On July 4, the 102nd edition of the Tour de France began with the Grand Départ in the Dutch city of Utrecht. The premier cycling event in the world and a major event on Europe’s summer sports calendar, the Tour de France this year had its first stages in the Netherlands and Belgium before entering northern France.

This summer, Samsung is making a major push to both celebrate cycling culture, and enrich the experience and overall enjoyment of cycling through its mobile devices.

Among the top teams competing at the Tour de France is the Trek Factory Racing Team, which is led by superstar Fabian Cancellara. Samsung is a proud partner of the Trek Factory Racing Team and recently introduced a video entitled We Are Greater Than I, featuring Cancellara and super domestique Grégory Rast, both from Switzerland. (Unfortunately, Cancellara’s Tour de France has come to an end prematurely due to injury. Samsung wishes him a speedy recovery and hopes the world will see him competing again soon.)

A domestique in cycling is a team member that protects and supports the team leader, often riding in front in order to create an air pocket, allowing the rest of the team to conserve energy until the final push. The video portrays Rast enduring long, grueling training sessions through cold, snow covered mountains to blazing summer heats. The video culminates with Rast pushing his limit in a race as Cancellara follows closely behind, and Rast, with his job completed, moves aside to let his teammate make a sprint for the finish. In the Tour de France, every champion relies on the hard work of a domestique, who sacrifices his own fame and accolades for the good of his team.

To celebrate the culture of cycling, Samsung will work with Jens Voigt, the legendary former pro-cyclist, to nominate a “Domestique of the Day” for each stage in order to celebrate their sacrifices and teamwork through social media channels with the #Domestiquedujour hashtag. Also, to begin a global conversation on what drives people to get on two wheels, Samsung is running the #RideFor campaign from July 3 to August 9. By encouraging the use of the #RideFor hashtag on various social media channels, the campaign invites users to post the reasons why they ride, whether it is for fitness, a good cause or relaxation.

Samsung has been dedicated to improving the cycling experience through its devices and services, such as S Health, for both casual cyclists and professional riders. By partnering with Trek’s professional racing team, Trek Factory Racing, and listening closely to the amateur cycling community, Samsung has gained valuable insights that have helped in the improvement of the cycling features on the latest versions of the Samsung S Health app.

• Import GPX files to set destination and route. Users can preview course maps and distances. The S Health app will access GPX files to provide turn-by-turn navigation.
• With the new Easy Tile Setting, users can easily switch tiles and data indicators, such as pace, speed, remaining distance, elevation, calories, cadence and more, with just one touch.
• It is now possible to use the S Health app’s Tile View in Power Saving Mode.
• Users can also add Real Time Ascent to Tile View, to see just how steep a hill climb is.
• Users can export GPX data from S health to manage their riding result easily.
• Finally it’s easier, simpler and more intuitive to share your workout through social network services. Users now can add various social badges and route on the share screen.

These improvements, which can be downloaded as add-ons, make Samsung S Health one of the most advanced cycling fitness apps on the market in terms of convenience and efficiency. These new cycling features bring the capability of a cycling computer to your mobile device. The partnership with Trek, which enabled Samsung to greatly improve the S Health app for cyclists, shows what ‘We Are Greater Than I’ really means and what is possible when it is realized.

“We understand the importance of evolving Samsung KNOX to meet the ever-changing needs of enterprise and professional mobile security,” said Rick Segal, Vice President of Enterprise Business Team, IT & Mobile Communication division at Samsung Electronics. “We will continue to provide solutions to our customers and partners that allow them to feel confident and comfortable in using their mobile devices in the workplace. Embedding the Galaxy S6 and S6 edge with Trustonic for KNOX will enable ecosystem players to build new services and applications that will take mobile security to a new level.”

Trustonic for KNOX combines the advanced and robust integrated security features of Samsung KNOX with Trustonic TEEs’ hardware-based security to provide a trusted platform for service providers to deliver an enriched, simplified and consistent user experience. Samsung’s Galaxy S6 and S6 edge will integrate the Trustonic Trusted User Interface, which simplifies user authentication by enabling simpler passwords, protects against attempts at click-jacking, and increases end user confidence that transaction approvals are genuine.

