Samsung and LG are making big bets on automotive tech

This post was originally published on Charged.io, our new transportation site. Don't miss: 15 of the best plug-in electric cars (August 2016)

Both Samsung and LG have bet big on the automotive industry becoming the driving force in information technology.

It's nice to have confirmation from two of the world's biggest tech companies. But we all know that electric cars, autonomous technology, car hailing schemes and even in-car entertainment are set for a quantum leap in the coming years.

"Automotive will ultimately be the next big thing in the information technology sector," said Kim Do-kyun, one of Samsung Electronics' memory division at the Mobile & IoT forum in Seoul. "It's just a matter of time."

The Internet of Things, Google Tango and more could revolutionize technology that isn't even out in the wild. That's how fast automotive IT is progressing right now.

What lies beyond autonomous cars?

We're all looking at the autonomous tech, but the companies involved have to see further. What happens when we don't have to drive the car anymore? We're going to have a lot of free time on our hands.

"In the long term, autonomous driving will be a game changer for bringing in new lifestyle," Kim said. "In the short and medium term, there are opportunities from infotainment, advanced driver assistance system, telematics. DRAM capacity for automobiles will catch up with that of smartphones from 2017."

Samsung buying a seat at the automotive table

Samsung has embraced the auto industry as it clearly sees the industry converging with its own business model. Bloomberg recently revealed that the tech giant is negotiating to buy parts maker Magnetti Marelli from Fiat Chrysler Automobiles for more than $3 billion.

It has also bought a 1.92% stake in the BYD, which is one of the world's biggest EV manufacturers.

Automobile electronics is reportedly worth $10.6 billion a year and that's a figure that can only increase. Samsung wants a piece of the action and is prepared to pay for it.

"Samsung Electronics is fostering future growth engine through merger and acquisition strategies. Automobile electronics is expected to lead (Samsung's) future growth business," said Soh Hyun-cheol, a senior analyst from Shinhan Investment Corp.

Don't forget LG, they're coming too

LG Electronics, meanwhile, is working with GM to mass produce 11 core components for the new Chevy Bolt. They include the motors, inverters and infotainment systems. It's just the start for LG, which opened a separate campus outside Seoul in June 2013 to focus on the burgeoning demand in the automotive industry.

The company believes this Vehicle Components (VC) division will be a huge earner for the company in the coming years, even though it is shipping losses right now. It posted a $15.23 million operating loss in Q2. Sales are up 47.9% year-on-year, however, largely due to the six-year deal with Chevy that starts this month.

"Automakers are very strict in terms of safety and form a long-term relationship, with only a few qualified parts suppliers due to safety concerns," an LG Electronics official said. "That's why it takes more time for us to generate tangible results in the business. We are still in the investment phase."

Don't miss: Everything you need to know about the Tesla Gigafactory

This will drive sales

LG, though, expects the VC division to drive the firm's sales in the second half of this year and is well worth the $360 million investment the company intends to make this year alone.

We can expect to see much more synergy between the traditional tech giants and the automotive industry in the years ahead. We have already seen Google build a car, Apple keeps talking about it and the traditional manufacturers have slowly accepted that self-driving EVs are the future after all.

Samsung, LG and more already have the required technology in place and it makes sense to work with them. So the next generation of cars could owe a great deal to the phone in your pocket.

We can't wait to see the results.

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Deal: $1 albums on sale in Google Play

If you've got a hankering for some old school beats, there's a bunch of classic must-have albums available in Google Play right now that might whet your musical appetites (or educate them if you don't already know these legendary albums). Note that these albums only seem to be on sale in the U.S.

Take a look at this list of dusty chart toppers and tell me they're not still worth $0.99:

• Fleetwood Mac: Greatest Hits
• The Notorious B.I.G: Greatest Hits
• Eagles: Their Greatest Hits (1971-1975)
• Weezer: White Album
• Pantera: The Best of Pantera: Far Beyond The Great Southern Cowboy's Vulgar Hits
• Madonna: The Immaculate Collection

Favorite album of the bunch? What's your all-time favorite album?

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AT&T outs Mobile Share Advantage plans with no overage charges

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AT&T is upping its game in the bid for your network dollar; the carrier has just announced a tempting new plan called Mobile Share Advantage (MSA). While a few more spitballing sessions on the name might not have gone astray, the plan itself is actually pretty attractive, primarily because it does away with overage charges.

See also: Best AT&T Android phones20

Once you get to your data threshold each month, you'll automatically start using any leftover that may have rolled over from the previous month. Once that's gone, instead of being charged overage rates or a fee, you'll simply have your network speed throttled to 2G speeds (a max of 128 Kbps). Not enough to stream movies or music, but enough to get by. Oddly, AT&T notes that even sponsored data will be affected if you reach your data limit.

