A study conducted by Graduate School of Information Security at Korea University claims that pre-loaded apps on Galaxy S, Galaxy S II and Galaxy Note can record user’s private information like contacts, emails and other data.

However, Samsung has released a statement that flatly denies the findings saying they “never collected or used private information of smartphone users.” Samsung further said that the apps provided by them “have no ability to collect private data.”

Via

Samsung HQ in South Korea have sent 13 auditors to Australia to check on the region’s operations. The report from Smarthouse claims that the surprise audit is a result of a tip-off from a former Samsung executive alleging irregularities in the sale of second goods.

Samsung auditors are currently probing 10-year old transactions and even the relationship of Samsung Australia execs with two different companies – QQ Discounts and Korean-owned company known as Samsung Concept Store.

Samsung is currently interviewing former Samsung execs, out of which, one believes that “at last information is coming out…whenever we raised issues internally in the Company regarding seconds we were told to leave it alone. I know of several occasions when management question the margins being given to Korean linked Companies, the people who made the decisions on this were known in the Company as the Korean Mafia and we knew not to interfere with this process.”

Samsung Australia hasn’t commented on the allegations but have confirmed about the ongoing investigation involving Korean auditors.

Launched on Feb 25, Samsung’s 3D LED TVs are enjoying good sales in their domestic market. Samsung has announced that they’ve managed to sell more than 10000 units of its 7000 and 8000 Series 3D LED TVs in six weeks. On an average, about 300 units from 7000 Series and 245 units from 8000 Series were sold every day. Off the 10,000 units sold, Samsung says 50 percent of them were 55-inchers.

A major reason for Samsung’s success in South Korea is TV’s 2D to 3D feature. The conversion technology allows users to convert 2D to 3D stereoscopic images with a touch of a button.

Samsung has got larger plans for its Corby range. After giving us a full-touch candybar, sliding QWERTY and Corby headsets, new images confirm that the Korean phone maker is preparing a clamshell version. Expectedly, the phone will be light on pocket and will come in multitude of colors. As for the specs, we can confirm that it will have a 2.6-inch display, two cameras – front VGA and 3MP main, DMB for South Korea, Bluetooth, e-dictionary and microSD card slot.

[Thanks, Jeonn!]

The Yu-Na Haptic device that was launched early this year has crossed an important milestone of selling more than a million units. The achievement came in under 7 months of its launch, making it the fastest selling phone for Samsung in the home market.

Yu-Na Haptic features a 3-inch touchscreen display, DMB, 3MP camera, Bluetooth, microSD card slot and video/music on demand.

Samsung has got its impending Application Store to its domestic market. But unlike the European launch, Samsung’s Store in South Korea will be a part of SK Telecom’s App Store. It’s scheduled to go live tomorrow and will operate as a ‘Shop inside a Shop’.

There won’t be a vast collection of apps initially but Samsung confirms to add more in the coming weeks. Notably, its WOW application for tracking Winter Olympics and games like SimCity, Ferrari GT and Monopoly will be added soon.

UPDATE: Take it as pure speculation but the M510 could be Vodafone H1 in SKT’s garb since the claimed specs match exactly with H1.

Samsung has confirmed to launch the first LiMo compliant handset in their home market by the end of this year. The SCH-M510 will be released by SK Telecom making it the first LiMo handset for Korea and 45th globally.

Samsung’s announcement comes on the same day as the announcement by South Korean Ministry of Knowledge Economy to form Korea LiMo Ecosystem Association, an initiative to facilitate innovation and opportunity for LiMo products in the Korean market.

SCH-M510 will feature a 3.5-inch WVGA AMOLED touchscreen, 5MP auto focus camera, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, accelerometer and support for various audio and video formats.

Koreans only wanting to enjoy live television on their phones and don’t care much about other features can go for the recently announced W920 from Samsung. The 12.9mm thick phone is equipped with S-DMB, 3000 phonebook memory, 3MP camera, front facing camera for video calling, SOS, music player, Bluetooth, e-dictionary and pre-installed TOEIC/TOEFL tests.

The SCH-W920 will come in black and white colors at a price of 500,000 won ($425).

UPDATE: Specs added below and sadly, there’s no word on Wi-Fi or GPS.
UPDATE 2: GSMArena has got some live pictures of the phone and reckons Samsung will swap T-DMB with Wi-Fi and GPS in M8920 (international version).

After being revealed couple of times in the past few days, Samsung has rightly made the world’s first phone with 12MP camera and optical zoom official. AMOLED 12M or SCH-W880 can take pictures at 12 megapixel resolution and offers 3x optical zoom, 2x digital zoom, 720p video recording (1280×720) at 30fps and Xenon flash. It also supports touch auto focus, image stabilization, Smart Auto (that automatically selects the scene according to environment) and face detection.

Rest of the feature set is yet to be confirmed but the phone has a 3.3-inch AMOLED WVGA (800×480) touchscreen display, TouchWiz UI and 4GB internal memory.

It will hit the Korean retail shelves early next month.

Specifications:

Network: WCDMA (2100 MHz); GSM(900), DCS(1800 ), PCS(1900) Roaming
Display: 3.3” WVGA AMOLED
Camera: 12MP with 3X Optical Zoom, 2X Digital Zoom, Xenon + Power Led Flash, Touch AF Tracking, Smart Auto, Beauty Shot, Macro Shot
Video: HD Level (1280 x 720) 30fps
Format support: Video – MPEG4, H.263, H.264, DivX, XviD; Audio – MP3, AAC, AAC+, AAC+e, WMA
Terrestrial DMB (Mobile TV)
Connectivity: Bluetooth® 2.0, USB 2.0 HS (micro USB)
Internal memory: 4GB
External memory: Micro SD (up to 32GB)
Battery: 1,100 mAh
Size: 115.8 x 56.9 x 16.3 mm

Samsung’s new slider will reach the KT users soon. The SPH-W8400 is a decent slider phone and features a 2.4-inch (240×320) display, 3.6Mbps HSDPA, SOS function, GPS, microSD slot supporting up to 16GB, 2MP camera and Bluetooth. The phone also features a specially designed battery cover for better grip. No word on the price.

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