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LONDON, England, and TOKYO, Japan, February 4, 2008—LiMo Foundation, a global consortium of mobile leaders delivering an open handset platform for the whole industry, today announced the on-schedule availability in March 2008 of the first release of the LiMo Platform—the first globally competitive, Linux-based software platform for mobile handsets—together with the immediate public availability of the application programming interface (API) specifications.

LiMo’s technology will be showcased in Booth 8b135, Hall 8 at Mobile World Congress, February 11-14 in Barcelona.

LiMo’s initial Founder members—Motorola, NEC, NTT DoCoMo, Panasonic Mobile Communications, Samsung Electronics and Vodafone—collaborated on Release 1 (R1), and nearly all of the enabling technology within R1 has been commercially deployed and proven within handsets enjoyed by consumers today.

The LiMo Platform—leveraging standards and open-source projects—is a modular, plug-in-based, hardware-independent architecture built around an open operating system, with a secure run-time environment for support of downloaded applications. Linux was selected as the core technology for the LiMo Platform for its acceptability by the whole mobile industry, its rich functionality and scalability, its record of success in embedded systems and mobile phones and its potential to easily “cross-platformize” with other product categories.

Third-party developers will use LiMo’s API specifications—available in beta form immediately at www.limofoundation.org—to build new applications that deliver next-generation consumer experiences across a tremendous, stable base of globally deployed mobile devices. Middleware components for the LiMo Platform can be implemented in either C or C++ programming languages.

Launched in January 2007, the LiMo Foundation is open to all vendors and service providers in the mobile communications marketplace, including device manufacturers, operators, chipset manufacturers, independent software vendors, integrators and third-party developers. More at Limofoundation.org.

Chicago, IL — Feb 01, `08 — Motorola, which created and dominated the worldwide cell phone market, on Thursday announced it may shed that iconic business amid a breathtaking decline in sales and mounting losses in the past year.

Its shares — already down as about 55 percent since mid October 2006 — were up $1.18 at $12.71 after some analysts raised price targets for the company and Citigroup upgraded its rating of the stock to ‘buy’ from ‘hold’ after the news.

The world’s third-largest mobile phone maker, which has been losing market share to market leader Nokia and Samsung, said late Thursday it was “exploring the structural and strategic realignment of its business to better equip its Mobile Devices business to recapture global market leadership and to enhance shareholder value.”

While that may signal Motorola is putting its $19 billion cell phone unit on the block, the firm also might instead sell one or both of its other major business lines — one for TV set-top boxes and network equipment, and another that makes mobile equipment for governments and large businesses. It also could decide to keep the firm intact.

“We don’t want anyone to be misled that we’ve preordained” a plan, Don McLellan, Motorola’s head of mergers and acquisitions, said in an interview. “This announcement is about equipping mobile devices with a way to achieve its leadership again.”

Even a breakup of the troubled company may not head off another proxy fight with billionaire financier Carl Icahn. Motorola, which fought off Icahn’s bid for board seats and a drastic overhaul just a year ago.

The revised strategy comes just one month after Greg Brown succeeded Ed Zander as CEO and a year and a day since Icahn initiated a proxy fight to shake up a company that was already in the throes of a severe decline in sales and profits. After grabbing world market share of 23 percent in 2006 on momentum led by its Razr phone, the company has lost nearly half that as rivals outpaced it with successful new products.

Motorola prevailed in last year’s proxy battle. But with the end of its slump nowhere in sight, it has dropped its opposition to splitting off or shedding its core business.

Icahn, while “pleased” to hear that Motorola is exploring his proposal, nevertheless still plans another fight for board seats this spring, as he said he had warned the company recently.

Seoul, S Korea — Dec 21, `07 — South Korean prosecutors probing corruption accusations against the giant Samsung Group said on Friday they had narrowed their focus down to around 400 accounts that might be linked to an alleged slush fund, Reuters reported.

A former top legal executive with the country’s biggest conglomerate last month accused Samsung of running a 200 billion won ($212.7 million) fund to bribe public officials to avoid investigation into its operations.

“The list of accounts has become a lot shorter,” a prosecution official said by telephone. “It’s roughly about 300 or 400.” Media reports have said the number of accounts searched by prosecutors was well in excess of 1,000.

The former Samsung employee, Kim Yong-cheol, said the firm hid the illicit funds in scores of deposit accounts in the names of current and former executives.

The company, whose group sales are equivalent to about a sixth of the entire economic output of the world’s 13th largest economy, has denied any wrongdoing. More at Reuters.

SAN JOSE, Calif –BUSINESS WIRE– Dec 19, `07 — Samsung Electronics announced today its high capacity 2.5-inch hard drive, the new Spinpoint M6 featuring 320GB of storage capacity.

