Hasta La Gadget!

Several days ago we received a Samsung Galaxy S 4 Google Play edition to play with and shared our first impressions. This week we take a closer look at what’s different between this handset and its TouchWiz-equipped cousins by scrutinizing the benchmarks, battery life and camera performance. Samsung pleasantly surprised us at Google I/O when it announced a Galaxy S 4 running stock Android. HTC then joined the party with its own unskinned superphone, the One. This Galaxy S 4, which landed in the Play store on June 26th for $649 contract-free, is identical to T-Mobile’s 16GB model and shares the same specs. So, what does stock Android bring to this flagship? How does it compare to the TouchWiz versions? Is anything left behind? Finally, is this Google Play edition worth the extra cash? Hit the break to find out.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Samsung, Google

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Researchers at Bluebox Security have revealed a disturbing flaw in Android’s security model, which the group claims may affect up to 99 percent of Android devices in existence. According to Bluebox, this vulnerability has existed since Android 1.6 (Donut), which gives malicious app developers the ability to modify the code of a legitimate APK, all without breaking its cryptographic signature — thereby allowing the installation to go unnoticed. To pull off the exploit, a rotten app developer would first need to trick an unknowing user into installing the malicious update, but hackers could theoretically gain full control of a user’s phone if the “update” posed as a system file from the manufacturer.

Bluebox claims that it notified Google of the exploit in February. According to CIO, Bluebox CTO Jeff Forristal has named the Galaxy S 4 as the only device that’s currently immune to the exploit — which suggests that a security patch may already exist. Forristal further claims that Google is working on an update for its Nexus devices. In response to our inquiry, Google told us that it currently has no comment. We certainly hope that device manufacturers do the responsible thing and distribute timely security patches to resolve this issue. Absent that, you can protect yourself by installing updates through the Play Store and Android’s built-in system update utility.

Filed under: Software, Mobile, Google

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Source: Bluebox Security, CIO

If you didn’t get enough mobile news during the week, not to worry, because we’ve opened the firehose for the truly hardcore. This week, the Galaxy S 4 was spotted in purple garb, a new Windows Phone was outed for AT&T and US Cellular officially welcomed a budget handset from ZTE into its ranks. These stories and more await after the break. So buy the ticket and take the ride as we explore all that’s happening in the mobile world for this week of June 24th, 2013.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

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A new version of Android (4.3, and still called Jelly Bean) is already doing the testing rounds on Samsung’s Galaxy S 4 and thanks to some porting work from SAMMobile, it’s apparently working on both the Google Play and original iterations. We’ve caught a glance of Android 4.3 on LG’s Nexus 4 already, but we’re now getting a second look at a refreshed camera interface, some minor design tweaks (like more regular appearances of a share button) and, well, we’re still perusing the gallery for more nuggets. If you know what you’re doing (and don’t fear voiding your warranty) you can find the files at the source — early reports suggest that the GS4 is “fully working” on this early build. We’ll update this post if we find anything else new, but early impressions suggest it’s a relatively gentle upgrade from the existing mobile OS.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Samsung

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Via: Sammy Hub

Source: SAMMobile (1), (2)

Just days after an LTE-Advanced variant of Samsung’s Galaxy S 4 leaked, Korean carrier SK Telecom has officially announced it’s launching the world’s first publicly available LTE-Advanced wireless network. The Galaxy S4 LTE-A is also official (in red or blue) as the first device able to take advantage of the new technology for even faster data transmission speeds. According to the press release, SK Telecom plans to have as many as seven LTE-A devices available by the end of the year, all capable of up to 150Mbps. While SK Telecom is using Carrier Aggregation and Coordinated Multi Point technology to improve speeds right now, it will add Enhanced Inter-Cell Interference Coordination in 2014 to go even faster. After that, it suggest carrier aggregation will improve to support higher speeds and faster uploads in subsequent years.

To take advantage of the higher speeds, SK Telecom’s Btv IPTV service will begin offering 1080p video streaming in early July. That will be accompanied by enhanced multiview baseball broadcasts, more free videos, an HD video shopping service with six channels on one screen in August and the addition of FLAC audio files via its music package. Right now, the company has Seoul covered in LTE-A, and plans to eventually offer it in 84 cities, all at the same price as existing LTE service. Check after the break for the press release with all the details, plus video of a speed test.

Update: We’ve just come across another juicy tidbit that makes the Galaxy S4 LTE-A all the more worthwhile — it’ll ship with a Snapdragon 800 SoC that contains a 2.3GHz quad-core CPU, plus 32GB of built-in storage and a 2,600mAh battery. It goes without saying that this phone will be speedy on all angles. As spotted by SlashGear, the new GS4 variant will also see the debut of a new Samsung software feature: ImageON. Explained as a Google Googles-esque app, it’ll automatically analyse photos and offer up related videos and “extend access to relevant content on the internet.”

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Samsung

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Source: Samsung Tomorrow (1), (2)