“The growing trend of using increasingly important services on mobile devices makes it essential to combine increased trust in the device with a seamless, simple user experience,” said Ben Cade, CEO of Trustonic. “Trustonic for KNOX will see the Trusted User Interface deployed in massive volume, truly raising the bar on the experiences consumers expect. This is a truly significant development in mobile security. Trustonic for KNOX is the result of a deep partnership with Samsung focused on enhancing the level of trust that consumers and enterprises can experience in mobile devices.”

Through this partnership, government, enterprise and vertical industry clients gain a complete, powerful platform incorporating strong user authentication, single sign-on, secure tokenisation, and enhanced trust for mobile device management.

“The ability to offer adapted mobile security levels without compromising user convenience will boost the deployment of high value services on mobile,” said Teck-Lee Tan, executive vice president of platforms & services at Gemalto, one of Trustonic’s partners. “With our Trusted Services Hub now connected to Trustonic’s broad base of TEE available across Samsung devices, we are scaling up the addressable base of end users to offer the maximum market reach to enterprises, banks and other digital service providers seeking secure and easy deployment.”

“We are always looking for innovative ways to create leading logic solutions that meet the rapidly evolving requirements of the mobile industry and give consumers new and more exciting mobile experiences,” said Dr. Kyushik Hong, Vice President of System LSI marketing at Samsung Electronics. “With our new RWB ISOCELL image sensor for richer images and NFC IC with outstanding RF performance, we are excited to offer mobile users more convenient imaging and connectivity applications.”

Samsung’s ISOCELL technology equips 8 MP image sensor with an RWB Color Filter for front-facing mobile cameras

Samsung’s 8 MP ISOCELL RWB CMOS image sensor, the S5K4H5YB, provides an ideal solution for front-facing mobile cameras, thanks to its excellent low light performance that also preserves color fidelity in pictures. By combining ISOCELL technology with Samsung’s newly developed RWB color pattern filter, the new image sensor maximizes the quality of digital images.

Samsung’s proprietary ISOCELL technology substantially increases light sensitivity and effectively controls the collection of photons, resulting in higher color fidelity even in poor lighting conditions. Physical barriers between each ISOCELL pixel allow 30 percent decrease in crosstalk and 30 percent increase in full-well capacity when compared to conventional BSI (Back Side Illumination) pixels.

The newly devised RWB color pattern further enhances light sensitivity and color fidelity, allowing an improvement of over 3 dB (decibels) in SNR (Signal to Noise Ratio) in low light settings. In addition, unlike other types of color pattern configurations, the high similarity between the RWB and RGB patterns eliminates the need for an RGB convertor in a RWB filter, which prevents unnecessary color deviation.

Combining Samsung’s leading-edge ISOCELL and RWB technology, the new front-facing 8 MP image sensor provides essential improvements in light sensitivity and color fidelity. Samples of the 8 MP RWB ISOCELL image sensor are available for customers and mass production of the product is scheduled for the second quarter of this year.

Fourth-generation NFC IC solution with doubled RF performance is ideal for advanced mobile payment

Samsung’s fourth-generation NFC solution (S3FWRN5P) features significantly improved RF performance, showing an increase of about 100 percent over its predecessor in card mode and 20 percent in reader mode, respectively.

Due to the major enhancement in RF performance, the NFC IC operates with one of the smallest antennas currently available in the market, which comes in a film-type form factor and can be attached to a smartphone battery without an extra booster IC. This creates great design benefits for mobile manufacturers, allowing them to meet the consumer demand for ever lighter and slimmer mobile devices.

The NFC IC also fulfills strict mobile POS (Point of Sales) requirements and is prepared to support next-generation smartphones. By utilizing Samsung’s industry-leading 45-nanometer embedded flash process technology, the new NFC IC also helps customers save time and resources for additional development and certification.

Samsung’s fourth-generation NFC IC is in mass production and reference designs are available for quick and easy development.

For more information about Samsung’s logic solutions, visit http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor