Back when it was unveiled at IFA 2011, Sammy’s famed phablet was more of an attractive oddity than sure hit. Skip to now, and that 5.3-incher’s not only taken the European continent by storm, it’s also made inroads onto these American shores via AT&T. In keeping with the open source embrace begun last October, the OEM’s once again offering up the device’s kernel code, this time for the skinned ICS OS unlocked versions currently run. Devs and the amateur hackers that love them should make haste and hit up the source below to get cracking on this latest software nut.

SOURCE via Samsung

Samsung will soon launch its Siri-style S Voice software on the Galaxy S III, but in the more distant future it could bring speech recognition technology to standalone robots. A patent application from the company details an automaton that can adjust its voice detection capabilities to account for ambient noise, letting it recognize when people are talking even in loud locations. It remains unclear just what the robot will do for you once it hears your commands — maybe it will be on call for cooking you dinner and the like. Judging by that pic, at least, the concept looks like a good time for all involved.

SOURCE via Samsung

Are you so enthused with the 2012 Olympics that special tablets and non-stop TV coverage won’t fully scratch the itch? O2 UK is letting you flaunt your British competitive pride every time you check Twitter by selling Olympic editions of Samsung’s Galaxy Note and Galaxy Y. Either comes with a choice to drape your Android gear in a Union Jack or the Team Great Britain logo. If cosmetic patriotism isn’t enough, O2 is making it meaningful by contributing £1 from every sale to future athlete training along with giving a chance to win two tickets to attend the London games, a special event and even the training camp. The bundles are ready to go now, although we’re slightly bummed that there isn’t an extra-long S Pen to commemorate the javelin toss or pole vault.

SOURCE via Samsung

The at times very heated legal battle between Apple and Samsung might be softening just a bit ahead of truce talks on May 21st. Samsung’s mobile head JK Shin just left Seoul for the mediated discussions saying there were still “several negotiation options” on tap, including the possibility of cross-licensing patents. He warned that there was still a “big gap” between the two sides, and we’d tend to agree — neither Apple nor Samsung is exactly backing off just yet. However, it’s a definite shift in language from March, when Shin was vowing “no compromise,” and it parallels Apple CEO Tim Cook’s own disdain for lawsuits. We just wouldn’t bet money on the two singing “Kumbaya” this week.

In same breath, Shin added that an ongoing 4G chipset shortage wasn’t letting up: he didn’t see things getting better until the start of the fourth quarter, or October for us common folk. That’s a problem for Samsung’s phones and tablets most of all, of course, and in a dire case could see LTE-packing American Galaxy S III variants rely on other vendors’ chips to stay on the 4G bandwagon. There’s also a chance of a ripple effect on other companies that want Samsung’s parts, but short of getting a peek at Samsung’s inner workings, we won’t know the full impact for a while yet.

SOURCE via Reuters

If you find yourself with nothing better to do this weekend, then you might have a bit of fun playing around with Samsung’s soon-to-be-released S Voice application on your rooted Android 4.0 smartphone. The APK has now made its way into the wild, and we couldn’t help but take it for a spin on our Nexus S. First off, while we can’t vouch for the security of the file, we can confirm that it’s indeed functional. Secondly, while some of the S Voice features work just fine — such as search or contact queries — other requests such as navigation repeatedly caused the app to crash. In other words, if you’re expecting this app to behave as it should on the Galaxy S III, you might be in for a disappointment. If you’re merely looking to poke around with the S Voice functionality, however, the download seems quite worthwhile. At this point, we’re most curious to know whether non-Samsung owners have similar luck.

SOURCE via xda-developers

Graphene has long-held notions of grandeur over its current silicon overlord, but a few practical issues have always kept its takeover bid grounded. Samsung, however, thinks it’s cracked at least one of those — graphene’s inability to switch off current. Previous attempts to use graphene as a transistor have involved converting it to a semi-conductor, but this also reduces its electron mobility, negating much of the benefit. Samsung’s Advanced Institute of Technology has created a graphene-silicon “Schottky barrier” that brings graphene this much-needed current-killing ability, without losing its electron-shuffling potential. The research also explored potential logic device applications based on the same technology. So, does this mean we’ll finally get our flea-sized super computer implant? Maybe, not just yet, but the wheels have certainly been oiled.

While pre-release benchmarks have a very hit or miss record for clues as to what future devices will bring, they almost always raise eyebrows. Nowhere is that more true than in a round of NenaMark2 testing uncovered this weekend: a previously unknown Samsung SCH-i535 for Verizon has tipped up sporting a 1.5GHz, dual-core Snapdragon S4 instead of one of Samsung’s own chips, like the Exynos 4 Quad. Given that the SCH-i515 is the model badge for Verizon’s Galaxy Nexus, it’s not a great leap in logic to speculate that this is a custom version of the Galaxy S III. It’s entirely possible that something else might fit the bill, but knowing that Samsung has used Snapdragons itself to include 4G before and that HTC just recently switched up the One X with an S4 to give it LTE on North American networks, we may be looking at the compromise Samsung needs to make to get its 4.8-inch gigantophone on Big Red.

SOURCE via Nena.se

More new Windows Phones, this time for the old continent. Instead of the Focus 2, Samsung announced that the Omnia M will take its place in Europe and it’s looking an awful lot like its predecessor — although we’re a bit concerned the build quality may not match its older brother. With a 4-inch Super AMOLED display, and 1GHz processor, the Omnia M should be more than up to the task of dealing with Windows Phone, alongside some Samsung-specific software additions, including AllShare and its own cross-platform ChatON messenger app. A front-facing VGA camera will also link up with Samsung’s own video-call features, while a 5-megapixel sensor is in charge of primary camera functions. The company says the phone will roll out to other regions following its European launch, although it’s keeping quiet on whether a visit to the US is on the cards.

SOURCE via Samsung

Nice processor, shame about the Pentile. It’s something that several people have been saying about Samsung’s new chest-beating flagship. So why didn’t it plump for the warmer Super AMOLED Plus found on both its predecessor and the bigger-boned Galaxy Note? According to Samsung’s spokesperson, it’s because those blue sub-pixels that are absent on Super AMOLED displays degrade faster than their red and green allies. With the aim of keeping its phones healthily glowing for at least 18 months, it made the decision to go with the Pentile formation. Compared to the Galaxy Nexus, which matches the resolution of the Galaxy S III, Samsung has also shrunk the gaps between pixels on its newest phone in an effort to reduce complaints leveled at its Super AMOLED technology — although we didn’t notice it all that much under our microscope.

SOURCE via Mobile Burn