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back to article Samsung gets KINKY with new Galaxy in 50 SHADES OF GREY

Samsung has let it be known it'll reveal whatever's depicted below in Barcelona on March 1st, the eve of 2015's Mobile World Congress. Probably a new Samsung smartmobe Oooh! Kinky! (Bigger kink here) The small print at bottom left reads "Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2015", so presumably the image and invite sent to media …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    A phone comforming to the curve of your head

    Would have been gangbusters in 2005. But it is 2015, and most people hold their phone to their ear a fraction of the time they're using it for other stuff.

    If the phone is bent that way, clearly it has to be flexible, because exactly no one would want a smartphone that is bent like that all the time. The problem with this is, there would have to be restrictions in where you can bent the phone and how much, since chips don't bend at all and antennas become much less efficient when bent. If all you can do is bend it into a head conforming shape similar to that shown and back again, it is just another gimmick like eye tracking that will be hyped as an iPhone killing feature, and then forgotten two weeks after the phone is released.

    1 0 Reply
    1. the spectacularly refined chap
      Reply Icon

      Re: A phone comforming to the curve of your head

      If the phone is bent that way, clearly it has to be flexible, because exactly no one would want a smartphone that is bent like that all the time.

      Bent like what? It is a deliberately obfuscated photo that allows you to extrapolate several possible shapes from the information available. I can see three straight away: the most literal view would be that it is doubly bent and this a straight side-on view which seems improbable and doesn't it in well with the shading.

      The second is that this is an edge-on three quarters view of the side and end of a shape that angles up at one end, kind of like how some calculators angle up the display portion of the case. That fits well with the photo but I don't see why you would want that shape in a phone.

      The third and my preferred interpretation is that this is a straightforward curved phone with the screen side facing downward, taken from an angle to mostly show the top or bottom end and dramatically foreshorten the long side. I can see some people wanting that and can see some practical benefits in that it would allow you to more easily reach the top and bottom of the screen with your thumb.

      In any event I'm now long past the point at which this descends into idle speculation as the author was careful to avoid. My essential point is that you don't know anything about the shape from that photo.

      One final point that is easily missed - if you load it up in an image editor and start distorting the brightness curve quite dramatically you do bring what appears to be an edge button into visibility below the rightward portion of the horizontal bit, at least I don't think it's a compression artifact. That doesn't tell you much by itself but it does seem to eliminate interpretations that require a face-one angle of the phone.

      2 0 Reply
      1. stucs201
        Reply Icon

        Re: A phone comforming to the curve of your head

        "a shape that angles up at one end, kind of like how some calculators angle up the display portion of the case. That fits well with the photo but I don't see why you would want that shape in a phone."

        You mean like the HTC Hero? I seem to remember that doing reasonably well at the time.

        2 0 Reply
  2. MrDamage Silver badge

    Pre-bent

    To avoid all of the woes that inflicted iTards and LuGheads.

    2 0 Reply
  3. Tom7

    It looks like a fork

    In fact, it's the Galaxy Fork.

    With built-in calorific analysis, it can determine how much weight you're putting on as you eat it. The built-in accelerometer lets it count mouthfuls, giving you a breakdown of calories per mouthful and how this changes through the mean, and also to estimate lifetime fatigue damage on your crockery. An optional NFC device allows it to individually identify your plates (when the appropriate labels are applied), and the data gathered is uploaded to Samsung's Plate cloudy big data analysis system, giving you estimates of when you should replace each piece of crockery to avoid accidental in-dining breakage experiences.

    Behind the scenes, of course, Samsung will be selling your crockery damage data to plate manufacturers, allowing them both to optimise plate lifetime and to target advertising to those whose plates are more worn.

    7 0 Reply
    1. Mark 85
      Reply Icon

      Re: It looks like a fork

      Already out there... https://www.hapi.com/product/hapifork

      Although yours seems to have more features. I wonder if there's a patent troll to take Samsung on over this one but, since Apple isn't offering an iFork yet, it should be good.