Instead of being charged overage rates or a fee, you'll simply have your network speed throttled to 2G speeds.

AT&T is keen to point out that "unlike some competitors, we're not charging extra to get that protection." Although all MSA plans still have an "access charge" applied per device, ranging from a flat-rate $20 per smartphone or feature phone and $40 for devices on a two-year contract. (Mobile Share Advantage for Business customers get a $5 discount on both of those rates.)

But it's not just about avoiding additional fees for exceeding your data limit. Mobile Share Advantage also increases your data allowance as well. There's way too many data caps to cover here, but feel free to hit the link to check out the various caps and prices. But to give you an example, AT&T has taken its existing 5GB/month plan worth $100 and upped its data limit under MSA to 6 GB for the same price, and without overage charges.

There's plenty on offer for households, families and businesses too, with data caps as high as 200 GB with support for up to 25 lines. AT&T has also added new data bucket thresholds including 6 GB and 10 GB and you have the freedom to change your data limit anytime during the month. Existing Mobile Share customers can keep their existing plans but add new ones if necessary.

Other current Mobile Share features that will carry over to Mobile Share Advantage plans include:

• Unlimited talk and text
• Mobile hotspot
• Rollover data to carry over unused data into the next billing period
• Unlimited texting from the US to 120+ countries
• Unlimited texting and calling from US to Canada or Mexico
• Free roaming in Mexico for plans with 10GB or higher (this used to require a data bucket 15GB or larger)

Mobile Share Advantage will be available starting August 21.

ICYMI: AT&T brings family plans to prepaid customers

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Can apps shape our brains, thoughts, and personalities?

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We recently talked about the ways smartphones have changed the world for the better over the last decade. While smartphones are shaping the world we live in, they also have a real impact on our inner world. Continuous interaction with our devices can change the structure of our brain. It can improve our cognitive abilities, and some say, reduce them. Let's take a look at how our beloved phones can change the way we think and feel.

Smartphone usage alters our brains

Research shows that our brains gradually change, depending on how we're using them. I'm sure this doesn't sound like rocket science. A striking example of how our brains adapt comes from a study of London taxi drivers that found that the memory regions in their brains were much larger than in normal people. This is because, in order to be a registered taxi driver in London, you need to have the so-called "Knowledge" – a detailed command of London's thousands of streets, shortcuts, and interest points, which requires strong spatial mapping. Consequently, the drivers' brains' memory regions adjust to store the huge amount of information. Mind you, this goes way back to the millennium, years before the smartphone revolution.

London by night. Image by NASA

What about you? When was the last time you asked a person on the street for directions? My bet is the frequency of that happening has declined dramatically since Google Maps was introduced.

So far, there is no research specifically on this topic. But my feeling is that our ability to read maps must be improving simply because we started doing it much more often than we used to. Not convinced? Consider how valuable the ability to locate a rare Pokémon in Pokémon Go is! Surely games like Pokémon Go are designed around giving us incentives to use such skills effectively and improve on them to perform even better.

A recent study showed that touchscreen phone users have a greater representation of their thumb, index and middle fingers in their brain. That tells us that prolonged smartphone usage enlarges the area in our brain where our limbs are represented.

Some of you might have heard of the homunculus, an imaginary creature whose body parts are proportional to the space each limb is represented in the brain. The smartphone homunculus is a little bit exaggerated, but I still think it illustrates the point quite well.

Some experts warn that enhanced blood flow to certain regions of the brain may increase the risk of tumors. But, so far there is no concrete evidence that brain cancer incidence has increased in the last decade, and particularly in people who use their smartphones intensively.

It will be interesting to repeat these studies a few times in the next decade, because the average age of the smartphone user is rapidly declining and its long-term effects in younger brains is mostly unknown.

Think of the children

As adults, we have to take responsibility for the proliferation of smartphone usage among our kids. I'm sure we all have seen adults who allow their children to play with their smartphones just to have a little time for themselves. The brief introduction quickly leads to a point of no return, as high-resolution screens open up vibrant, animated, and attractive world for children to explore.

With rapidly advancing technology, the children of today are being exposed to a much richer information load, in almost every respect compared to previous generations. This change will influence their learning abilities, as well as their learning styles.

Even for us adults, it's becoming more and more difficult to keep our attention on one thing. Not when there are so many digital distractions – top 10 lists! videos! adverts! discounts! new product reviews! – fighting for a piece of our time. By this point, I'm sure I lost some of my readers to something else.

It's possible that tomorrow's adults will have much shorter attention spans. They may be more likely to develop "sensation seeking" personalities, mainly because technology is accelerating everything and the "hype" fades away rather quickly!  On the bright side, they will develop much better abstract thinking abilities, which will help them excel in fields such as software engineering. It is likely that both of these scenarios will happen.

