronics CEO: We’re Not Buying BlackBerry
By 1.19.15
Last week, it was rumored that Samsung was thinking of paying more than $7 billion to acquire wireless device maker BlackBerry. But the co-CEO for Samsung Electronics says his company doesn’t want to marry Blackberry; just enjoy a friends with benefits relationship. [More]
