Hasta La Gadget!

At the end of last month we reported rumours that Samsung was planning to develop Tizen-based phones, in partnership with Japanese carrier NTT DoCoMo. Now Samsung has confirmed its intention to build hardware for the Intel-backed Linux-based Tizen platform. In an emailed statement to BloombergBusinessweek, Samsung said: ”We plan to release new, competitive Tizen devices within this year and will keep expanding the lineup depending on market conditions.”

The company’s statement is very light on details — with nothing about device type, specifications or price, and no launch timeframe beyond “this year”. We’ve reached out to Samsung for confirmation of its plans and to ask for more details and will update this article with any response.

Samsung is clearly looking at ways to reduce its reliance on Google’s Android platform which ships on the lion’s share of its hardware, including the popular Galaxy line of devices. The Korean electronics giant does have other OS irons in the fire — such as its Bada platform for lower end devices (although this time last year Samsung was talking about merging Bada and Tizen), and also a line of Windows Phone handsets, such as the Ativ S. We’ve also asked Samsung to confirm whether Bada will be merging with Tizen or carry on as a standalone lower end OS.

Samsung’s strategy of offering a vast portfolio of devices with screen sizes and price-tags ranging from the cramped to the gigantic is matched by its willingness to offer multiple OSes — giving it another way to spread itself across the market while ensuring it can hedge its bets. Too much power being concentrated in Google’s hands — with the Android OS shipping on three out of every four handsets sold worldwide in Q3 last year (IDC’s figure) — is also likely to be making Samsung increasingly uncomfortable. And while Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform offers an alternative to Android, it’s not a solution to power being concentrated in someone else’s hands. Whereas the open source Tizen platform is a partnership between Samsung, Intel, the Linux Foundation and others.

BloombergBusinessweek quotes Byun Han Joon, an analyst at KB Investment & Securities in Seoul, on the partnership: “The Tizen was born as Samsung hoped to lighten its growing dependence on Google on concerns that its top position in the smartphone market may weaken following the Google-Motorola tie-up. Intel always wanted to boost its presence in the mobile CPU market.”

According to Japan’s Daily Yomiuri, NTT DoCoMo is parterning with Samsung to develop phones running the open-source Tizen operating system, with the first handsets reaching the market next year. According to the Yomiuri, other mobile carriers are also getting behind the development of Tizen because they “fear the hegemony” of Apple and Google. We’ve heard about Tizen as far back as September of 2011 — this Linux-based (and Intel-backed) software came about when Nokia’s MeeGo OS bit the dust, and we’ve already seen evidence of a Tizen-based Galaxy S III.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Samsung

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Source: Daily Yomiuri

We are gearing ourselves up for CES 2013 which is happening in slightly more than a week’s time, and there are tons of embargoes for us to finish up by then. Still, this does not mean that we do not cast our eye on the future – in fact, we do look forward to MWC 2013 that is happening a month after CES, where we will be off to Barcelona, Spain, to check out all that is happening in that part of the world as we intend to bring you the latest developments where smartphones are concerned as well. Word has it that Samsung has been hard at work with Intel on developing the Tizen platform, where the South Korean manufacturer is looking to merge their own bada platform with Tizen.

Yomiuri Shimbun, a Japanese newspaper, did report that NTT Docomo, Japan’s largest carrier, will put up its first Tizen device ever as part of their product portfolio after it is launched by Samsung at Mobile World Congress 2013. We cannot wait – can you?

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: 1 Million Samsung Galaxy Note 2 Units Sold In South Korea, Huawei’s Partner Accused Of Selling Embargoed HP Computers To Company In Iran,

We’ve had a rather interesting Tuesday here at SlashGear, thanks in no small part to RIM. The company held its BlackBerry Jam today, introducing us to new BlackBerry 10 features like Peek and Flow. We also learned that BlackBerry 10 will come with support for your favorite social networks, even offering a native Facebook app. Carrier testing on the new mobile OS will begin next month, and RIM CEO Thorsten Heins said that BlackBerry has a good shot at becoming number three behind Android and iOS.

We found out today that Apple’s new Lightning adapters come with an authentication chip built in, and that New York City is experiencing a sharp increase in the number of Apple thefts. Apple’s Phil Schiller said that the scuffs and scratches some users are experiencing with their iPhone 5s are normal, and a teardown of the iPhone 5′s A6 processor provided some fresh insight into what’s going on under the hood. There’s a new way for you to bypass the 3-4 week wait for an iPhone 5 to be delivered to your home, and Instagram was updated with support for iOS 6 while Google delivered its own iOS update for Google Voice.

The Samsung Galaxy Note II will be launching in the UK on October 1, and speaking of Samsung, we heard whispers that the company is planning to launch a Tizen-based Galaxy smartphone. New reports are saying that the Kindle Fire HD is in for some serious competition from the Google Nexus 7, and Microsoft’s Kinect could potentially help save lives in a new map making gadget. Intel’s CEO claims that Windows 8 is being released with a number of bugs left unfixed, and Tesla has slashed its profit forecast after its new Model S hit some bumps in production.

Google Maps apparently won’t be coming to iOS 6 until Apple offers an invitation, and the Jaguar F-TYPE suffered a very sexy leak today. Box has issued an update for its iOS app and it’s offering some free stuff to all iOS users, while some labor experts are warning that there could be more Foxconn riots in the future. Sony announced today that a number of October retail releases will be on PSN from launch day, and is even offering PS Plus subscribers a 10% discount on the purchase price of most of them. Finally tonight, Gameloft has released a new trailer for Modern Combat 4, and we have to say that we were pretty impressed.

That does it for tonight’s Evening Wrap-Up! Enjoy the rest of your night everyone!

SlashGear Evening Wrap-Up: September 25, 2012 is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Ever wondered what Samsung’s flagship Galaxy S III phone might be like, if it ran another OS? Okay, arguably something along those lines is already under way, but if a curious WiFi Alliance certification entry is to be understood, Tizen might have made its way on to the phone already. The hook here is the product name. The GS III also goes by the less snappy moniker of GT-I9300, and it’s the appearance of GT-I9300_TIZEN in the certification list that has got chins wagging. Of course, a stamp from the WiFI Alliance means little out here in the real world, where everything is still looking rather Android, but it doesn’t hurt to imagine the Koreans experimenting with idea, and it wouldn’t be the first time either.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

WiFi Alliance certificate teases Tizen flavored Samsung Galaxy S III originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 22 Sep 2012 00:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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