from the we-don't-have-to-tell-you-we-cheated dept.
If You Owned the Samsung Galaxy S4, You're Entitled to Some Cold, Hard Cash
We never thought we'd be writing about the Samsung Galaxy S4 again — but Samsung has just settled a lawsuit over false benchmarks on the now six-year-old device. The lawsuit was settled for $13.4 million.
According to The Register, the lawsuit was first filed in November 2014 by Daniel Norcia, after it was found that Samsung was artificially inflating benchmark scores by introducing code that detected when benchmarks were running and then overclocking the Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 processor speed to 532MHz, instead of the 480MHz that the processor normally ran at.
Samsung never denied that it inflated benchmark scores, instead taking a different approach. The company argued that under California law, it was not "legally obliged" to disclose that the phone was set up to inflate scores. Instead, the company argued that only security issues and data breaches need to be disclosed to the public. The case made its way all the way up to the Supreme Court, and was set to go to trial before Samsung finally settled for $13.4 million.
As part of the settlement, Samsung has agreed not to inflate software that artificially increases benchmark tests — but interestingly, it only agreed to do so until 2024. Not only that, but the company is not required to admit any wrongdoing.
Source: https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/samsung-galaxy-s4-benchmark-inflation-settlement/
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday October 04 2019, @06:57PM (5 children)
Can you demand that Samsung send you $10 refund by US Postal mail in US Pennies?
Because copper is valuable.
The server will be down for replacement of vacuum tubes, belts, worn parts and lubrication of gears and bearings.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 04 2019, @07:07PM (4 children)
Those are mostly zinc. The zinc is potentially more valuable than the face value of the pennies though.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 04 2019, @08:01PM (2 children)
As of this writing, the current prices of zinc and copper on the london metal exchange is 2324 USD / tonne and 5626 USD / tonne, respectively.
A US penny is 2.5g so 1 tonne of pennies has a face value of 4000 USD, containing 975kg of zinc and 25 kg of copper. That's worth about 2400 USD, ignoring the cost of separating the metals.
The zinc is not even remotely close to being worth more than the face value of the pennies.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 04 2019, @08:14PM (1 child)
If you have a tonne of pennies older than 1982 the situation is very different, the 1962-1982 US pennies were 3.1g, 95% copper and 5% zinc, so the face value of those pennies is about 3200 USD and the metals after separation would be worth about 5100 USD.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 04 2019, @08:21PM
Er, I fat fingered my calculator, the value of the metals in one-tonne of pre-1982 pennies, based on the above LME prices, is about 5500 USD.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 04 2019, @09:20PM
Yes, but it will cost Samsung much more than $10 to ship >2kg of pennies.
Which is kind of the point. I say it's a good idea.
Pennies. The money of today. And tomorrow.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 04 2019, @07:06PM (3 children)
80 million sold.
$13.4 settlement.
$0.17 cash refund for each one.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday October 04 2019, @07:56PM (2 children)
Yep, they'll have to spend more in postage than they're paying out for mine.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 05 2019, @09:06AM
Australia now has 70c stamps for a standard letter..
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday October 07 2019, @02:39PM
I wonder what the settlement would be for an exploding Galaxy Note 7 phone?
The server will be down for replacement of vacuum tubes, belts, worn parts and lubrication of gears and bearings.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by fustakrakich on Friday October 04 2019, @07:24PM
You know, like jumping on the bus after it gets into an accident, and then calling a lawyer about whiplash
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday October 04 2019, @08:00PM
What do you mean owned? Mine's still my primary phone. Wouldn't think it could run a Pie version of LineageOS from its age but it absolutely can without batting an eye.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 05 2019, @02:00AM
I have the Galaxy S3, no joke.