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Bloomberg reports that Samsung could launch new smartphone models with significantly more bendability than its previous "Edge" models:
Samsung Electronics Co. is considering introducing two new smartphone models that will feature bendable screens, including a version that folds in half like a cosmetic compact, people familiar with the matter said. The devices using organic light-emitting diodes could be unveiled as soon as early 2017, the people said, asking not to be identified because the matter is private. That would likely give it a head start on new Apple Inc. iPhones. The second Samsung model will have a 5-inch screen when used as a handset, that unfurls into a display that's as large as 8 inches, similar to a tablet, the people said.
Samsung, the biggest supplier of OLED panels for mobile products, has pioneered the development of new screen formats with its multi-sided Edge smartphones. Using advanced display technology may help the company recapture customers from Apple and boost earnings that have slumped for the past two years.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 07 2016, @06:27PM
Have I mentioned today that I don't own a phone. It's true. I don't own a TV either. I don't use Facebook, and I don't use Twitter, and I don't use LinkedIn, and I don't use Snapchat, and I don't use Instagram, and I don't use Skype. I'm a social refuser, and I don't exist.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 07 2016, @06:31PM
A phone is just a small computer. You don't have to pay for cell service.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Subsentient on Tuesday June 07 2016, @07:12PM
Except 99% of them have locked bootloaders and unremovable bloatware. I will never think of a phone as a computer until I can load Debian ARM onto any damn phone I please. Unfortunately, rather than this situation improving, MS seems to be trying to do the same thing to PCs with UEFI secure boot.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 08 2016, @12:37AM
Welcome to the inevitable outcome of democraticizing technology and making it accessible to the masses.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by tractatus_techno_philosophicus on Tuesday June 07 2016, @06:31PM
I'm not far off from that myself. While I own a phone, SoylentNews is the extent of my online social interaction. I don't have any social networking accounts and I never will. I prefer to live in the real world, thank you.
No moral system can rest solely on authority. ~A.J. Ayer
(Score: 1) by lgw on Wednesday June 08 2016, @12:07AM
Same story here, though I also use the green site. Never seen the need for social media.
(Score: 1) by tractatus_techno_philosophicus on Wednesday June 08 2016, @01:17PM
Ditto, although I don't use the green site. I'm very particular about who I communicate with and where I post things, both digitally and otherwise. I've been reading SoylentNews since the "Slash Exodus" and find it to be most agreeable.
No moral system can rest solely on authority. ~A.J. Ayer
(Score: 5, Touché) by Tork on Tuesday June 07 2016, @06:43PM
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday June 07 2016, @07:51PM
Peter, Peter, Peter.... you used to be a Monkee!
You don't hang out here to be ironic; you're the young generation, and you've got something to say. You're too busy singing to put anybody down.
(BTW, Mickey Dolenz is better than you, lol)
I just had a shower, under running water AND artificial light.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 07 2016, @06:47PM
If only we could get you to stop using a computer!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 07 2016, @06:53PM
You poor thing. How do you order pizza? How do you call for a taxi? How will you contact emergency services if, some day, you've fallen and can't get up?
Unlike you, I own a phone and am not ashamed to admit it. It's wired into my home, so I don't have to be available to anyone 24/7. Unfortunately, 99% of the calls that I receive are robocalls, so I don't bother answering it anymore. The answering machine fields the most annoying machines for me.
A friend talked me into buying a pocket computer a year or two back. I don't use it for much of anything beyond checking the time. It has the capability to connect to a mobile phone network, but the two oligopolists I have to "choose" from want stupid sums of money every month to join their minimal-service clubs so I can theoretically receive those robocalls no matter where I am. No thanks.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Grishnakh on Tuesday June 07 2016, @07:35PM
You poor thing. How do you order pizza? How do you call for a taxi? How will you contact emergency services if, some day, you've fallen and can't get up?
