Samsung has launched TecTiles, an automated NFC programming platform designed to tie smartphone operations to wireless-enabled stickers.
The company said that the programmable stickers will allow users to assign tasks which can be activated by placing an NFC-enabled handset to the stickers. When a user touches a handset to the sticker, operations such as sending text messages or launching applications can be performed.
For consumers and hobbyist users, the company believes that the NFC-enabled stickers will allow for everyday tasks such as notifying others when they are at home or automating the powering down the handset to be triggered with a tap.
For businesses, the company sees the TecTile platform as a promising promotional tool. Samsung claimed companies will be able to program the TecTiles stickers to display messages to users or direct them to "Like" links on Facebook and check-ins on Foursquare.
Samsung said that the sticker platform is part of its effort to increase use and awareness of NFC systems. The company has featured NFC hardware in a number of its recent handsets, including the recently-unveiled Galaxy S3 handset.
Vendors have singled out the UK as a particularly strong potential market for NFC systems as carriers and banks have been particularly aggressive in rolling out NFC payment systems for customers.
The platform has not been without its detractors, however. Security and privacy advocates have warned that such hardware could be used to collect user information without their knowledge or consent.
Samsung's Galaxy SIII Will Enter the U.S. Market After All - Int'l Business Times
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The two have been locked for more than a year on legal contests around the world in which Apple claims Samsung copied the form and features of its Galaxy product lines of smartphones and tablet computers from the bestselling iPhone and iPad.
Apple has been urging courts in many countries to prevent Samsung from selling its Galaxy mobile devices but its efforts have been largely repulsed and its latest campaign to stop the SIII from ever hitting the lucrative North American market was attached to the existing court case that Ms Koh handles.
But on Monday, the court sent a written notice to the warring parties that it may need to put off the June 21 showdown in order to accommodate the annexed plea that Apple recently filed.
Ms Koh said that apart from the patent war being waged by Apple and Samsung before her court, she also has to deal with a host of other cases, meaning she has to organise her schedule and if Apple insists on the urgency of disallowing the SIII in the United States, then the mother case must be postponed.
"If Apple seeks to file a motion to enjoin sales of the Samsung Galaxy S III, Apple will have to request a new hearing date from the court," the San Jose magistrate was quoted by AFP as saying on her ruling released on Monday.
She also advised that obviously, the court cannot devote much or all of its time to the Apple-Samsung legal spar lest she be labelled "an Apple vs. Samsung judge," AFP wrote.
The Monday ruling, analysts said, should serve as a clear signal for Samsung to go ahead with its intent to release the Galaxy SIII in June in the U.S. market and the smartphone's third coming could happen as early as next week, they added.
Samsung has been largely successful in turning back Apple's attempts to kill its Galaxy gadgets, which to date proved as the most viable rival of iPhone and iPad.
While Apple enjoys a relative advantage over the numerous Samsung gadgets, volume-wise the Asian firm serves as the most serious threat to Apple's dominance.
Analysts view the smartphone and tablet competitions as territories mainly inhabited by Apple and Samsung, with only a few brands coming in between.
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Samsung Galaxy fans to get Facebook rival social network - Crave
Samsung is planning a social network to rival Facebook. The Korean giant is hoping to scoop up everyone with a Samsung Galaxy S3 or other Galaxy phone in their pocket and get their phones, tablets, cameras and TVs sharing with your friends, Facebook-style.
The Korea Times reports the network will be based on the existing Samsung social wotsit Family Story, but the Korean company is even calling the new project 'Samsung Facebook' internally.
Samsung says its own-brand social features will work across its cameras, televisions and Blu-ray players and tanks. Well, maybe not the tanks.With its Galaxy phones already in millions of pockets around the world, direct upload to social networks is already happening. Add Wi-Fi enabled cameras and Blu-ray players and TVs that tell the world what you've been watching, and Samsung could be on to something.
Still, social networking is a hard row to hoe. Even big names like Google aren't guaranteed success, with Google+ failing to take off despite lots of clever features.
In fact, I'd argue that a big name may even count against a social network, which needs to be fresh and cool and buzzy. Samsung, as great as it is at making hardware, is none of those things. After all, who uses any of the own-brand social or music gubbins on any phone? Even Apple couldn't pull it off, with the reportedly doomed Ping.
Meanwhile, fresh upstarts like Pinterest come from nowhere to capture an audience with loads of buzz.
And aside from the cool factor, own-brand social networks have a
built-in limitation: they're restricted to the people with own-brand
kit. Facebook and Twitter thrive today because from the very start
they've been free on any device anywhere. Samsung seems to have learnt that lesson by making its free messaging service ChatON available on any device. Ultimately, that's the one question that makes or breaks a social network: are my mates on it?
Can Samsung compete with Facebook? Can anyone compete with Facebook? What's going to be the next big thing in social networking? Tell me your thoughts in the comments or, you guessed it, on our Facebook page.
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