      0 0 Reply
    2. Charlie Clark Silver badge
      Reply Icon
      Thumb Up

      Re: It looks like a fork

      Introducing Galaxy Cutlery – collect the set

      0 0 Reply
    3. VinceH
      Reply Icon

      Re: It looks like a fork

      "In fact, it's the Galaxy Fork."

      You JUST beat me to it.

      By about five hours.

      0 0 Reply
  4. PleebSmash
    Terminator

    that's not how thin it is

    That's the length and width. It is bendable and is inserted into your ear, piercing your brain.

    2 0 Reply
  5. El Zorro

    Nothing ground breaking

    Probably just a phone variant of this unpractical gimmick

    3 0 Reply
    1. Shrimpling
      Reply Icon

      Re: Nothing ground breaking

      That is a phone....

      You are correct calling it a gimmick though

      0 0 Reply
    2. wdmot
      Reply Icon

      Re: Nothing ground breaking

      That looks very much like the photo -- albeit with the device off and localised light. Photo taken near one corner (top right?), device laying flat and slightly rotated with respect to camera. The light bendy stripe is just the "chrome" going around the device between top and bottom halves.

      1 0 Reply
  6. Mark 85

    It doesn't have to be the product at all... it could very well just be the logo.

    0 0 Reply
    1. Charlie Clark Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      You're obviously wasted on this site. El Reg speculating on unfounded rumours? Who'd thunk it?

      1 0 Reply
  7. G2
    Holmes

    Google Glass or similar

    for me that looks awfully close to a Glass device viewed from the side...

    Google has recently terminated the experimental production run and with Samsung already having had some attempts at developing a similar device... maybe Google signed up with Samsung for mass-market production? Mobile World Congress sounds like the perfect place to launch the mass-market Google Glass Mk 2 (or is that Mk 3...4?.. i lost count of the test variations)

    0 0 Reply
  8. Message From A Self-Destructing Turnip

    Wireless?

    Looks like a sanitary towel ad to me, though on closer inspection I see a cable with the caption "Whats next", so what's next after the cable?

    0 0 Reply
  9. MrE

    Apple, anything you can do....

    ...we can do better?

    0 0 Reply
  10. MrWibble

    Over on Android Police, in the comments someone's posted this image:

    Looks like a new Galaxy Edge is coming

    http://a.disquscdn.com/uploads/mediaembed/images/1691/7102/original.jpg?w=600&h

    2 0 Reply
    1. Steve Crook
      Reply Icon

      That makes more sense

      I'm reminded of those photographs they used to show on "Ask The Family" and then pull back and back and back and back...

      1 0 Reply
  11. Snowy Silver badge

    Looks like a fork

    Maybe it is to represent what they are going to do with the software rather than the product they are launching...

    0 0 Reply
  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Will it run Tizen?

    see above

    1 0 Reply
  13. Wombling_Free

    It's a Samsung

    So it's more like GALAXY FORKED. As in 'totally FORKED'. As in 'anything Samsung makes is FORKED'.

    0 0 Reply
  14. tiger99

    It is a SPUDGER

    That is what they call, in some parts of the world, a tool for prying open expensive, supposedly sealed phones from a certain inferior, over-priced and obscenely profitable competitor, who on occasion has sued their key supplier of screens (Samsung) for daring to make rectangles with rounded corners or something similar. (Not a clever move, and I recall they were slapped down hard by a UK court, sitting as an EU court, a couple of years ago, for vaguely related things.) A company currently run by someone whose distant ancestor may have been good in the kitchen. (Maybe he is too?) Oh, and not Pear or Banana...

    So, I think not a phone at all, merely a cleverly moulded piece of tough reinforced plastic for getting access to apple cores.

    Seriously though, we will have to wait a bit to see what it really is. Right now, the information is insufficient to form any firm conclusions, and I suspect that we will all turn out to be wrong.

    But guessing is fun....

    0 0 Reply

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