Month: February 2019

• 

  Samsung's new Galaxy Watch smartwatch. [credit: Samsung ]

Along with the S10 smartphones and the new Galaxy Fold handset, Samsung officially announced new wearables in its Galaxy family at its Unpacked event today. The information leaked just days ago purportedly by Samsung's own Galaxy Wearables mobile app has been proven correct as Samsung showed off a new Galaxy Watch Active smartwatch, a Galaxy Fit tracker, and new true wireless earbuds called the Galaxy Buds on stage.

Starting in the audio department, the Galaxy Buds are Samsung's latest shot at the cord-less earphone market popularized by Apple's AirPods. Samsung says they get six hours of battery life on their own per charge, with an additional seven hours available through their charging case. That case supports wireless charging, and can be powered by one of those new Galaxy S10 phones.

The company claims the Galaxy Buds's case is 30 percent smaller than that of its previous Gear IconX earbuds. Samsung's much-maligned Bixby assistant is built into the earphones by default, letting users perform a modicum of smartphone controls with their voice—send texts, answer calls, change songs, and more—but the earphones can also use Google Assistant if desired. They connect over Bluetooth 5, and Samsung is touting easier connectivity with its own devices. The company says the Galaxy Buds' audio has been tuned by its AKG subsidiary, though we'll have to give them a listen before making any judgments there.

(credit: Samuel Axon)

It's Samsung's big launch event today, and the company has made the thoroughly leaked Galaxy S10 official. The company announced the S10 and S10 Plus smartphones on stage today, after it unveiled the impressive and incredibly expensive Galaxy Fold foldable handset.

The Galaxy S line never joined the notch trend of 2018, and this year Samsung is going with a new scheme to maximize display space while still having a front camera: the hole punch display. Samsung is pushing the display boundaries all the way out to the edges of the phone, and a camera is located under the display panel. Samsung's display technology has reached the point where it can just punch out the pixels over top of the camera lens, so you get a display with a round camera hole in it and pixels all around the camera lens.

The slimmer bezels means screen sizes are getting even bigger. The S10 has a 6.1-inch 3040×1440 OLED display—up from 5.8-inches in the S9—and the S10 Plus is getting a 6.4-inch 3040×1440 OLED panel—up from 6.2-inches on the S9 Plus, and now the same size as the Galaxy Note 9. Both phones are a few millimeters wider than last year, so they will feel a bit bigger when you're holding them.

The Army's future "helicopter" takes shape. A transcript of this video can be found here. (video link)

The Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk and its many variants have been the backbone of the US Army's helicopter force for decades. Designed during the Army's last major helicopter procurement push in the 1980s, the Black Hawk now flies in some form in all of the military services. But its range and speed have become limiting factors in the Army's airborne assault operations. And to add to the problem, the Army lacks a scout helicopter that meets the demands of deployment overseas. The Eurocopter UH-72 Lakota isn't combat-capable, so AH-64 Apaches have had to play the role of armed scouts with the assistance of drones.

As a result, the Army has two separate helicopter procurement programs running for the first time since the Black Hawk and Apache were in the pipeline. The two programs, which emerged from the "capability sets" of the Army's Future Vertical Lift program, seek Black Hawk and Kiowa replacements that are "optionally manned"—meaning that they can fly with or without an aircrew—as well as being easier to maintain and fly than their predecessors.