This teardown is no precision iFixit job, but if you just want to see what parts and pixie dust are holding Samsung's Galaxy Fold together, some images from an apparently now-deleted Weibo post can help. Not surprisingly for a first-gen new device, the design is seems incredibly complex and highlights some of the points of failure that may have lead to quickly-broken review units.
According to GSM Arena, the original poster said the flexible 7.3-inch display was "soft like rubber" when removed, although they "shattered" the Fold's small external display while taking it apart. The hinge mechanism seems quite complicated with watch-like gears, and looking inside shows where ribbon cables flow across the joint that's supposed to hold up to hundreds of thousands of bends. Other interesting elements include its inside and outside cameras, as well as two separate battery packs.
This teardown is no precision iFixit job, but if you just want to see what parts and pixie dust are holding Samsung's Galaxy Fold together, some images from an apparently now-deleted Weibo post can help. Not surprisingly for a first-gen new device, the design is seems incredibly complex and highlights some of the points of failure that may have lead to quickly-broken review units.
According to GSM Arena, the original poster said the flexible 7.3-inch display was "soft like rubber" when removed, although they "shattered" the Fold's small external display while taking it apart. The hinge mechanism seems quite complicated with watch-like gears, and looking inside shows where ribbon cables flow across the joint that's supposed to hold up to hundreds of thousands of bends. Other interesting elements include its inside and outside cameras, as well as two separate battery packs.
This teardown is no precision iFixit job, but if you just want to see what parts and pixie dust are holding Samsung's Galaxy Fold together, some images from an apparently now-deleted Weibo post can help. Not surprisingly for a first-gen new device, the design is seems incredibly complex and highlights some of the points of failure that may have lead to quickly-broken review units.
According to GSM Arena, the original poster said the flexible 7.3-inch display was "soft like rubber" when removed, although they "shattered" the Fold's small external display while taking it apart. The hinge mechanism seems quite complicated with watch-like gears, and looking inside shows where ribbon cables flow across the joint that's supposed to hold up to hundreds of thousands of bends. Other interesting elements include its inside and outside cameras, as well as two separate battery packs.
Apologies for skipping day three. This kept me extremely busy yesterday. Though the Galaxy Fold remained a constant companion.
Before you ask (or after you ask on Twitter without having read beyond the headline), no it’s hasn’t broken yet. It’s actually been fairly robust, all things considered. But here’s the official line from Samsung on that,
A limited number of early Galaxy Fold samples were provided to media for review. We have received a few reports regarding the main display on the samples provided. We will thoroughly inspect these units in person to determine the cause of the matter.
Separately, a few reviewers reported having removed the top layer of the display causing damage to the screen. The main display on the Galaxy Fold features a top protective layer, which is part of the display structure designed to protect the screen from unintended scratches. Removing the protective layer or adding adhesives to the main display may cause damage. We will ensure this information is clearly delivered to our customers.
I’ll repeat what I said the other day: breakages and lemons have been known to happen with preproduction units. I’ve had it happen with device in a number of occasions in my many years of doing this. That said, between the amount of time it took Samsung to let us reviewers actually engage with the device and the percentage of problems we’ve seen from the limited sample size, the results so far are a bit of a cause for a concern.
The issue with the second bit is that protective layer looks A LOT like the temporary covers the company’s phones ship with, which is an issue. I get why some folks attempted to peel it off. That’s a problem.
At this point into my life with the phone, I’m still impressed by the feat of engineering went into this technology, but in a lot of ways, it does still feel like a very first generation product. It’s big, it’s expensive and software needs tweaks to create a seamless (so to speak) experience between screens.
That said, there’s enough legacy good stuff that Samsung has built into the phone to make it otherwise a solid experience. If you do end up biting the bullet and buying a Fold, you’ve find many aspects of it to be a solid workhorse and good device, in spite of some of the idiosyncrasies here (assuming, you know, the screen works fine).
It’s a very interesting and very impressive device, and it does feel like a sign post of the future. But it’s also a sometimes awkward reminder that we’re not quite living in the future just yet.
The Samsung Galaxy Fold doesn’t release until April 26th, but if you’ve been eagerly awaiting a glimpse under the hood, a pre-production version of the folding phone has already been disassembled and laid out piece by piece in photos. These were originally hosted on microblogging site Weibo, though the originals have since been removed.
Something that shouldn’t be much of a surprise: it takes a lot of parts to build a foldable phone. They’re all arranged in a manner that looks quite difficult to repair, though that likely comes down to the Fold being a first-generation product, which you might not guess when you’re holding the Fold’s sleek exterior.
The hinge is the heart of the Fold that helps its 7.3-inch foldable screen unfold and keeps it safe. It looks pretty sturdy from the inside, and we can see it’s reinforced at three points, perhaps to keep it from collapsing in the event of a fall. Several photos above show two ribbon cables routed through the hinge, presumably to drive both the large, foldable screen and the smaller 4.6-inch display on its front, and perhaps also to send power to the phone’s second battery (yes, there are two) when it’s on a charger.