The new Spinpoint M6 HM320JI is a SATA hard drive designed for notebook PCs, as well as slim PCs and blade servers. With its ultra-high 320GB capacity, the Spinpoint M6 can store the most content of any 2.5” drive and is ideal for notebook users who need large storage space for videos, photos, music and multiple multimedia applications.

Created to thrive in the toughest environments where notebook PCs are used, the Spinpoint M6 provides superb reliability. It utilizes perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) technology, and the disk drive design has been optimized to allow ultra-precision adjustment of the head parking ramp position for high-density recording. The Spinpoint M6 features an optional Free-Fall Sensor that protects data from accidental drops and includes an optional Rotary Vibration Controller that minimizes the influence of external vibration.

The Spinpoint M6 has been developed to meet the most stringent environmental demands of notebook PC and portable consumer electronics, where minimal noise and low power consumption is critical. Samsung’s Spinpoint M6 hard drives operate between 2.6Bel and 2.4Bel in idle mode.

The M6 Series features a 5,400rpm spindle speed, 1.5Gbps SATA interface and 8MB cache memory. The M6 Series is currently available with a $249 MSRP (where? only - the Worst (non-existent) On the Planet Samsung-PR - knows ). Can’t find it at Samsung Global Hard Disk Drive page or anywhere at Samsung, except user manual.

Seoul — Dec 13, `07 –Korea Newswire– Samsung Electronics announced today the development of a new digital TV receiver chip (S5H1432) using 65nm process technology for terrestrial digital video broadcasting (DVB-T), the digital broadcasting standard in Europe, Southeast Asia, and Australia.

Samsung’s new DVB-T receiver chip is designed for use in digital TVs, set-top boxes, TV receiver cards for PCs, USB interfaced plug-and play dongle or boxes, and DVD recorders.

Fabricated using Samsung’s advanced 65nm process technology on 300mm wafers, this new DVB-T receiver chip fully supports Europe’s NorDig unified standard for digital broadcasting. The power consumption level for this chip is at an industry low of 80mW, less than one third of the conventional 250mW average power consumption of existing solutions on the market.

By using a proprietary processing algorithm, Samsung’s new DVB-T receiver chip enables high performance even in single frequency network environments, reducing the channel scanning interval by half, to less than 0.1-second, from the conventional 0.2-second.

The new DVB-T receiver chip is expected to be available in the first quarter of 2008. This DVB-T receiver chip, together with other Samsung logic devices and solutions, will be on display at CES 2008.

On Wednesday, Dec 12, Sharp Corporation filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Samsung Electronics in the Seoul Central District Court in South Korea.

The complaint alleges that (1) liquid crystal display (LCD) modules manufactured and/or sold by Samsung in South Korea and (2) LCD TVs manufactured and/or sold by Samsung in South Korea that incorporate these LCD modules infringe upon three LCD-related Korean patents that are owned by Sharp.

In the complaint, Sharp requests that the Court award it compensatory damages and prohibit the manufacturing and sale of the infringing products in South Korea.

The three patents named in the lawsuit are Korean Patent Numbers 371,939, 740,570 and 776,988. These patents relate to LCD technologies that achieve high brightness and high-speed response, as well as a wide viewing angle by regulating and stabilizing the alignment of the LCD molecules.

On August 6, 2007, Sharp filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Samsung and its US subsidiaries Samsung Electronics America, Inc. (SEA) and Samsung Telecommunications America (STA) in the US. That lawsuit is now pending. More at Sharp.

Egham, UK — Worldwide sales of mobile phones to end users in the third quarter of 2007 reached 289 million units, a 15 per cent increase from the same period last year, according to Gartner, Inc. The top five vendors increased their market shares and accounted for 81.6 per cent of the global market share.

“Even though relatively few models were introduced this quarter, overall sales exceeded expectations. Mobile phone sales were mainly driven by strong performances in Asia/Pacific and Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa,” said Carolina Milanesi, research director for mobile devices research at Gartner, based in Egham, UK. “The third quarter also saw Samsung gain the No. 2 position taking advantage of Motorola’s continued weak performance.”

Nokia’s mobile phone sales to end users totaled 110.2 million units reaching a market share of 38.1 per cent in the third quarter of 2007. This quarter, Nokia not only exhibited the highest year-on-year market share increase, but also raised operating margins thanks to effective cost management and global distribution strategy.

Samsung’s sales to end users reached 41.8 million units and saw the vendor gain the No. 2 position as it better managed its channel inventory. Sales of its Ultra Edition II series continued to gain momentum in key markets such as Western Europe, where Samsung reached 21 per cent market share, its strongest performance in the region.

