Rumours: Samsung Planning Galaxy Tablet, Cloud Service

Samsung plans to unveil its next Galaxy device at a 3 May event in London that’s so top-secret that invitations to the event neither confirm that it will unveil a smartphone nor that it will be called the Galaxy S III, as is widely suspected.

Gizmodo Brasil posted photos on 18 April of what the site said was a Galaxy III claimed to have been found in the wild.

Not authentic?

However, other sources are denying their authenticity.

Someone familiar with Samsung’s plans has confirmed to The Verge that the photos aren’t of the newest Galaxy. Or, not exactly. Samsung, according to the report, is using “generic test boxes” – generic phone cases, in other words – to test the new device’s internal electronics.

“That’s not even close to the final design,” the source told The Verge. “No leaks of the final design have been accurate.”

With the Samsung invite showing only slick blue and white blobs of what appear to be hardened paint or acrylic, yet another rumour is that the newest Galaxy features a “ceramic chassis”. Still more rumours have arisen that Samsung will also introduce a new tablet to share.

Cnet, citing its own source, reports that “the Korean chaebol will be lining up a new 10.1 Galaxy Tab to complement the handset launch”, though it’s not the Galaxy Tab 2 10.1, which is supposedly getting a quad-core processor. A chaebol is a conglomerate of businesses, usually owned by one family.

‘S-Cloud’

The word is that Samsung wants to not only compete with Apple’s iPhone and iPad but also its iCloud offering. According to The Washington Post, which cites the South Korean newspaper Maeil Business, Samsung plans to introduce a cloud service called S-Cloud at the London event. According to the report, it’s similar to iCloud but doesn’t limit the types of content that can be uploaded.

“It is also expected to ship with access to popular TV shows, movies, and music with free and paid content that will be available across a range of Samsung devices, including laptops, tablets and smartphones,” wrote The Post. “Storage is rumoured to be ‘more than 5GB,’ but it’s not clear whether that’s down to paid offerings.” To ensure the service is available globally, the report adds that Microsoft is on board as a partner.

Samsung is keeping the details quiet, however, with a source telling The Verge that security surrounding the preparation and launch of the event is “tighter than it has ever been for any product in the company’s history”.

The launch event begins at 7 p.m. BST on 3 May.

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