It has hardly been a month and a half since the Galaxy S7 started to reach customers around the world and there's already new rumors spreading about the Galaxy S8. However, if you just bought the S7 or S7 Edge, fret not, for the S8 is still almost a year away from being released. There have been no indications or even rumors about the next Galaxy flagship from Samsung being released prior to the Mobile World Congress 2017, in February-March.

Although it is just too early to comment on what changes Samsung will bring with their next flagship, one would expect them to focus on the audio quality a bit more; especially since the HTC 10 and the LG G5 have amped up their audio department significantly. A change to USB Type-C is also expected, but we will have to wait and see how popular it becomes in the coming months.

The only smartphone in the market right now with a 4K panel is the Sony Xperia Z5 Premium, but the S8 may be set to change that. This impression was brought on by the fact that virtual reality is rising in popularity and Samsung is already quite involved in it. As VR becomes an integral part of their future smartphones, the display will gain even more importance and that may result in Samsung opting for a 4K panel instead of the Quad HD ones that they are using right now.

Rumors suggest that a ½.3" sensor with aperture f/1.4 might be used in the camera of the S8. If it is true, then low-light photography on the S8 will possibly be better than not only the S7 series, but also any other smartphone in the market right now. This concludes more or less everything that is out there about the Samsung Galaxy S8 till date and if interested, you can also check out the recently released S8 concept video.

Author: Saikat Kar.

The latest rumors are suggesting that first prototypes of the Galaxy Note 6 have already been made and there are probably two versions of it. Make no mistake though, only one version will apparently make it to the market and at this moment, the Korean giant is trying to decide which one to go for. The only difference between the two devices is the fact that one of them has a curved 5.8" QHD Super AMOLED display, while the other has the same display but on a flat panel. It is understandable that Samsung is toying with the idea of building the Note 6 with an Edge display as there will not be a 2016 version of the S6 Edge+ from last year.

In all other specifications, both the devices are one and the same. Both sport 6GB of RAM, a 12-megapixel camera on the back, a 4,000 mAh battery and of course, the rumored Snapdragon 823 chipset. There will of course be Exynos versions of the device as well, but we will have to wait and see which market gets what. Samsung returned to expandable memory with the S7 series and judging by the overwhelming success it is seeing right now, that is a trend which they will stick to. The basic version of the Note 6 is expected to have 32GB of onboard storage along with a micro-SD card slot.

The rumored iris scanner has not yet been confirmed for the Note 6, but then again, these are all rumors to begin with. We will definitely see a fingerprint scanner though. Android N will be out by the time the phablet is revealed, thus we expect it to be running on the latest version of the Android OS right out of the box. There has not been much noise about the stylus/S-pen yet, but we will keep you informed as soon as we get to know more.

A new document has emerged that apparently reveals Telus' plans to update their versions of the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 and the Galaxy S5. While the update to Marshmallow has not exactly been a fast one by any means, it is true that many smartphones have started to receive the upgrade recently. As both the smartphones are over two years old now, it was expected that it would be quite a while before they get the Android 6.0.1 upgrade. This happens typically because recent high-end devices are always the first ones to be updated, followed by models from the previous generations.

Arjun Puri is the person who first posted the document from Telus on Tweeter, where the dates have clearly been listed for many smartphones. If the Canadian carrier manages to keep their schedule, then the S5 should start receiving its update from May 2. The Note 4 will also be updated in the same month but that roll out will start a fortnight later on May 16.

It is definitely nice to see that even the older smartphones are getting new life breathed into them in the form of the latest Android OS but the dates can be delayed, as they often are. Nonetheless, the announcement confirms that the update is at least coming, albeit a little late.

Firmware update Downloads

As per reports of Q1 2016, the Galaxy S7 is a huge hit for Samsung. In just March, Samsung has sold off around 10 million Galaxy S7 devices and that alone is quite a milestone. As if that was not enough, reports suggest that in the first quarter of the year, Samsung has managed to sell double the number of smartphones as Apple.

Global leader in the smartphone business and its market share just became even bigger. Samsung now holds 27.8% of the market after selling 81 million units in Q1, 2016 alone. Apple is a distant second with a market share of 14.4% and a Q1 sales number of 42 million units. Huawei (9.3%) is in the third position after Apple right now, followed by Lenovo (5.8%), Xiaomi (5.5%) and LG (5.1%) respectively.

The Korean electronics giant's market share increased by 2.5% from last year's Q4, but the 5.7% increase from Q1, 2015 seems even more impressive. If you are in any doubt regarding the massive success of the Galaxy S7, just take in the fact that the difference in market share between Samsung and Apple was just 1.2% in Q4, 2015 and it skyrocketed to 13% after Q1, 2016! As the S7 and S7 Edge were released in March, the math isn't that hard to figure out. It just gets to show that if you release a product that delivers in every front, even a global decline in the smartphone business cannot really stop you from making immense profits.

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Samsung's security update for the month of April has now been released and is available for most major flagships to download as part of Samsung's monthly Security Maintenance Release or SMR. As is always the case, the package contains security patches from both Samsung and of course, Google. The SMR includes all 41 fixes from Google with the 35 CVE items as follows:

CVE-2016-1503(C), CVE-2014-6060(C), CVE-2016-0835(C), CVE-2016-0836(C), CVE-2016-0837(C), CVE-2016-0838(C), CVE-2016-0839(C), CVE-2016-0840(C), CVE-2016-0841(C), CVE-2016-0842(C), CVE-2016-0846(H), CVE-2016-0847(H), CVE-2016-0848(H), CVE-2016-0849(H), CVE-2016-0850(H), CVE-2016-2412(H), CVE-2016-2413(H), CVE-2016-2414(H), CVE-2016-2415(H), CVE-2016-2416(H), CVE-2016-2417(H), CVE-2016-2418(H), CVE-2016-2419(H), CVE-2016-2420(M), CVE-2016-2421(M), CVE-2016-2422(M), CVE-2016-2423(M), CVE-2016-2424(M), CVE-2016-2425(M), CVE-2016-2426(M), CVE-2016-2427(M), CVE-2016-1621(C), CVE-2016-0832(M), CVE-2016-0805(C), and CVE-2016-0806(C).

Index: (C) - Critical severity (H) - High severity (M) - Moderate severity and (L) - Low severity.


The main Samsung Vulnerabilities and Exposures (SVE) addressed in the SMR for April are as follows:

SVE-2016-5393: ACIPC-MSOCKET driver local privilege escalation Vulnerability (Critical)

The vulnerability allowed the attacker to cause a stack overflow and in the process, get privilege escalation. It has been fixed by correcting the code and by restricting access to the file itself. The critical vulnerability affected Marvell chipsets with JBP (4.2) and KK (4.4).

SVE-2016-5534: Non-existent Notification Listener App Vulnerability (High)


The threat affected the Galaxy S6 Edge by permitting all apps with a certain component name to get notified, irrespective of whether the actual application was installed or not. The issue is fixed by removing the component thoroughly from enabled notification listeners.

SVE-2016-5544: Clipboard Vulnerability (Medium)

Any device which was using Samsung clipboard was susceptible to the threat. It permits making of a race condition that allows access to the clipboard user data of Secure World, right from Normal World. It has been fixed through introduction of certain synchronization points which eliminate any chances of creating a race condition.

There are a few others, but they are undisclosed at the moment for security reasons.

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