Motorola’s sales into the channel remained weak and, with limited surplus stock, sales to end users were not enough to maintain its No. 2 position. Motorola’s market share dropped 7.6 percentage points from the third quarter of 2006, relegating the vendor to the No. 3 position.

Sony Ericsson’s positive performance continued in the third quarter of 2007 as sales reached 25.4 million units. As Sony Ericsson built up sales volume and presence in some regions, such as Latin America, it also saw a slight increase in inventory among distributors.

LG sold 20.5 million units in the third quarter of 2007 and reached a market share of 7.1 per cent. LG faced stronger competition in markets such as India, where the code division multiple access (CDMA) market has become challenging as operators closed deals with new entrants such as ZTE. More at Gartner.

Related:

Makers of Mechanical -Not So Electronic- Mobile Phones, Motorola Replaces CEO

Seoul, South Korea & Tokyo, Japan –BUSINESS WIRE– Dec 03, ‘07 — Samsung Electronics and Toshiba today announced that they have licensed to one another the rights to produce, market and sell memory with the specifications and trademarks of Samsung’s OneNAND and Toshiba’s LBA-NAND memory chips.

As a result of the reciprocal arrangement, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) will have a broader choice of suppliers for each premium memory chip, thereby reducing any potential risk of over-dependence on a single supplier for any of the selected chips. The arrangement is expected to result in increased availability of premium-performance OneNAND and LBA-NAND flash devices worldwide.

Under terms of the agreement, Samsung will license product specifications of its integrated OneNAND and Flex-OneNAND “fusion” memory chips to Toshiba, while Toshiba will license product specifications of its single-package LBA-NAND and mobileLBA-NAND flash chips to Samsung. Both companies will develop and market products that are compatible with the respective original-source technology. Samsung and Toshiba each plan to release products next year based on the respectively licensed product specifications. More here.

SAN JOSE, Calif –BUSINESS WIRE– Dec 01, ‘07 — Samsung Electronics announced today that it has developed the world’s fastest memory, a GDDR5 (series five, graphics double-data-rate memory) chip that can transfer data at six gigabits per second, which is more than four times faster than that of memories in state-of-the-art game consoles today.

Samsung’s GDDR5, which will be introduced at a density of 512 Mbit (16Mb x 32) chips, is capable of transmitting moving images and associated data at 24 gigabytes per second.

“We’re pushing image enhancement to a limit never before realized, enabling the smoothest, clearest animation that gamers have yet to experience,” said Mueez Deen, Marketing Director, Graphics Memory, Samsung Semiconductor. “Samsung’s 512Mb GDDR5 will enable the kind of graphics hardware performance that will spur software developers to deliver a new level of eye-popping games.”

The new Samsung graphics memory operates at 1.5 volts, representing an approximate 20 percent improvement in power consumption over today’s most popular graphics chip – the GDDR3.

Samples of Samsung’s new GDDR5 chip have been delivered to major graphic processor companies last month and mass production is expected in the first half of 2007.

Samsung expects that GDDR5 memory chips will become the de facto standard in the top performing segment of the market by capturing more than 50 percent of the high-end PC graphics market by 2010.

Related:

Hynix Introduces Industry’s First 1Gb GDDR5 DRAM

Samsung Intros Its Highest-Speed DDR2 Main Memory and Fastest Graphics Memory

SAN JOSE, Calif –BUSINESS WIRE– Nov 29, ‘07 — New LED-backlit LCD displays of Samsung Electronics are now available in large premium-model, full-HD TVs at major U.S retailers for the holiday season.

The new panels enable a huge jump in the dynamic contrast ratio from between 5,000:1 and 25,000:1, to 100,000:1 and even 500,000:1, for the clearest images on the market today.

Available in 40-inch, 46-inch, 52-inch and 57-inch diagonal screen sizes, Samsung’s new “local dimming,” LED (light-emitting diode) technology provides a brightness level of 450nits, and reduces power consumption by as much as 30 percent.

Depending upon the number of LEDs used in a screen panel design, the dynamic contrast ratio can improve the contrast in colors by as much as a thousand percent over the CCFL (cold cathode fluorescent lamp) LCD TVs typically used today.

Another significant advantage to Samsung’s “local dimming” technology is that the LED scanning process shuts off the diodes in precise sequences, thereby essentially eliminating any remnants of ‘image ghosting’ that had previously been a drawback in some LCD TVs.

With local-dimming LEDs, hundreds of wafer-thin diodes about the width of the eye’s pupil are electronically turned off and on in exacting sequences that respond to movement on the screen – areas only a fraction of what was previously possible with the most prevalent form of TV backlighting – long, thin fluorescent lamps. In black areas of the picture, the diodes can be completely shut off in order to generate total blackness.

