Samsung

If CNET News.com's readers are any indication, Microsoft's Windows Mobile has a better base of support than one might think, but all the winds are blowing toward Apple.

The results of our first annual (maybe) smartphone survey are in, and thanks to everyone who left comments here on One More Thing or over on Crave, and those who flooded my inbox with responses. Yes, I know we should have a survey tool, but we're working on other stuff right now that's more important. (You'll have to trust me on that one.)

Between the comments … Read more

In the late '70s and early '80s when TVs had faux wood all over them. They went all matte black in the late '80s, then during the '90s a ghastly silver was all the rage. With the introduction of flat panels matte black made a comeback for a while and later went glossy, known as piano black. So what's next in the goggle-box fashion line-up? If you listen to Samsung, "rose black" is the new must-have color and it's slathering it all over its new range of high-end TVs.

Happily the full red effect only really … Read more

Scoot over and make room for another member of the green-trend bandwagon; Samsung just threw itself into the mix. Today, it announced its PrintCycle program aimed at businesses looking to get eco-friendly. The basic premise comes from the idea that the quality of a workhorse printer dwindles over time. Most people conjure images of a certain scene from Office Space when they're ready to dispose of their units, but Samsung's offering a better solution: Get a new printer on the vendor's bill.

Here's the plan: three years after your initial purchase date, Samsung will come break … Read more

Update:This blog has been corrected to reflect that the total flat-panel display business value represents global sales.

SAN DIEGO--This year could be a turning point for the flat-panel TV industry, as it decides how it will face the dual threats of market saturation and rapidly declining prices.

The total flat-panel display business in the worldwide in 2007 was $102 billion, up from $11 billion in 1998, according to DisplaySearch. And while that growth is encouraging, it's not necessarily good news for all sectors of the market.

One of the success stories is the rise of LCD (liquid crystal … Read more

Do you want to know the best thing about a notebook with a flash memory drive, rather than a conventional hard drive?

It's the silence.

The notebook I'm testing--a Dell Latitude D830 with a 64GB flash hard drive from Samsung--hasn't emitted a sound in three days. Flash drives, which store data in NAND flash memory, don't require motors or spinning platters. Thus, there are no whirring mechanical noises.

Compare that with my T42 ThinkPad. It sounds like a guinea pig got trapped inside, particularly during the start-up phase. Vzoooot. Cronk, cronk, cronk. Zip, zip. (Pause.) Gurlagurlagurla...… Read more

IBM's research facility in Albany, N.Y., is working toward the ability to build chip features based on 22-nanometer manufacturing technology--and drawing expertise from a diverse group of engineers and scientists.

When future generations of chips reach feature sizes in the realm of a billionth of a meter, IBM says, it will take a global village of chip companies, including Advanced Micro Devices, Samsung, Singapore-based Chartered Semiconductor, and Germany-based Infineon, to carry out development and manufacturing.

Currently, IBM and its partners are in the initial stages of 45-nanometer production. (Intel is already in commercial production of 45-nanometer processors.) This … Read more

When Samsung came out with the K5 in 2006, we were stoked to see an MP3 player with an unusual design trait: a nifty built-in speaker that flipped out from behind the device and propped the player up for optimal listening. It helped, too, that the K5 offered plenty of features and stellar audio quality, though we weren't so keen on the super thick girth required to accommodate the speaker. Enter the S5, the K5's slimmer successor that adds built-in Bluetooth to the mix. While the S5 suffers from a few minor drawbacks, such as a small screen … Read more

It's becoming clear that early adopters of the HD DVD video format will find fewer and fewer products that will play their discs.

Samsung will halt its plans to release the combination HD DVD/Blu-ray player, the BD-UP5500, introduced in January at the Consumer Electronics Show. Samsung issued a statement late Wednesday, saying that though the product "remains a practical solution...the window of opportunity is smaller than it was before. In light of recent announcements, Samsung will not introduce the BD-UP5500 Duo HD Player."

The announcement doesn't come as much of a shock. Even at … Read more

SAN JOSE, Calif.--Samsung will immediately begin shipping two new high-capacity hard drives Tuesday, but it also is betting heavily on solid-state drives.

The company gave details regarding its storage business at a press event here, and also gave a good indication of how it sees its fortunes unfolding over the next few years. Samsung shipped 13,052,200 hard drives in the fourth quarter of 2007, which puts it in fourth place behind industry leader Seagate, which shipped 49,595,000 last quarter, according to IDC.

The first new drive is a 2.5-inch, 500GB--or half a terabyte--hard-disk drive (… Read more