Tag Archives: SGS5

Samsung Galaxy S5 Users Can Now Login to PayPal with Their Fingerprint

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PayPal Biometrics

PayPal announced at MWC 2014 that it will offer biometric authentication on Samsung Galaxy S5 and the smartwatches made by the South Korean company, but it only officially launched this feature just now.

At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Samsung told the world that the fingerprint scanner would be accessible by developers, and the proof that that is just rolling before our eyes now, as PayPal announced that it launches biometric authentication for Samsung’s flagship smartphone. On one hand, this represents a quicker way of accessing the app, while on the other hand, it adds a bit to the overall safety of the authentication process, as fingerprints are not that easy to replicate. Or are they? Leaving Chaos Club’s method aside, I’ve watched plenty of movies in which biometric authentication is bypassed by removing the needed part from the… OK, I think I’ve said enough!

The ability to login to PayPal using nothing but the fingerprint is available as of today in 25 countries. In addition, PayPal announced the launch of a mobile app specifically tailored for Samsung Galaxy Gear 2 and Galaxy Fit. While this app won’t allow people to make any transactions, they will at least be able to see their balance. Obviously, payment notifications will also be available, as they are featured on the smartphone version. On top of that, local business offers will be displayed on the smartwatch’s screen if any of them are available.

PayPal’s biometric authentication is something new both for e-payment processors, so this company definitely has the head start in this field. They even went the extra mile and offered to help people get rid of their old devices in the favor of the Galaxy S5. How? Well, in case you don’t know or remember, PayPal is owned by eBay who happens to be the largest auction site on Earth. What simpler way to say your non-fingerprint-scanner smartphone goodbye than to put it up for auction?

The introduction of this new technology enables people to make payments using only their fingertips, regardless if they’re done in PayPal’s mobile app or on websites or apps that accept PayPal as a payment method. I’d love to see this thing extended to all the countries where PayPal is used, and not only in the 25 privileged ones.

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Samsung Brings the Features of Galaxy S5 to Other Smartphones via an App

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Samsung Galaxy S5 UI App

The Samsung Galaxy S5 Experience app is supposed to show people what they are missing by not buying the South Korean company’s latest flagship smartphone.

There will always be skeptics when a new product is launched, especially in the ever-changing world of mobile devices. In terms of hardware, there are changes from year to year, some more dramatic than others, but what most people are concerned about when a new flagship smartphone gets released is the software. This is the aspect that makes the difference between one manufacturer and another, and as proof of that stand the proprietary apps that get ported to other versions of Android and even to the devices of other manufacturers.

Samsung Galaxy S5 Experience is a smartphone app with a very self-explanatory name that leaves very little to be guessed. Basically, after installing this app on an Android smartphone, you can pretend that you use an SGS5, the only things that will remind you that you don’t being the smaller display with a smaller resolution and a smaller pixel density, the slower CPU and GPU, the lower amount of RAM, the lack of a heartbeat sensor and fingerprint security, and so on. You get it, you can only play with the UI of the Galaxy S5 and with some of the proprietary features that make this smartphone that special.

In a few words, what Samsung is doing with this app is a great marketing campaign. The company manages to provide an illusion that will furthermore lure new customers in, provided that they have the money necessary for buying the S5. However, Samsung would most probably be happy even if a small percentage of the users of Galaxy S5 Experience become Galaxy S5 owners.

Among the Samsung apps that can be tested within the Galaxy S5 Experience app, one that’s meant to spark a lot of interest is Ultra Power Save Mode. According to the manufacturer, this app is capable of tripling the battery life of S5 over S4. While by simply running the Experience app people won’t be able to see the effects, they’ll learn what the app looks like and what parameters it modifies in order to achieve that performance.

Anyone wanting to experience how the Galaxy S5 looks like should head over to Google Play Store and download the app for free.

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