Samsung said that its new extreme-contrast LCD panels is now available in Samsung TVs in the U.S., and also will be featured in HDTV’s produced by other manufacturers. The local dimming LED display does not contain mercury.

BASKING RIDGE, NJ, Nov 29, ‘07 /PRNewswire/ — Verizon today announced plans to develop and deploy its fourth generation mobile broadband network using LTE — Long Term Evolution – the technology developed within the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) standards organization.

The selection of LTE provides Verizon and Vodafone — joint owners of U.S.-based Verizon Wireless - - with a unique opportunity to adopt a common access platform with true global scale and compatibility with existing technologies of both companies.

Verizon and Vodafone have a coordinated trial plan for LTE that begins in 2008. Trial suppliers include Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Motorola, Nokia- Siemens, and Nortel. These suppliers, along with others in the world community, have contributed significantly towards development of the standards in 3GPP.

Discussions with device suppliers have expanded beyond traditional suppliers such as LG, Samsung, Motorola, Nokia, and Sony Ericsson, as consumer electronics companies anticipate embedded wireless functionality in their future products.

“We fully support Verizon’s decision to select LTE as their next generation wireless broadband solution,” said Steve Pusey, Vodafone’s global chief technology officer. “LTE will build on the capabilities of Vodafone’s 3G broadband High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) network technology, which is available across the entire Vodafone 3G footprint.”

“Today’s 4G announcement, coupled with our Open Development initiative announced earlier this week present a major growth opportunity for Verizon Wireless,” said Doreen Toben, chief financial officer of Verizon. “Fourth generation’s higher data speeds wi usher in a new era of wireless applications and appliances, all of which can benefit from connecting to the nation’s premier wireless network.”

More at PRNewsWire.

Seoul, S Korea — Nov 27, ‘07 — South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun said he will appoint an independent investigator to probe bribery allegations against Samsung Group, escalating a corruption scandal that has engulfed the nation’s largest industrial group.

The country’s national assembly last week voted for legislation forcing the investigation to take place.

Mr Roh, who has previously resisted calls for an independent investigation, said that he would now back one because the bill had been passed. Samsung denies the accusations which include bribing police and politicians to stop probes into its management. It is also alleged that the manufacturing firm used a slush fund to finance the bribes.

Seventeen traded units of Samsung Group lost $5.21 billion (4.85 trillion won) in combined market value today after Roh said in a televised news briefing he accepted lawmakers’ demands for an investigation.

The new legislation requires an independent investigator to spend up to 125 days looking into the allegations made about the firm. Its remit includes examining whether the firm made improper payments during campaigning for the 2002 presidential election.

State prosecutors have already begun an investigation into allegations of wrongdoing at Samsung, but in the bill MPs said that this could not “earn the people’s confidence”.

Samsung said that it would “co-operate” with the investigation. Local media has reported that prosecutors have banned top Samsung officials from leaving the country.

The investigation comes as South Korean authorities have stepped up anti-corruption activities, going after some of the country’s largest companies. Earlier this year, six Samsung executives pleaded guilty in the US to charges of fixing the price of microchips.

In February, the chairman of Hyundai Motor Company - one of South Korea’s biggest firms - was sentenced to three years in jail for embezzlement and breach of trust.

And last year South Korean prosecutors raided the offices of Citigroup in Seoul as part of a probe into the sale of a local bank to a US investment fund.

“This is an extraordinarily big event for Samsung, which can even result in a near breakup of the group,” said Jang Ha Sung, a professor at Korea University who led a group that sued Samsung Electronics for selling shares at a discount to an affiliate.

“Still, long-term investors from outside Korea may view the case as an opportunity for positive new changes for the South Korean economy as a whole,” Jang said.

Seoul, S Korea — Nov 26, ‘07 –Reuters is reporting on a former top legal executive at Samsung Group on Monday making fresh accusations against the country’s largest conglomerate, saying it had used subsidiaries to help create a $215.8 million (200 billion won) slush fund.

Samsung has previously denied charges by , who used to run a major legal division but now says he wants to blow the whistle on corruption.

Reuters further reports, “”Samsung has created a large-scale slush fund,” Kim told a nationally-televised news conference, the second this month accusing his former employer of impropriety.

As Samsung legal counsel he saw secret documents which laid out intricate arrangements between affiliates to channel money to the illegal fund, he said. Earlier this month, Kim accused Samsung of routinely bribing prosecutors and politicians to quash investigations concerning improper company management.

Last week, South Korea’s parliament voted to allow an independent counsel to investigate the Samsung Group.

Roh, who has about three months left in office, is considering vetoing the bill, his office has said.” More at Reuters.