Your examples suck, except for calling 911. Not everyone eats pizza (I do, but I never order pizza because there's no good pizza in this town, just crap like Domino's). And most Americans don't need taxis. Even in big cities, you don't need a taxi, but you might want a smartphone to summon an Uber. Taxis are obsolete.
It's wired into my home, so I don't have to be available to anyone 24/7. Unfortunately, 99% of the calls that I receive are robocalls
That's what you get for having a landline. Robocalls aren't allowed to call cellphones.
The answering machine fields the most annoying machines for me.
How quaint. 1995 is calling and wants you back.
Why would you pay more money for a landline phone that makes you deal with robocalls? I actually looked into the price of a landline where I am out of curiosity, and it's $45/month. I pay much less than that for cellular service.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 07 2016, @08:14PM
Uber is a taxi service... You just order the Uber taxis through an app instead of through voice, web, email, or lifting your arm like you can with regular taxi companies. Some taxi companies even have apps nowadays too.
Answering machines = voicemail and some machines do call forwarding. Does your cell really not have voicemail or a message transcription service?
Cheapest landline service here is $8 a month. My cell service is $6.63 a month and I do get spam calls. The landline has always worked during local disasters, except for a few thunderstorms storms. Cell service has never worked during the local disasters and the quality is too poor to use during the storms.
It's only 2016. Cell phone coverage is still worse than landline coverage.
(Score: 2) by Username on Wednesday June 08 2016, @12:11AM
In the United States you can robocall anyone, cellphone or not, as long as you are affiliated with a political party.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday June 08 2016, @03:00PM
That's true, but it's still a LOT less call volume than you'd get from all the telemarketer selling crap. The political stuff only happens around election time. And personally, I haven't gotten very much of it; political robocalls (like any robocalls) do cost money, and there's no direct profit in it, and they have to pay for that out of campaign or PAC budgets which are all funded by donations. Telemarketers make money selling crap so the more calls they make, the more they're likely to sell, creating a positive feedback loop.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 08 2016, @01:26AM
Cellphones are tracking devices and I don't know of any that respect your freedoms. [gnu.org]
(Score: 3, Informative) by Username on Wednesday June 08 2016, @12:16AM
Search ebay for old PBX boxes, or download and use asterix on a computer with two modems.
You can set them up so people will have to press a number (one) in order to be passed on to your phone.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 08 2016, @01:33AM
Most of that would be good, if you actually didn't use those things. It's good to inform people that they're being taken advantage of and abused, even if not all of them will be receptive to the message.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 07 2016, @06:36PM
that Samsung could launch new smartphone models
They must mean: their 'reporters' received a press release from Samsung saying that they will launch said devices...
(Score: 2) by ledow on Wednesday June 08 2016, @07:13AM
What does it matter?
Until it's in the shops, looks like something you might want to buy, and is priced at a point you consider reasonable, you wouldn't ever be able to buy one anyway.
Just wait until it's available (if ever). All the hype - true or not - is utterly pointless.
Imagine if you'd hung around the stores, cash in hand, waiting for every "next big product" to actually be released. You'd never get anything done and for some products you'd still be there 10 years after they said it was going to happen.
Hell, just battery techs alone would suck up several centuries of a life if you put all the hype together and waited to buy them one after another.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 07 2016, @06:40PM
a version that folds in half like a cosmetic compact
Yay! Finally we can have cool phones like Captain Kirk uses in Star Trek. We can call them "flip phones"!
I guess "cosmetic compact" is a far more apt. analogy for the troglodytes who have been living under a rock for 60 years.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 07 2016, @07:02PM
Gurgeh carried a bendable (and breakable) terminal in The Player of Games, published in 1988. Terminals in the Culture novels are exactly like modern smartphones. Terminals make phone calls, deliver messages, connect to the infonet, answer spoken questions, serve as tracking devices in emergencies, and everyone in the Culture carries a terminal everywhere.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Nerdfest on Tuesday June 07 2016, @07:16PM
Stop being silly people. Everyone knows that in the media, no technology actually exists until Apple invents it.