Speaking of the batteries, one of them has “TBD mAh” of capacity listed, indicating that this is likely a pre-production unit.
Both of the cables stretching through the hinge have “L” and “R” printed on them. That might help explain the display’s “jelly scrolling” effect that we spotted in our review, if it turns out that the left and right halves of the display are sent different video signals. As seen in the GIF above, text and images appear to be a bit behind on the left side of the foldable display compared to the right side.
Before our review of the Fold published, its flexible screen was giving us some issues, to say the least. We weren’t the only ones to have problems with it, but some debris found its way into our review unit after one day of using it. The photos don’t necessarily highlight any areas of particular weakness that would have allowed that to happen. One of the photos shows the flexible display removed from the phone’s chassis, and there don’t seem to be any parts keeping it in. Since the documentation of the teardown has been removed from Weibo, it’s not clear if this screen has the all-too-easy-to-remove, yet vital protective layer still applied, or if it’s removed.
These photos offer up a glimpse into the Galaxy Fold, but there are still more questions than answers. We don’t know the teardown methodology, so it’s tough to know exactly what each component is responsible for, and how difficult this phone will actually be to repair.
In 2017, Marcus Hutchins went from relatively unknown, to being a worldwide hero, to facing criminal charges all in a span of a few months. After he shut down the rapidly spreading WannaCry malware by finding a killswitch domain in the software, UK tabloids exposed his real name. Then in August of that year, just as he was about to leave Las Vegas after the Defcon event there, US authorities arrested Hutchins, claiming he'd played a part in creating a different type of malware, Kronos, years earlier.
Today he pleaded guilty to a pair of charges related to the malware, for which he faces up to ten years in prison. In a statement posted on his personal website, he said:
As you may be aware, I've pleaded guilty to two charges related to writing malware in the years prior to my career in security. I regret these actions and accept full responsibility for my mistakes. Having grown up, I've since been using the same skills that I misused several years ago for constructive purposes. I will continue to devote my time to keeping people safe from malware attacks.
As described in court documents published by ZDNet, the government's case was that Hutchins developed the malware, known both as UPAS Kit and Kronos, to collect info, while targeting banking information. He worked with partners to distribute and sell the malware to others who made use of the tools.
Marcus "MalwareTech" Hutchins, the British security researcher known for stopping the WannaCry ransomware outbreak, has pleaded guilty today to writing malware in the years prior to his prodigious career as a malware researcher.
"I regret these actions and accept full responsibility for my mistakes," Hutchins wrote in a statement posted on his website. "Having grown up, I've since been using the same skills that I misused several years ago for constructive purposes. I will continue to devote my time to keeping people safe from malware attacks."
Up to ten years in prison
According to court documents obtained by ZDNet, Hutchins pleaded guilty to two counts, and the government agreed to drop the other eight.
He pleaded guilty to entering a conspiracy to distribute malware and aiding and abetting its distribution.
For each count, Hutchins faces up to five years in prison, up to $250,000 in fines, and up to one year of supervised release.
US authorities arrested Hutchins at the Las Vegas international airport in August 2017, when the researcher was trying to return home to the UK after participating at the Black Hat and DEF CON security conferences.
Hutchins was charged with developing the Kronos and UPAS-Kit malware strains --two banking trojans.
He was also charged with working with a co-conspirator --identified only as "Vinny," "VinnyK," and "Aurora123"-- to advertise and sell the two malware strains online. This happened between July 2012 and September 2015, before Hutchins built a career as a talented security researcher.
Controversial case
Hutchins' arrest was controversial, and for many reasons. He argued that he was detained and interrogated while sleep-deprived and intoxicated, and that FBI agents misled him about the true intentions of the interrogation.
Further, his lawyers also argued that Hutchins' actions happened while he was still a minor, and outside the standard five-year statute of limitations.
The prosecution responded by piling new charges --such as developing the UPAS-Kit trojan (he was initially only charged with developing the Kronos malware) and with lying to the FBI during his interrogation. These later charges were deemed ludicrous by some US legal experts.
Ultimately, Hutchins' team failed in their attempt to suppress statements made during the FBI's interrogation following his arrest, and his case was locked for a jury trial in Madison, Wisconsin.
Hutchins' sentencing hearing has not been set.
Helping the infosec community
After his arrest, Hutchins has been released on bail and has been living in Los Angeles while awaiting trial.
He was prohibited from working for his employer, US-based cyber-security firm Kryptos Logic, but Hutchins has turned his focus on sharing his malware analysis skills with the rest of the information security (infosec) community.
Over the course of the past one and a half year, Hutchins has been publishing written and video malware analysis tutorials. He is considered one of today's most talented security researchers.
Hear! Hear! - Marcus has taught me a great deal during my journey with #emotet. I am still amazed that he has worked with me and the @Cryptolaemus1 team to help us with our battle. Without his help, we would still be in the stone age fighting this botnet!