Taipei, Taiwan — Nov 26, ‘07 –Jimmy Hsu of DigiTimes reports on Samsung Electronics, in a bid to promote sales of its digital cameras at the annual IT Month fair to take place in Taipei in early December, offering a 4GB SD memory card as a gift along with the sale of Samsung digital cameras, citing retail channels in the Taiwan market.

He further writes, “Price competition that has been ongoing for up to two years in the Taiwan market has reduced sales margins for digital cameras to a low level of $15.5-24.7 (NT$500-800), and vendors have started to opt for offering gifts instead of further price cuts, the sources indicated.

Memory cards are the most common promotional gifts offered alongside digital cameras, usually a 1GB SD card for an entry-level model and a 2GB SD card for a mid-range or high-end model, the sources noted. However, Samsung will take the initiative in offering 4GB SD cards and it is uncertain whether main competitors, including Canon, Sony, Panasonic, Nikon and Casio, will follow suit, the sources pointed out.” More at DigiTimes.

SEOUL, South Korea — Nov 23, ‘07 — South Korea’s National Assembly passed a bill Friday demanding an independent investigation into allegations of bribery at the Samsung Group conglomerate.

The National Assembly approved a bill authorizing the investigation in a 155-17 vote, with 17 absentees. A probe would also look into whether Samsung Chairman Lee Kun Hee and executives illegally helped Lee’s son, Jae Yong, get control of Samsung units. Samsung and incoming prosecutor-general Lim Chai Jin, who is among those accused of taking bribes, denied the allegations.

Samsung’s former chief attorney, Kim Yong-Cheol, said earlier this month South Korea’s biggest industrial group amassed a slush fund to bribe powerful figures in the country including government officials and media.

An investigation must be started within 50 days, according to the bill, which needs President Roh Moo Hyun’s approval. Roh’s office “will consider various options,” including vetoing the bill, his spokesman Cheon Ho Seon told reporters. The probe will also look into the lobbying of presidential candidates during the 2002 election, when Roh beat Lee Hoi Chang, then-candidate of the Grand National Party. Lee is running again this year as an independent for the Dec. 19 election.

Lee Yong Chul, a former aide to Roh, said this week he received 5 million won ($5,400) in January 2004 from a lawyer at Samsung Electronics and immediately returned the money.

The bill was approved as prosecutors began their own investigation earlier this month, setting up a special unit to ensure independence.

The legislation calls for Roh to appoint an independent counsel out of three candidates recommended by the Korean Bar Association. The special prosecutor, aided by 33 assistant investigators, can investigate for up to 105 days.

Samsung Group, with about 130 trillion won in assets and 59 units, is the parent of Samsung Electronics, Asia’s biggest maker of chips and mobile phones. Other subsidiaries include Samsung Heavy Industries Co., the world’s second-largest shipbuilder, and Samsung SDI Co., the world’s second-largest maker of plasma display panels.

SEOUL — Nov 22, ‘07 — South Korea’s Samsung Electronics said on Thursday it plans to invest $2.21 billion (2.06 trillion won) to expand its eighth-generation liquid crystal display (LCD) line, Reuters reported.

“Samsung, which had been cooperating with Japan’s Sony for its No. 8 line, is making the investment on its own for this phase, a Samsung official said.” Reuters.

SEOUL, South Korea –BUSINESS WIRE– Nov 22, ‘07 — Samsung Electronics, the world’s largest provider of thin-film-transistor, liquid crystal display (TFT-LCD) panels, announced today that it has completed development of a flat panel X-ray detector (FPXD) for radiology machines, in collaboration with Vatech Ltd, a Korean medical machinery manufacturing company.

By using digital imaging with thin-film transistor (TFT) technology, the diagnostic process is enhanced in many ways. In addition to delivering a much more precise image, Samsung’s new FPXD imaging sensor can save medical labs considerable time and money because no film or development process is needed.

An X-ray detector is an elaborate imaging sensor that converts invisible X-ray images into digital signals, which are then instantly transformed into pictures. Today, the medical profession still relies primarily on costly, plastic-based analog film for X-ray photography applications, which can take an excessively long period of time to develop in many medical situations.

The new FPXD measures 45 centimeters (cm) wide x 46cm high (or 61cm diagonally) and boasts a 3072 x 3072 (9.4 megapixels) resolution providing ultra-high definition images.

The new Samsung FXPD technology has virtually an endless range of applications beyond conventional X-ray systems. For example, it can be adopted for more advanced diagnostics such as CAT scans, for building inspections (scanning rebar structures, etc.) and for airport security scanners.

To create its FPXD, Samsung attached photodiodes to a TFT substrate that was produced using its proprietary amorphous silicon technology. The X-rays are detected photon by photon and then converted into visible light, which in turn is converted to electrical signals that can be displayed as diagnostic images on a flat panel screen.

