You gotta spend money to make money. Samsung knows that, which is why the Korean powerhouse will be spending about 5 trillion won (roughly $4.5 billion) to build five new R&D centers over the next three years. All of the facilities will be in the company's homeland, with a $1 billion research center set to open in southern Seoul late in 2015. At that particular building, it's expected that some 10,000 employees will take up residence, focusing primarily on design. Samsung also plans to dedicate new R&D centers to materials and component development, as well as chips and displays. In 2012 Samsung dropped a company-record 11.9 trillion won (about $10.5 billion) on R&D, and there's no sign that it'll be slowing down anytime soon. In fact, its research budget is up about $1.4 billion from 2011. Sure, there might not be as much of an immediate windfall from the investment, like you might see from an advertising blitz or lawsuit, but we're willing to bet it keeps Sammy competitive for much of the foreseeable future.
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A new version of Android (4.3, and still called Jelly Bean) is already doing the testing rounds on Samsung's Galaxy S 4 and thanks to some porting work from SAMMobile, it's apparently working on both the Google Play and original iterations. We've caught a glance of Android 4.3 on LG's Nexus 4 already, but we're now getting a second look at a refreshed camera interface, some minor design tweaks (like more regular appearances of a share button) and, well, we're still perusing the gallery for more nuggets. If you know what you're doing (and don't fear voiding your warranty) you can find the files at the source -- early reports suggest that the GS4 is "fully working" on this early build. We'll update this post if we find anything else new, but early impressions suggest it's a relatively gentle upgrade from the existing mobile OS. when.eng("eng.perm.init")
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Key specs Reviews • 0 Prices Type Smartphone Operating system Android (Jelly Bean [4.2]) Screen size 4.3 inches Internal memory 8 GB Camera 8 megapixels Announced 2013-05-30 see all specs ? There are not any reviews for this product yet. 
In case you forgot, Samsung and Apple's legal squabbles didn't end in US federal court last year: the litigation rages on in international courts. Stop us if you've heard this one -- Samsung and Apple are caught up in a lawsuit focusing in part on Cupertino's bounce back patent, and things aren't looking great for Sammy's lawyers. It's a familiar story, but this time it's playing out in a Japanese courtroom, with a Tokyo judge deciding that a number of Samsung devices are in violation of Apple's scrolling technology. What's this mean to the consumer? Nothing yet -- the court still hasn't calculated damages or approved an injunction, and this isn't the only legal battle the firms are waging in the country's court system. Feel free to brush up on your kanji and check out the source link below for more details, or skip on over to Bloomberg for a more digestible account. when.eng("eng.perm.init")
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Samsung's already doing a pretty good job selling its new flagship GS4, not to mention preparing a Google-fied stock version for the summer. There's another variant now confirmed, however, with Samsung's co-chief exec, JK Shin, telling Reuters today that a modified Galaxy S 4 will be the first smartphone to commercially launch on LTE-Advanced, the next step up from existing LTE. (Not forgetting that the new tech is already live in parts of Russia.) On the new radio technology, data speeds could theoretically double what you currently experience on a 4G signal. For Samsung's new smartphone, this will involve using Qualcomm chips compatible with the next-gen networks, notably sidestepping its homemade Exynos silicon. "As operators seek to provide more data-centric mobile services, I think this will become mainstream 4G technology globally in the coming years," Shin said, though he refused to name any specific networks that the new GS4 would eventually launch on. when.eng("eng.perm.init")