What about those left behind? The kids who don't get to play with the latest tech from age 2? They may suffer, unless we adopt smart devices in our education system on a wide scale. And we don't need to invest billions in it. A good example of this is how the dirt cheap virtual reality headset Google Cardboard is used in schools to give children virtual tours of attractions from around the world. Even the old-school Nexus 5 is enough to make a difference.

The excitement of these children is surely admirable! I think the sole aim of mainstream education should be promoting enough curiosity (to seek more knowledge), and smart devices have a huge potential to help us accomplish this.

Apps with a pinch of science

There is an emerging trend in science which is called "gamification." With this approach, scientists bury their research question in the context of a game which is then introduced to the general public to collect data in an indirect way. We recently talked about one example, called Quantum Moves, in which scientists were seeking inspiration from the intuitive ways that people can solve quantum physics problems. Without doubt, exposure to this kind of problems would help us develop better abstract thinking and problem solving abilities.

Great Brain Experiment, which is an app designed by University College London, is another example where science meets mobile technologies. It contains a number of games that involve exercising your memory or estimating financial risk. Scientists use the data collected from thousands of people to understand how the brain works by developing mathematical models to explain how people make decisions. This is fairly important, because we can think of our daily life as a series of decisions that we make, from when to eat and to when to leave work, all the way up to judging which new smartphone is the best.

Another research from University of Oxford, recently used VR to help people manage severe paranoia. By exposing agoraphobic people to crowded places that they usually try to avoid, researchers showed that even 30 minutes of VR training is enough to make a difference on how the mind works.

In our work, we apply similar gamification principles to another public health issue and investigate to see if playing one version of a game can change people's learning styles and protect them against future episodes of depression. However, whether repeated exposure to one type of problem solving can improve cognitive abilities proportionately is not always clear-cut, and more data is needed before we can confidently say that these approaches will work for the wide majority of people.

Games and cognitive control

I don't know if this will actually happen, but after the recent tragic mass-shooting that took place in Germany, there was a set of rumors that "violent" games might be banned in Germany. It is easy to understand this logic, that violent games inspire people to violent behavior and they reduce people's ability to control acting on violent ideas. But a counter-argument is also possible, that "violent" games help people by giving them a virtual world to actualize such ideas, so that they can control them in daily life.

The key problem here is where to draw the line. Maybe it is the "graphical violence" which is more problematic. Otherwise, think of Mortal Kombat vs Pokemon Go, both available in app stores. In these games the underlying idea is the same (defeating the opponent), but the implementation is quite different. Perhaps training our brain to be less influenced by all the graphical violence that we are exposed to needs to become an educational priority too.

Wrap up

The smartphone revolution is surely influencing the structure of our brain and our thinking. The technology seems to advance far quicker than we can adjust. And, so far, the capacity of scientists to understand the long-term effects of heavy smartphone usage is lagging behind. Instead of being dragged away by this massive revolution, I think it's important to take a few steps back to check how much we are, as individual customers, harvesting the potential of smart devices and think of ways to minimize their negative effects.

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Best phone holders for your car

Staying connected with your smartphone is key nowadays. Even while you're driving it's a good idea to have your phone for GPS, emergency calls, and so forth. Despite this, it isn't worth having your phone in hand when driving; it puts you and everyone else in the car at high risk.

Thankfully there is a solution to increase your safety on the road while still being able to use your phone- getting a smartphone car mount. They allow you to position your device on the dashboard for easy access where your eyes aren't far from the road. Then you can safely navigate through your GPS or contact numbers.

See also – best Android smartphones

Picking a car mount is the hard part though. With so many to choose from, it becomes difficult to determine which one benefits you the most. So here is a list of six different car mounts that are worth your money.

LifeActiv Lifeproof Suction Mount with Quick-Mount

LifeActiv is no stranger to building devices that allow you to mount your phone. Their products are always well constructed and reliable. Their suction mount is no exception. Where many car mounts struggle with staying attached to your windshield, the LifeActiv has an industrial strength suction cup to ensure stability during use. It also boasts the Quick Mount adapter which attaches your phone with a simple click and detaches with a light twist. It comes it at $34.99, which is more than many would want to pay, but the quality is worth the price.

Get it on Amazon

Aukey Vent Clip Mount

Some people don't appreciate mounts that sit on the windshield for fear of it blocking your view. If that's the case for you, then the Aukey Vent Clip has you covered. This mount clamps onto your air vent instead, where you won't have to worry about losing suction. Instead of manually attaching your phone to it as well, the Aukey boasts a non-interfering magnetic design. It comes with two metal plates that fit in your phone case or stick to the back of it. The build also allows you to use it in more places than your car. The best part about the Aukey is it comes in at a very attractive price of just $8.99.