In addition, Samsung has created an image enhancement function to eliminate most digital image noise interference to provide the highest radiographic sensitivity in the industry.

Samsung’s expects that its new, FPXD one-stop, total solution will secure the leadership position in the growing market for medical equipment detectors.The device will be available worldwide beginning first quarter, 2008.

Nov 21, ‘07 Verizon has started selling its latest addition, 3-Megapixel Samsung SCH-U900 FlipShot Camera Phone. FlipShot features a 2.2″ 240×320 Display, 3-Megapixel Camera, EV-DO, GPS-VZ Navigator, Bluetooth Stereo, MicroSD Slot, and weighs 3.88oz and is available for $199 with a two year contract from Verizon Wireless.

Taipei — Nov 21, ‘07 — Digitimes is reporting on “3Q07 North America” a report from Strategy Analytics. “Handsets from Motorola and LG Electronics (LGE), collectively accounted for seven of the top-ten best selling consumer handsets in the US in the third quarter of 2007, according to research firm Strategy Analytics.”

Digitimes further writes, “3G devices accounted for 55% of the top selling device volumes. That share will continue to grow during the fourth quarter,” states Chris Ambrosio, a director in the Wireless Practice at Strategy Analytics. “While the iPhone gets the headlines, the “Sync” from Samsung and the “Chocolate” from LG quietly stole the show in the category of iconic, 3G feature phones. Samsung, in particular, is well-positioned to dominate 3G sales during the critical fourth quarter holiday season.” More at Digitimes.

Ok let me repeat, “3G devices accounted for 55% of the top selling device volumes”, and still Apple’s so called revolutionary iPhone is NOT 3G, though rumors of 3G iPhone making rounds on the internet for a while.

SAN JOSE, Calif –BUSINESS WIRE– Nov 19, ‘07 — Samsung, introduces a powerful new optical disc drive, TruDirect SE-S204S, which allows consumers to create DVDs and burn digital content through a PC without the need for a hard drive. The TruDirect SE-S204S provides easy and fast real-time recording from nearly any digital device.

With camcorder and digital camera sales skyrocketing, predicted to be nearly 100 million units sold in 2008, consumers can now conveniently create DVDs in record time. Similar to VCR recording, users can connect a digital device such as a camcorder, digital camera or Web cam to their PC or notebook, and then connect the Samsung TruDirect SE-S204S to the computer to burn DVD movies directly.

Compared to using a hard disk drive, the TruDirect SE-S204S dramatically cuts down on the time it takes to create DVDs as no pre-mastering, multiplexing or hard-disk buffering is needed, enabling real-time, fast, and simple recording of personal videos, photos or data files onto DVD discs. Creating a DVD of a one-hour video stream only takes one hour and five minutes and to create a DVD from a one-hour hard disk drive camcorder file just takes 30 minutes.

In addition to DVD creation, the TruDirect SE-S204S features some of the fastest speeds of an optical disc drive on the market today. It features 20X DVD+R and DVD-R writing, 16X DVD+R Dual Layer writing, 12X DVD-R Dual Layer writing and 12X DVD-RAM writing.

The TruDirect SE-S204S is shipping nation wide with a street price of $159.99.

And since Samsung have THE WORST PR department on the face of this planet, there’s no picture to go with the story and as of the writing of this story the drive is nowhere to be found including Samsung US/UK, Amazon, Best Buy, Circuit City, Buy.com or at Frys.com and still Samsung press releases wants us to believe the drive is shipping nationwide. Gosh! I’ve never seen such a LOUSY, almost non-existent PR department of a multinational this big. Press release at BusinessWire.

San Antonio, Texas, Dallas, Texas, November 19, 2007 — AT&T and Samsung have announced the future availability of the SLM by Samsung, Samsung’s newest lightweight mobile phone with music and multimedia capabilities. The SLM by Samsung will be in stores beginning Nov. 23 and is the first of the company’s music phones to feature Napster Mobile, a new service that enables AT&T’s wireless customers to easily search a music catalog of 5 million songs, preview samples of each song and purchase and download songs to their SLM in less than a minute.

Exclusive to AT&T, the SLM is a durable, brushed-metal finish clamshell-shaped device that will be available first in brown and then blue later this year. It is packed with features and services beyond Napster Mobile, including AT&T Video Share, mobile banking, AT&T Mobile Music, stereo Bluetooth technology, a 2.0-megapixel camera with video capture, external memory microSD and advanced messaging options.

With Napster Mobile, customers will have the ability to download five tracks a month with the Napster Mobile Five-Track Pack option for a discounted price of $7.49. Songs can be purchased a la carte for just $1.99.