(Score: 5, Funny) by choose another one on Tuesday June 07 2016, @07:47PM
Apple already did a bendable phone - but it didn't do well in the market and eventually they fixed it to make it non-bendable.
For the pre-apple diy fix see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYo72E7ZMHM [youtube.com]
[disclaimer: I don't do i-thingies and have no idea if this works or not, your phone is your problem]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 07 2016, @07:40PM
Everyone except Gestra. The Culture still has its socially awkward recluses.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Tuesday June 07 2016, @06:50PM
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday June 07 2016, @07:30PM
Phones now are already as durable as they really need to be. Just get an Otterbox.
(Score: 2) by opinionated_science on Tuesday June 07 2016, @11:34PM
yeah, but if water proof it would be better for sports - wrap on to arm, chest?
Not joking but all advances help us in some way - mobile phones are rapidly become the proxy technology for medical diagnostics - blood glucose and other biodata is at the heart of the move to precision medicine.
Flexible tech, is easy to make stiff, as you point out....stick it in a box ;-)
(Score: 2) by ledow on Wednesday June 08 2016, @07:22AM
Except not one of those devices is medically certified in any way and their accuracy is questionable even in an ideal environment - let alone after having been bent around your arm while you, say, go surfing.
And just measuring your blood glucose or anything that you can obtain non-intrusively, even to high accuracy, isn't going to do any more than a 1980's watch would have told you (what's the movie where the guy collapses of a heart attack while jogging because he ignores the watch?) and certainly isn't any form of precision medicine (it's like saying that automatically reading the dipstick on a 747 is "precision diagnosis"... not really).
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday June 07 2016, @07:17PM
Does the battery fold too, or are they planning yet another "barely lasts one day" expensive gadget?
I can go almost a week on my Priv' battery, despite the screen being an inch bigger than my pockets would like. If bendable means I can have a physical keyboard in clamshell device, I'm interested. But only if I can forget to charge it for at least days and not even worry about it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 07 2016, @07:28PM
Good news, the device doesn't need a battery, but instead it powers itself by drinking your blood.
(Score: 2) by Username on Wednesday June 08 2016, @12:04AM
I could live with that. Thought I doubt it would need to drink my blood, just use it as an electrolyte, or harvest the current/heat my body naturally gives off.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 08 2016, @03:02AM
Great, just what we need - a drunk phone.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Tuesday June 07 2016, @07:42PM
We don't need bendable phones.
What we need is phones with good software. Get rid of the bloatware, crapware, adware, all of which can't even be un-installed, and improve the OS, or just let us easily install Cyanogenmod without having to hack the thing. Stop using the shitty MTP protocol and make the phone mount like a regular USB drive so I can easily copy off my photos off of it. We don't need any new innovations until this is fixed.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Dunbal on Tuesday June 07 2016, @07:49PM
The market will take what it is given and if it doesn't like it then it will be brainwashed until it does.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 07 2016, @09:12PM
FTFY + movie quote mashup:
Industry: The market will take what it is given and it will get the hose again.
Regulators: Er, don't you mean or?
Industry: [angrily] The market will take what it is given OR it will get the hose again.
Customers: Well, which is it? That sounds like a pretty crucial conjunction.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday June 07 2016, @10:12PM
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anne Nonymous on Tuesday June 07 2016, @10:35PM
> trained monkeys could have invented better UIs.
The UI is actually excellent monkey-training software.
(Score: 2) by Gravis on Tuesday June 07 2016, @07:49PM
Shares of Samsung rose 1.5 percent to 1,398,000 won in Seoul
now that's winning! (≧∇≦)/
(Score: 2) by seeprime on Tuesday June 07 2016, @08:17PM
A five inch display phone that "pulls out" to an eight inch tablet seems like a really cool device, if it's not too heavy. Whether it will be affordable might be another story.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday June 07 2016, @10:08PM
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 08 2016, @01:16AM
Disagree because,