It was not long ago when we reported that bada 2.0 is already on its way. Samsung’s proprietary mobile OS is getting a new major release this summer bringing a revamped interface, overhauled multitasking experience, and a list of other improvements to Sammy’s smartphone-oriented platform. News about bada 2.0 don’t end here since the French division of Samsung announced that two devices running the new platform have already been scheduled for launch later this year.

Samsung of France held a press conference last week, at which company representatives announced that the first smartphone to ship with bada 2.0 should be expected in September of this year. Even though its exact name is still unknown, the said device will most probably join the Wave family and is meant to become its new flagship handset. As far as its technical specifications go, here is what has been mentioned to date:

• 3.65-inch touch-sensitive display
• 7.2 Mbps HSDPA radio
• 5-megapixel rear-facing camera with a VGA front-facing one
• Support for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 3.0 and NFC

A second bada 2.0 smartphone is expected to follow in November, but it will be more of a mid-end device with a relatively modest 3.14-inch QVGA display and a 3-megapixel camera.

Since bada 2.0 is expected to launch in July, this could mean that current members of the Samsung Wave family might get an update before the launch of these two handsets, but that is just a wild guess for now. Nevertheless, back at MWC in Barcelona Samsung did mention that even the original Wave will be able to run the new platform, so we do not see a reason why such an update may not be possible.

source: bada World (translated) Samsung Hub

A piece of information coming from Dipesh Shah, Samsung Mobile India’s R&D head, claims that Samsung is to release the next version of its mobile OS “around July this year”.

Speaking to The Financial Express, he talked up bada and underlined its importance to Samsung’s future plans:

“Bada, meaning ocean in Korean, is a driving force in accomplishing Samsung’s vision of a smartphone for everyone.”

There is not much information what exactly we can expect from this upcoming major update, but it’s mentioned it will feature improvements to the interface, and will create more opportunities for bada developers.

It’s reported that Samsung sold “close to one million” bada handsets in Q3 of 2010, and it seems the Korean manufacturer is pretty serious about its mobile OS – this is only reiterated by the fact it sent an open invitation to disgruntled Indian Symbian devs to join the bada ranks.

source: The Financial Express via Samsung Hub

The Samsung Wave introduced the bada operating system by Sammy, but could it be that now, nearly a year after its launch, the handset might turn out to be capable of running Android? If you ask Polish/Russian/Belarusian developers from the Androbada project the answer would certainly be yes.

The quest to make the smartphone experience on the Wave even richer with the huge choice of apps that Android offers has not yet come to an end though. The hack uses security holes, which allow porting the operating system without affecting the security of the platform. But Android on Wave is still in its alpha form, which is plagued by performance issues including improper management of the Wave’s 512MB of memory and 1GHz CPU.

We’re thrilled with the opportunity, though, especially given the Wave’s excellent camera and premium build materials, so we’ll follow this closely, but in the meantime you’re welcome to check out Android running on the Wave yourself in the video below.

source: Androbada via XDA Developers

Symbian is officially a “burning platform”, and it seems like Samsung is in a humanitarian mood as it’s reported that the Korean manufacturer is more than happy to offer shelter (in the form of its own OS – bada) to the Symbian refugees.

It’s said that Samsung has sent an open invitation to a number of Indian developers who are working on Symbian, but are disillusioned with Nokia’s decision to make WP its main smartphone strategy. The letter encourages them to start developing for bada. The exact words are:

“If you are a Symbian developer unhappy about Nokia’s recent announcements, and are hence looking for a new platform to showcase your talents, we say “Hello!” and “Welcome to bada!” If you’re new to the bada development, or are moving your app from Symbian, we’d like to welcome you with the ‘Quick guide to bada development’. In about 15 minutes, you can learn how to build your first bada app!”

We guess this is a win-win situation for both Samsung’s OS and these developers. It would be great for bada if there is an influx of developers who are seasoned veterans, and if this happens, we hope we would see the fruits of their labor pretty soonish.

source: Samsung Hub

Samsung just unveiled the latest version of its bada mobile platform generally used on more affordable handsets. The new version of bada adds some significant features like multitasking, voice-recognition and HTML5 support. Such a big update brings plenty of possibilities for Samsung to release more affordable handsets, which mimic most of the functionalities of operating systems like Android. Handsets running Sammy’s OS will be able to support NFC chips for near-field payments as well.

In addition, the company has updated the familiar bada interface by improving home screen personalisation options. The update brings more flexibility for the arrangement of items on the home screen. The latest bada has support for 3D sound as well.

Sammy released the Samsung Wave, its first bada handset, last year with what was seen as a revolutionary Super AMOLED screen.

source: Samsung Ukraine

It’s not only glitz and glamor today at the MWC Samsung pre-event, which saw the announcement of the dual-core packing Samsung Galaxy S II and Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet.

Attention was paid to the humble working horses in Samsung’s Wave stable as well – the low-range phones with Sammy’s own mobile OS bada. What sets the just announced Samsung Wave 578 apart from the other phones in the Wave line is not the specs. It has the same 3.2″ WQVGA screen with 240×400 pixels of resolution, 3MP camera with video recording, 100MB of memory, 1200mAh battery, Wi-Fi, GPS, and Bluetooth 3.0 as the rest of the lowly bada brethren. The usual goodies coming with Samsung’s TouchWiz 3.0 UI on bada can be found here too – Samsung Hub, Dolphin 2.0 browser, and image editing capabilities.

