Everyone knows what happened with the Galaxy Note 7 and that knowledge had led experts to believe that the disaster would cost Samsung a huge sum of money; somewhere close to the figure of $17 billion to be precise. Strangely enough, the results seem to disagree.

According to the Korean tech giant, they are enjoying an operating profit of 9.2 trillion won, which is equivalent to $7.2 billion. Considering that Samsung had enjoyed a profit of 6.14 trillion won or $5.2 billion in Q4 2015, that's almost a 50% increase in profits! At this point, one has to wonder, where did the "loss" suffered by the OEM due to the failure of the Galaxy Note 7 go?

The operating profit made by Samsung in Q4, 2016 is not only bigger than Q4, 2015, but it is also the biggest ever in any quarter of any year, second only to the profits enjoyed by the company in Q3 2013. This remarkable and astonishing feat was achieved thanks mainly to its semi-conductor and OLED departments, which managed to make record amounts of profit due to demand from Chinese smartphone manufacturers. In fact, out of the 9.2 trillion won operating profit reported by the company, 4.5 trillion won ($3.8 billion) came from its semi-conductor business alone. Some experts have also pointed out that Samsung's decision to deal only in USD has also played a big part here, especially since the Korean won is comparatively weaker by a very significant margin.

Saikat Kar (tech-enthusiast)

Samsung has just unveiled a portable speaker and a pocket-sized printer at the CES. Literally named the Level Box Slim, the water-resistant speaker is undoubtedly slim with dimensions of 148.4mm x 79mm x 25.1mm. Do not be fooled by the slim profile though as the little portable 8W box can play music for as long as up to 30 hours, thanks to the 2,600mAh battery inside. The water resistance is limited to just a metre and for half-an-hour only, so it isn't exactly waterproof.

The Image Stamp is a portable little wireless printer which differentiates itself from the rest of the products in the market through a very handy little functionality. While most portable smartphone printers are limited to printing out photos in the 3:2 ratio, the Image Stamp can also print them out in the original 16:9 ratio. It can add a location and other details based QR code to the photo too.

No details about the pricing regarding the two products were revealed at the event. Nevertheless, the Image Stamp and the Level Box Slim should both be hitting select markets very soon.

Saikat Kar (tech-enthusiast)

We already know that Samsung is planning to get into the automotive industry and today, another report right out of China is claiming that Samsung has taken another big step in that direction. According to this report, Audi will use Samsung's own Exynos processors in their cars, starting from the next year. If the report turns out to be true then this will be the first time that Samsung would be supplying its chips to a car manufacturer, thus marking the next step for Samsung in the industry.

Although this is the next step, we knew it was coming as Samsung did make a deal with Audi back in November to supply the manufacturer with semiconductor memory solutions (20nm DRAM) for the computers that some of their cars have built inside them. It was also in November, that Samsung had acquired Harman Internationals, a company famous for making car audio equipments. The chances are pretty high that Samsung, in collaboration with other suppliers and manufacturers, might be planning to launch multiple self-driving cars in the very near future.

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Saikat Kar (tech-enthusiast)

The fact that Samsung is going to launch the Galaxy C5 Pro isn't really a secret as we know a lot about it already. However, we did not have a live image till now. The photo that you see below was made public by @mmdj_china on Twitter and although it is heavily blurred, this is probably the real deal. What we can see from the picture shows us that the C5 Pro will be similar to other handsets in the C series with slim bezels and the iconic Samsung Home button.

Although there have been some conflicting info on the specs of the handset, take a look at the rumoured/leaked specs below, before it's officially launched this month.

Model number: SM-C5000
5.2-inch 1080p Super AMOLED display
Qualcomm Snapdragon 625/626 SoC
3GB/4GB RAM
64GB/128GB internal storage with micro-SD card slot
16-mp/16-mp rear and front cameras
3,000mAh battery
Android Marshmallow 6.0.1
Color options: Blue, Dark Gray, Gold and Pink Gold
Fingerprint scanner embedded into the Home button, USB Type-C, etc.

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Saikat Kar (tech-enthusiast)

In spite of Samsung's best attempts, it seems like keeping the Galaxy S8 a secret isn't something that's possible. It was just two days ago that we came across quite a few alleged leaked renders of the S8 on Twitter and now we have an actual live image. This image was published on Weibo and was brought to us by SamMobile.

What we see here is an image of a Samsung phone in gold, which doesn't have a Home button and sports a very high screen to body ratio. Although the image ticks some of the right boxes set forward so far by the rumor mill, the soft navigation keys are suspiciously missing. Also, the bezel at the top seems noticeably bigger than the one below. We are not saying that it HAS to be a fake, but the chances are pretty high! Besides, if this is the S8, it doesn't look very impressive now does it?

Even if it is a fake, Samsung will have a hard time keeping everything under a lid, especially since the launch date has now been reportedly shifted to April; which gives leaksters even more time to try and bring unrevealed secrets about the Galaxy S8 to the public.

Saikat Kar (tech-enthusiast)