Samsung Galaxy S6 officially announced: here’s what you need to know

Samsung unveils Galaxy E7, E5, smartphones in India.

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Android accessibility settings: 5 hidden options everyone should be using

The Android system, whether you own an LG G3, Galaxy S4 or Nexus 5, has a number of accessibility options built in for those hard of hearing, suffering from a vision impairment or any other number of other conditions that might make the standard operation of your Android difficult, but you don't need to be as blind as me to take advantage of them. Here's five accessibility settings you should be using.

How to Unlock/Reset an Android Pattern Lock

Android is a most popular smartphone operating system from Google. It has a lot of features for our day to day life. Android has taken care all of its features and makes this operating system best from every corner. When it comes to security, here also google added some great feature to keep a phone secure from unauthorized access. Pattern lock is one of the best security system by google.A Pattern lock consists of 9 dots and the user can set a particular pattern which should initially match to unlock the device.

Get a new Samsung phone? Here are six things to turn off

NEW SAMSUNG PHONES ARE GREAT, EXCEPT FOR THE PARTS THAT AREN'T

When it comes to the sheer number of features offered, Samsung's TouchWiz is pretty much unmatched. If you can imagine it, chances are it's a feature on the latest Samsung phones like the Galaxy S5, Galaxy Note 4 or Galaxy Alpha. Many of these features are useful, but there's some stuff enabled out of the box that you might want to selectively turn off.

Read on to see which six features we find ourselves killing off when we start using a new Samsung phone.

1. THE WATER DROPLET TOUCH SOUNDS

Bloop. Bloop. Bloop. Start up a new Samsung phone for the first time and these water droplet sounds will punctuate your every touch of the screen. A relic of the Galaxy S3's nature-inspired UI, this minor irritant can be disabled by toggling "Settings > Sound > Touch sounds" into the off position.

2. THE SAMSUNG WHISTLE

Even if you've never owned a Samsung phone, chances are you're familiar with the unmistakable piercing whistle of the company's default notification sound. You can change it to something less objectionable under "Settings > Sound > Notifications."

3. DOUBLE-TAP S VOICE SHORTCUT

Samsung's personal assistant has improved considerably since it first appeared on the Galaxy S3. But if you're not using it every day, you could make your home button more responsive by disabling the S Voice long-press shortcut.

First load S Voice, then hit the menu key (or three dots at the top of the screen) and select "Settings." From there, uncheck "Open via the home key." With this option disabled, the home key will respond immediately when pressed, rather than waiting to see if a second press is coming.

4. MY MAGAZINE ON YOUR HOME SCREEN

In the default TouchWiz launcher, swiping right from the leftmost home screen panel will load up "My Magazine," Samsung's Flipboard-powered home screen reader. If you're using it, great. If not, kill it by long-pressing on an empty home screen space, then tapping "Home screen settings" and unchecking "My Magazine."

5. LOCK SCREEN SOUNDS

If Samsung's spritely default screen unlock sounds are just too cheerful for your tastes, they're easily disabled under "Settings > Sound > Screen lock sound."

Samsung's New 5.5-Inch Galaxy A7 Smartphone

Samsung Packs An 8-Core Processor Into Its New 5.5-Inch Galaxy A7 Smartphone

Last year Samsung released an eight-core version of the Galaxy S5, and now it has outed a dedicated octocore smartphone in its own right: the Galaxy A7.

Korean firm teased the phone in 2014 and showcased it last week, according to a report, but now it is official with dual 1.8GHz and 1.3GHz quad-core processors (or 1.5GHz and 1.0GHz in the dual-SIM version) and a 64-bit Qualcomm Snapdragon chip. Those eight cores are great for handling multiple tasks, on paper, and are backed up with 16GB of memorystorage, 2GB of RAM and a large 2,600mAh battery.

There’s no word on launch dates, initial markets or pricing, although reports last week pegged it at around $420 off contract.

The phone runs Android KitKat and sports a 5.5-inch screen, making it larger than the Galaxy A3 and Galaxy A7 that were announced back in October. Like those two products, it is another slim, metallic bodied release from Samsung, which has long been criticized for using all-plastic bodies, including faux leather.

Samsung has again focused on appealing to cameraphone enthusiasts. There is a 13-megapixel rear-facing camera and a 5-megapixel front-facing camera. On the software side, the Galaxy A7 software that Samsung claims can take a ‘wide’ selfie, while ‘auto selfie’ lets narcissists snap themselves using “a voice command or even a simple wave of the hand” –selfie sticks be damned.

Samsung is also touting ‘Always Clear Voice Auto Control’ which reduces background noise in-call, multiple screen support for apps and a private mode that “adds an extra layer of security for important files and documents.”

The introduction of the Galaxy A3, A5 and A7 over the past few months is interesting: Samsung is diversifying its focus beyond its flagship Galaxy S and Note families. The company is bracing itself for its first profit drop in three years, and its latest Galaxy S5 and Note 4 don’t appear to be selling as well as previous models.

The Galaxy A3 and A7 were pretty focused on China, as we noted last year, but Samsung is birthing a new series of phones that offer something else to consumers. With a distinctly different design, marketing focus and lower prices, the Galaxy A series looks to be its Xiaomi-like effort at bringing a quality experience to the mid-range of the smartphone market.

Samsung Beaten to the Punch on Next-Gen Mobile Screens

While Samsung said in January that it's hard at work on a QHD (that's 2,560 x 1,440) AMOLED panel, it won't be the first to show one off. That honor goes to AU Optronics, a Taiwanese display company that makes screens for numerous device manufacturers, Samsung included. The 5.7-inch display squeezes in 513 pixels-per-inch, the most of any organic panel yet. Of course, there are already quite a number of QHD LCDs on the market, like the one found in Vivo's Xplay 3 and a 543ppi model from LG. AU said it also has a 6-inch QHD AMOLED coming, and Samsung will no doubt announce something similar soon -- possibly for the next Galaxy Note model. Either way, prepare more smartphones with pixels so densely packed that you can't distinguish them with the naked eye.

Apple and Samsung's Next Trial

Apple and Samsung to spar over iPhone 5, Galaxy Note II at next trial

Perpetual court combatants Apple and Samsung have revealed their final list of allegations ahead of a trial starting March 31st. Though each started with five disputed patents, Samsung only has four now since a multimedia sync patent was knocked out earlier by Judge Lucy Koh. She also gave Apple a summary judgement win on its auto-complete IP, putting it ahead before the trial even begins. As for the rest, it's worth noting that all of Apple's patents are related to user interaction, while two of Samsung's are standards-essential (FRAND) patents -- which companies are normally obligated to license out. Samsung did have one point in its favor, however: the USPTO has agreed to take a second look at the validity of Apple's aforementioned auto-complete patent.

As for the devices accused of infringing those patents, none are very recent models and many aren't even on the market anymore. However, the historical sales of each will affect the size of any award given by the court if an allegation is upheld. That's a lot of infringement for ultra-popular models like the Galaxy Note II, Galaxy S III, iPhone 5 and iPhone 4s, which have far out sold disputed models from the previous trial (like Samsung's original Galaxy S). Other names on the list include the Galaxy Nexus and Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 from Samsung, along with Apple's iPad 2, iPad with Retina display (3rd-gen), iPad with Retina display (4th-gen) and iPad Mini (the original, without a Retina display). Of course, there's always the upcoming negotiations between company CEOs to avoid all that, but... nah, who are we kidding.