The news is that the Samsung Wave 578 will come with a built-in NFC chip, like what we have on the Nexus S. You can read all about the possibilities this opens on a handset in our comprehensive article about mobile payment here. There is a catch though – the press release marks with an asterisk after the NFC listing the comment “adoption is according to the market situation“, meaning that the goodies that come with NFC will only be let in the open in markets where it makes sense to do so.

The design of the Samsung Wave 578 is also different than the rest of the Wave pack. It has a metallic back, and a round glass cover over the lens opening of the 3MP camera on the back.

The Samsung Wave 578 will be available in May of 2011 in France and will be gradually rolled out to European countries, CIS, South East Asia, India, Middle East, and China. No mention about North American availability as of now.

source: Samsung
Click here for the whole MWC 2011 coverage.

2011 is the year of the all-European census, but if you’re in the UK, you can join with something more than just your personal data and get your most important personal moment counted as well. Samsung launches the Social Census initiative, in which people can submit photos of moments representing their present on Facebook.

What makes this initiative slightly different than your regular Facebook group/page is that the top 100 photos from the initiative called the “Now Project” will be displayed in the London Design Museum for one night only on Thursday March 24th.

Samsung claims that the idea was inspired by the photographic capabilities of the Samsung Wave II, which also allows quick editing and uploading of photos. And some celebrities will participate as well, such as TV presenter Tim Lovejoy with a photo of him snowboarding in Whistler, Canada.

source: Samsung

Samsung’s own take on operating systems, the bada OS, will get a lot of new features in its upcoming 2.0 version, which is set for release in the first half of 2011. Sammy promises an improved user interface along with Near-Field Communication (NFC) support and SDK support for Linux and Mac.

As you have probably heard, NFC provides safe transactions including mobile phone payments and support for it is a welcome addition to the OS. The recently launched Google Nexus S heralds the technology’s launch in the United States and we expect to hear much more about it next year.

The bada OS made its debut on the Samsung Wave, the first device to showcase the Super AMOLED technology. And while there weren’t many devices following, the operating system is growing steadily and Samsung expects to sell 10 million handsets of the Wave series by the end of the first half of 2011. Currently, sales are expected to reach nearly 5 million Wave phones by the end of 2010.

The Samsung Wave was released with the first version of bada in the summer of 2010. Currently, the OS stands at version 1.2 with some minor tweaks over the original release. Even though we find bada to be pretty responsive, it is still lagging significantly in apps and functionality in comparison to iOS and Android. Do you think that it could find its place among other operating systems out there? Let us know and check out Samsung’s expectations for bada below.

source: Samsung Hub

On an award ceremony held today Samsung marked the first anniversary of its own mobile OS bada, that is supposed to gradually replace the software in its feature phones. There are already six phones in the Wave family, from the lowly Samsung Wave 525, to the original Samsung Wave, which was the first phone with the groundbreaking Super AMOLED screen and Hummingbird chipset technologies, developed by Samsung.

At the conference, held today in Seoul, Samsung made good on its promise to distribute a few million dollars among developers with the best bada applications. The grand prize of, hold tight… $300 000, went to the Polish developers’ shop Mooncoder, for creating a 3D yacht racing game, called “Little Sailor”. The bada Developer Challenge had 2,077 teams from 54 countries participating in it, but only 34 applications made the cut, and won $2.7 million in total.

To share the festivities with bada users, which are supposed to reach 5 million by the end of the year, Samsung will have 31 of the 34 applications for free until the end of December. Samsung Apps is now available in 118 countries, and the free apps are visible everywhere, so hurry up if you have a Samsung Wave or a Samsung Wave II, and see for yourself what a $300 000 yacht game looks like. A list of the freebies is in the source link.

source: Samsung via SlashPhone

Windows phone 7 has been out for just a few weeks and already it has made quite an impact on some handset manufacturers-if not the buying public. Korean based cell phone producer Samsung has had quite a success with the globetrotting Samsung Galaxy S. The Android flavored device has spawned a number of successful spinoffs like the model that each of the top four U.S. carriers offer (Verizon Fascinate, AT&T Captivate, T-Mobile Vibrant and the Sprint EVO 4G). Then there is the Samsung Galaxy Tab, a tablet version of the Galaxy S that runs Android and is equipped with a 7 inch LCD display. In other words, Samsung should be satisfied with how buyers have reacted to their Android models, right? Uh, not so fast.

According to Sitthichoke Nopchinabutr, the head of the company’s Thailand Telecommunications Unit, Samsung weill be favoring Windows phone in its lineup next year. He says that for every 50 Windows phone models produced by Samsung, the company will produce 24 Android models and 5 Bada handsets. That works out to a 60% share for Microsoft’s new OS, a 30% slice of the pie for Android and 6% for Bada.

HTC Thailand’s country manager Nattawat Woronopakul says that the Taiwan based cellphone producer will “be focused on both Android and Windows phone 7-smartphones. These platforms have the biggest potential market. It is expected that by 2012 the combination of Android and Windows phone 7 will represent a major part of the world smartphone market.” He says that HTC plans on launching more than 30 devices in 2011, running Android and Windows phone 7.

Not all cell phone producers are enamored with the new OS from Redmond. Currently the biggest Windows phone partner that  Microsoft has, LG Electronics seems to have had a change in heart. According to LG’s  head of marketing in Thailand for its Mobile Communication Department, all 10 models coming to that country next year will be Android flavored. No comment was made as to the breakdown of LG’s global lineup for 2011.

source: AsiaOne, WMPoweruser

Samsung plans to install Windows phone on a majority of its new handsets next year