Samsung Archives - Memeburn

Samsung’s Bixby disses Apple’s Siri in voice assistant rap battle
By Andy Walker: Editor on 3 May, 2017
Samsung just couldn't resist taking a swipe at Apple's Siri using its own smart voice assistant, could it? Bixby, which launched this weekend in South Korea on the Samsung Galaxy S8, hides a rather innocuous diss within a command. Asking Bixby to "please rap" or "beatbox", the voice assistant drops rhymes that would put Pitbull out of work. But more interesting still is the message hidden within one particular rap. Users on the Samsung subreddit noticed that when the first letters of a rap's lines are read vertically, it spells out the sentence "I am better than Siri". That's rude, Samsung. Also, dope...
Samsung’s Wemogee app uses emoji to bridge language gap
By Andy Walker: Editor on 26 April, 2017
Samsung's latest app puts the world's love affair with emoji to good use. And no, not just for the memes either. Dubbed Wemogee, the app is specifically developed for those suffering from aphasia -- the inability to understand written language or speech -- to better converse with loved ones. Because of this language and communication barrier, conversing with aphasia sufferers isn't an easy task. But that's exactly what Wemogee is trying to change. Wemogee uses a logical string of emoji that can be understood as a sentence On the surface, the app displays a logical string of emoji that can be understood as...
EFC, Samsung team up to film 360 degree MMA fights
By Hadlee Simons on 10 April, 2017
Samsung and local mixed martial arts (MMA) organisation EFC have announced a technological partnership that will also see Gear 360 cameras being used to film events. "Samsung has signed a partnership with EFC as the official mobile phone, virtual reality and wearable technology partner of the EFC South Africa," the South Korean tech brand confirmed in a press statement. "We are really excited about this partnership with Samsung, a global leader and brand," said EFC president Cairo Howarth in the release. "The handsets, VR technology and Gear Fit devices are truly amazing, we have been blown away by the experience, quality...
Nah fam: South Africans aren’t too happy with the Samsung Galaxy S8’s price
By Andy Walker: Editor on 29 March, 2017
South Africans really don't like the price of the Samsung Galaxy S8. The Korean company's latest phone was outed today, sporting an infinity screen, an iris scanner and a new personal assistant dubbed Bixby. But it seems that the price got the most attention. Priced at R15 499 for the standard S8, and R17 499 for the Samsung Galaxy S8+, they are by no means cheap devices. And Twitter was all too ready to point that out. Our sister site Gearburn, while live-tweeting the event, saw a slew of retweets and mentions from users commenting on this particular tweet. Pricing info: R15499 for...
Weekly Round Up Podcast #95: LG Innofest, Nintendo Switch, Cyclone Dineo & more
By Staff Reporter on 21 February, 2017
Welcome to Weekly Roundup, our podcast discussing the latest tech trends, innovation and news from the last few days. In this week's edition, Hadlee Simons plays host to Andy Walker and Graham van der Made. This time we discuss Hadlee's trip to LG's InnoFest 2017 in Barcelona, and his experience around its new product announcements. Graham also discusses his hands-on review of the Nintendo Switch to round off our Gearburn coverage. Dineo, LG and Nintendo dominate this week's coverage Over on Memeburn, we chat fake news circulating on social media about Cyclone Dineo. We also discuss Samsung's group chairman's recent arrest. On a lighter...
Samsung Group vice chairman Jay Y. Lee arrested
By Andy Walker: Editor on 17 February, 2017
Samsung Group's vice chairman and de facto head Jay Y. Lee has been arrested, following charges relating to "bribery, embezzlement and perjury" were laid by South Korean prosecutors in January. Lee, 48, was the former COO of Samsung Electronics, and has been at the company since 1991. He effectively assumed control of Samsung after his father, suffered a heart attack in 2014. The South Korean was accused of leveraging his wealth and influence to gain political favours from the country's chief officials. The New York Times reported that Lee paid for support from government (namely an unnamed South Korea advisor to President...

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Facebook videos will now autoplay on your phone with sound
By Julia Breakey on 15 February, 2017
Facebook announced yesterday that it will roll out a feature that plays sound on videos whenever a phone's sound is on. "People are watching and sharing more video on Facebook than ever, and we’re focused on continuously improving the video experience," the statement read. In the future, when a user is scrolling their feed with sound on, the sound for videos will fade in and out. They do not specify how long the video will be on screen before the sound will play. To keep sound off, users will have to keep their phones on silent, or disable the setting within the...

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Weekly Round Up Podcast #88: Nintendo Switch, Fitbit, Amazon Go & more
By Staff Reporter on 9 December, 2016
Welcome to Weekly Round Up, our podcast discussing the latest tech trends, innovation, and news from the last few days. This week, Hadlee Simons plays host to Andy Walker. In this edition of the Weekly Round Up, the team talks about the Nintendo Switch's possible GameCube compatibility as well as Samsung ditching the 3.5mm audio jack for its Galaxy S8. The duo also discuss Fitbit's surprise buy of smartwatch maker Pebble and Amazon's new checkout-less grocery store Go. Finally, we chat a bit about South African GT racer, David Perel. What are we watching, reading, playing: Andy is working his way through The Last...