In addition to enabling users to purchase and download songs over the air, the SLM supports the full AT&T Mobile Music suite of services, including XM Radio Mobile, Pandora, MusicID song-recognition service, and VIP access, a mobile fan club and music-discovery service.

The SLM will also be the first device to have AT&T’s mobile banking application pre-loaded on the device. On Nov. 13, AT&T announced that the application will be accessible by banking customers of Wachovia Corp and SunTrust Banks.

Other key specifications of the SLM include dual-band 3G connectivity, which provides download speeds of 600 to 1,400 Kbps through AT&T’s HSDPA network, and quad-band GSM technology, which allows AT&T customers to make calls in 195 countries and download data in 139. To support music services, the SLM includes a 512MB SD memory card and 3.5 mm headset adapter.

Weighing just 3.17 ounces and measuring about one-half of an inch thick, the SLM features a 96- by 96-pixel 65K color external screen and a 176- by 220-pixel 262K TFT internal color screen.

Pricing and Availability
The SLM by Samsung will be available through select AT&T retail locations or at http://www.att.com/wireless for a special introductory price of $149.99 after a two-year contract activation agreement and a $50 mail-in rebate.

SAN JOSE, Calif –BUSINESS WIRE– Nov 19, ‘07 — Samsung announced today that its highest-speed DDR2 main memory and its fastest graphics memory have been designed to work smoothly with the new AMD Phenom processors and new ATI Radeon HD 3800 Series of graphics processing units (GPU) for desktop PCs.

AMD Phenom processors provide a high-speed L3 2MB cache to enhance the information flow between processor cores, main memory, and graphics and video accelerators.

The Samsung 512 megabit (Mb) DRAM (dynamic random access memory), capable of 1066 million data transfers per second, is Samsung’s fastest DDR2 chip and is available in densities up to 1 gigabyte (GB) per module.

“AMD is delighted that Samsung is producing a high performance memory solution well suited for our new AMD Phenom processors,” said Bob Brewer, corporate vice president of marketing and strategy, AMD. “Samsung’s leading-edge GDDR4 and GDDR3 graphics memory can provide a significant performance boost for systems that use our ATI Radeon HD GPUs.”

Samsung’s fastest memory chip – its GDDR4 1.2Ghz has been designed to be fully compatible with AMD’s new ATI Radeon HD 3870 GPU. ATI Radeon HD 3800 Series of GPUs transfer data at 72 gigabits (Gbps) per second, while consuming less power than current ATI graphics processors. In addition, Samsung’s 900Mhz GDDR3 is engineered to work seamlessly with the ATI Radeon HD 3850 GPU. Samsung’s 1.2 Ghz GDDR4 is offered in a 16Mx32 configuration, while the 900 Mhz GDDR3 is available in a 8Mx32 configuration.

The AMD Phenom processor incorporates four natively integrated processor cores and provides a system bandwidth of up to 14.4 Gbps of high bandwidth I/O. The ATI Radeon HD 3800 series is designed for Windows Vista, with the ability to navigate the Windows Aero 3D user interface.

Samsung‘s 1.2 Ghz GDDR4 and 900 Mhz GDDR3 are now in mass production. Samsung’s DDR2-1066 DRAM is planned to be mass produced beginning at the end of the year.

Nov 09, ‘07 — Samsung said Friday it had stopped selling flat panel televisions and other consumer products in Japan, citing poor profitability.

Samsung has emerged in the past decade and a half as a global force in consumer electronics, taking on and even beating Japanese rivals in places such as the United States and Europe. But penetrating the competitive Japanese consumer market, home to rivals such as Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Sony Corp. and Sharp Corp., appears to have been a considerable challenge.

“We judged direct sales to individual consumers are less profitable than business-to-business sales,” Lee Eun-hee, a Samsung spokeswoman, said of the reasoning behind the decision. Samsung sold LCD TVs, DVD players, MP3 music players and other items in Japan via the Internet, but stopped at the end of October, Lee said. It had ceased sales in retail outlets in August last year, she said.

Samsung will sell flat screen computer monitors directly to businesses and will continue to sell components such as memory chips and liquid crystal displays, she said. The company will also keep supplying mobile phone handsets to Japanese telecommunications company Softbank Corp., she said.

Since 2004, Samsung has produced LCD panels at a joint venture with Sony to meet strong demand for flat screen TVs, which has soared in recent years as consumers have switched to the sleeker versions.

World’s First Soft Modem to Achieve 2.8Mbps Transfer Rate Powers Samsung SGH-T578H.