Get it on Amazon

Bracketron TekGrip Power Dock

If convenience is your fancy, then the Bracketron TekGrip is what you want. This mount uniquely plugs into your car's charging port, where a sturdy yet flexible neck extends so you can access your device with ease in portrait or landscape mode. The best feature of the Bracketron is that it comes with two USB ports, where you can charge two devices simultaneously, even while it's mounted. It's the ultimate mount for people that love road trips with friends. You can purchase the mount from Bracketron's website for $34.99, or you can also get it off of Amazon for $24.17.

Get it on Amazon

USA Gear Car Vent Phone Holder

USA Gear knows the sheer range of smartphones on the market, and that's why their phone holder is as versatile as it is. It is a vent-based mount, but uses brackets instead of magnets. However, the brackets are outfitted with padding that ensures that you will never harm your phone while mounting it. The brackets are also adjustable to fit phones of all sizes (up to 3.5 inches in width). Top it off with 360 degree rotation, and you've got a solid car mount on your hands. Did I mention it's only $12.99?

Get it on Amazon

Spigen Car Mount Stealth

Spigen's car mount is sleek, simplistic, well-crafted, and reasonably priced at $20.99. At first glance it doesn't look like much, but the Stealth car mount is a viable and easy-to-use option. It adheres to the top of your dashboard via a reusable gel pad that sits at its base. It can only hold your phone in landscape mode, but you won't be frequently navigating your home screen while driving. The holder on the Spigen is constructed with TPU, so it won't scratch your phone, and its designed so well that you can remove and attach your device using only one hand.

Get it on Amazon

Macally mGRIP Automobile Suction Cup Holder Mount

Macally wants to ensure your comfort with a car mount without forsaking tradition, and that's where the mGRIP comes in. It has a classic suction cup design, but its long, flexible neck will sit at your phone at whatever angle or distance you want. The holder itself also swivels to hold your device in portrait and landscape. Three adjustable settings allow for a wide array of devices to be used. The rubber grip will prevent any scratches during operation, and a small release button will let you remove your device with no trouble. Not bad for $14.99.

Get it on Amazon

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Alleged Meizu Pro 7 renders show dual-edge display

We haven't heard anything official about the possible launch of a Meizu Pro 7 smartphone, but images of the handset have appeared online showing off some rather interesting hardware features. First up, we can spot looks very much like a Samsung-esque dual-edge display. The phone also appears to feature a dual rear camera configuration, with the secondary camera placed just below the primary, along with Meizu's LED ring flash.

If the dual-edge display does make an appearance with the Pro 7, Meizu's typically competitive price point would bring this display tech to a new group of consumers. That said, Meizu wouldn't be the first Chinese OEM to make use of Samsung's dual-edge display technology. Now that Samsung has increased the production capacity of its dual-edge panels, the company has been selling them to third party smartphone manufacturers in the region, such as Vivo.

The company's regular use of Samsung components is again expected to apply to the processing package. The Meizu Pro 7 is rumored to arrive with an Exynos 8890 processor, although MediaTek's recent investment in the company means that we might see a Helio processor included instead.

See also: Meizu launches the premium but affordable smartphone, the M3E10

We don't have any official word on the Meizu Pro 7 yet, so we'll treat this report with the due scepticism. Still, what do you think about the prospect of more, lower cost smartphones featuring dual-edge displays?

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Samsung talks up faster UFS memory

After switching over from eMMC to UFS memory in its flagship smartphones last year, Samsung is now sketching out how it sees the future of memory in smartphones and IoT devices. Ever faster data speeds, 8K cameras, and virtual reality were just some of the tantalising benefits listed off.

Speaking at the Mobile & IoT 2016 Forum held in Seoul, Cho Hee-chang, a senior research fellow at the Memory Business Division at Samsung Electronics, explained that the 1.2GBps transfer speeds of UFS 2.0 and 2.1 are expected to leap to 2.4GBps in the first half of 2018. Samsung's current 256GB UFS memory modules boast a speed of 850MBps, so we're looking at an even greater speed increase in the next couple of years.

Cho expects that there will be 50 billion connected devices online come 2020, and that a growing number of them will make use of this faster storage technology. 4K and 8K camera equipped drones and the rise of VR devices were given as some potential growth areas outside of smartphones where Samsung expects to see UFS memory take off. Of course, we're likely to see UFS trickle down to Samsug's mid-range smartphones in the coming years too.

See also: What to expect from UFS, the fast new cards that will replace microSD53

Along with internal memory chips, Samsung recently unveiled its UFS external memory cards, which boast similarly impressive data speeds. The company also announced that it has developed a new memory card tray that works with upcoming UFS cards and existing microSD cards. Samsung is clearly convinced that UFS memory is going to be at the heart of future consumer electronics, and I'm sure that we'll see more manufacturers begin to make use of it in the future.

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