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Weekly Round Up Podcast #85: US Elections, Samsung Gear Fit 2 & more
By Staff Reporter on 11 November, 2016
Welcome to Weekly Round Up, our podcast discussing the latest tech trends, innovation, and news from the last few days. This week, Hadlee Simons plays host to Andy Walker and Matthew Alexander. In this edition of the Weekly Round Up, the team talks the newly-reviewed Samsung Gear Fit 2, and WWE 2K17. In light of the US Elections, we also talk the social impact of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton on Twitter, Facebook and Netflix. The US Elections caused massive traffic spikes for Facebook and Twitter, but overall bandwidth usage drops in North America With the Supermoon due on Monday, we also mentioned...
20 world airports that utterly hate Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7
By Andy Walker: Editor on 18 October, 2016
Samsung's having a right old crappy year. After the promise of its featured-packed Samsung Galaxy Note 7, its hopes to challenge Apple and others has quite literally gone up in smoke. Global recalls of its flagship phablet has resulted in a damaged brand image, huge financial losses and the possibility of a permanently shelved Note range. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. For the past two months, users of the Samsung Galaxy Note 7, and innocent bystanders in airports across the world, have been tweeting and Instagramming pictures of how airports and carriers are addressing the perceived threat of unstable smartphones. This...
Weekly Round Up Podcast #81: Samsung’s woes, SA’s media landscape & Netflix’s growth
By Staff Reporter on 14 October, 2016
Welcome to Weekly Round Up, our podcast discussing the latest tech trends, innovation, and news from the last few days. This week, Hadlee Simons and Graham van der Made are the co-conspirators in the studio. Samsung's Galaxy Note 7 woes continue, while Netflix, Bioshock and SA's media landscape also get a mention We discuss the ongoing and seemingly never-ending Samsung Note 7 disaster. We also talk about Hadlee's four step gameplan for Netflix's growth in emerging markets. Sticking with media, we touch on South Africa's media landscape, and how it will likely evolve into a completely different beast by 2020. And finally,...
Samsung to buy artificial intelligence startup Viv
By Andy Walker: Editor on 6 October, 2016
This is big. In light of Google Assistant's move to its new home, Apple's Siri finding refuge on the iPhone 7 and Microsoft's Cortana slowly breaking its PC chains, Samsung is also in the market for an intelligent voice assistant. And it seems that it has found the perfect candidate. The company has announced that it has acquired artificial intelligence platform and startup Viv, a company that has Siri's co-creator -- Dag Kittlaus -- at the helm. "Viv has developed a unique, open artificial intelligence (AI) platform that gives third-party developers the power to use and build conversational assistants and...
Quadrooter: 900m Qualcomm Android phones vulnerable to security flaw
By Andy Walker: Editor on 8 August, 2016
The latest set of smartphone nasties floating around the internet has a pretty cool name, but could very well leave your own phone at risk. Dubbed Quadrooter, the set of four flaws affect all Qualcomm-powered smartphones running Android, which means around 65% of the LTE smartphone market, or 900-million smartphones in total. According to CheckPoiunt, the vulnerabilities could leave users' devices rooted, and open to remote access. These vulnerabilities can be targeted through the installation of a malicious app. But only one vulnerability needs to be exploited. In that event, an "attacker can trigger privilege escalations for the purpose of...
Weekly Round Up #72: Samsung Galaxy Note 7, Suicide Squad review, Instagram Stories & more
By Staff Reporter on 5 August, 2016
Welcome to Weekly Roundup, our podcast discussing the latest tech trends, innovation, and news from the last few days. This week, Hadlee Simons plays host and talks to Matthew Alexander, Graham van der Made and Andy Walker. The team discusses the newly launched Samsung Galaxy Note 7 launch, the reviews for Suicide Squad, the latest PlayStation Vita hack and Instagram's new Stories feature. What are we watching, reading, playing: Matthew is playing Furi, Graham has trouble remembering what he's watching, Andy recently picked up (and literally threw) Mirror's Edge Catalyst once again, and Hadlee has been entertaining himself watching old Formula 1...
Weekly Round #53: Facebook Reactions, Boston Dynamics’ Robot, MWC, Far Cry
By Myolisi Sikupela: Staff Reporter on 26 February, 2016
Welcome to Weekly Roundup, our podcast discussing the latest tech trends, innovation and news from the last few days. This week on BurnCast, Senior Reporter Stuart Thomas talks to Gearburn Editor Andy Walker and Reporter Graham van der Made. The team talks about the Facebook reactions, Boston Dynamics engineering a robot, abusing it and risking a robot takeover, Mobile World Conference developments, smartphones disabling app installs onto the micro SD cards, and Far Cry. The team speaks about what they are watching, reading and listening to. As for the Tweet of the week, Kanye West takes it and we hope he...