EINDHOVEN, The Netherlands –BUSINESS WIRE–Nov 09, ‘07– Samsung, NXP Semiconductors and T3G Technologies today announced the world’s first TD-SCDMA HSDPA/GSM/GPRS/EDGE multi-mode mobile phone, which has also been demoed at the PT/Wireless Exposition in Beijing on October 23^rd. Powered by a software-defined modem capable of achieving data transfer rates of 2.8Mbps, the Samsung SGH-T578H enables about 20 times faster transfers than GPRS, allowing consumers to download several high-quality MP3 files in less than a minute. The phone is based on the T3G7210 system solution featuring the industry’s first soft modem empowered by NXP’s Embedded Vector Processor (EVP) to achieve high data transfer and multi-mode capability.

TD-SCDMA network deployments have been completed in 10 major cities across China where there are more than 70 million potential subscribers. This network is planned to be upgraded to support Release 5 (HSDPA) of the TD-SCDMA standard during the course of 2008. With the Samsung SGH-T578H mobile phone, users will be able to enjoy the widespread deployment of TD-SCDMA infrastructure to support high-speed streaming of multimedia coverage of the Beijing Olympics 2008. With this new milestone reached by Samsung, NXP and T3G, the TD-SCDMA standard is rapidly progressing towards the current W-CDMA capabilities.

“Samsung has always been at the cutting edge of mobile technology. Together with NXP and T3G, we have achieved several major milestones for TD-SCDMA phones – from the first TD-SCDMA video phone to this current high data transfer rate TD-HSDPA dual-band prototype,” said Mr. W.S. Lee, Vice President, Handset R&D Planning, Telecommunication Network Business, Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. “Multimedia and sharing of content will be the drivers for next-generation handsets. The combination of T3G’s leading TD-SCDMA technology and NXP’s very innovative EVP technology make them obvious partners of choice to provide consumers a high-end multimedia experience in a run up to the Beijing Olympics.”

“The China 3G subscription is expected to grow rapidly. By realizing 3.5G capabilities on Samsung’s SGH-T578H, NXP is driving the commercialization and adoption of next-generation wireless technologies – not only for China’s TD-SCDMA standard, but also proving successful our EVP-based software-defined radio approach,” said Marc Cetto, Executive Vice President & General Manager, Mobile & Personal Business Unit, NXP Semiconductors.

Mr. Johan Pross, CEO of T3G, said, “The T3G7210 is the first cellular system solution to use NXP’s breakthrough embedded vector processor to support multi-mode and multi-standard platforms, also allowing us to deal with possible changes in the standard or operator requirements. It enables mobile phone makers to offer more commercialized handsets with a broad scope of 3G multimedia applications.”

Samsung’s SGH-T578H is based on the T3G7210 system solution which uses the world’s first 2.8Mbps HSDPA modem IC, TD60291. NXP’s Adelante VD32040 embedded vector processor enables the modem to achieve 2.8Mbps peak data rates and fully supports the 3GPP TDD-LCR Standard Release 5. The T3G7210 system solution also supports quad-band EDGE and dual-band TD-SCDMA with integrated multimedia accelerators to allow for the development of high-end feature phones without the need for additional external co-processors.

Seoul, Nov 08, ‘07 — Korea Newswire – Samsung announced today that it is mass producing a 16M-color display driver IC (DDI) for active matrix-based organic light-emitting diode (AMOLED) displays used in mobile phones and other handheld devices. With outstanding image quality, AMOLEDs are attracting attention from device designers as the next generation display technology of choice.

The global mobile communications market is transitioning rapidly from 2.5G products to 3G technology platforms that support a wider range of multimedia functions and services, including digital media broadcasting (DMB) and video telephony. Samsung’s new mobile DDI for AMOLED displays support qVGA (quarter Video Graphics Array) resolutions (240 RGB by 320 dots) and is capable of producing a range of over sixteen million colors. It is well in step with the recent expansion of multimedia functions and services offered in mobile devices.

The AMOLED display is a self-luminous device that works by having electrical current flow between two thin films made of organic material. This allows for designs that are lighter and thinner than other display types. Images are shown at the speed of light, so they look natural without the ghosting effects seen in such fast-paced video sequences as sporting events. These characteristics have proven the AMOLED display to be ideal for video applications.

Samsung’s new 16M-color DDI self-adjusts the screen brightness, illuminating only those areas that need light. As a result, power consumption is minimized and battery life extended. The read-only memory (ROM) is built in separately, enabling red, blue and green (RBG) gamma compensation to reproduce more lifelike images.

The new 16M-color AMOLED DDI is currently in mass production and has been introduced in Samsung SDI’s AMOLED panels. Samsung’s broad line up of DDIs for LCDs, PDPs and AMOLED displays addresses the diverse needs of its customer base. .

According to market research firm Display Search, the global AMOLED market is expected to reach 7.82 million units in 2007 and increase to 127.71 million units by 2011, for a compound annual growth of 101 percent.