SEARCH Search CLOUD CXO HARDWARE MOBILITY MICROSOFT MORE NEWSLETTERS ALL WRITERS MUST READ MICROSOFT UPDATES SUPPORT POLICY: NEW CPUS WILL REQUIRE WINDOWS 10 Billion dollar deal: Samsung to exclusively produce Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 chips

Feeling the pinch from slowing mobile device profits, Samsung is looking to its chip fabrication business to make up the gap. And to do so, it's going to product next-generation mobile chips for one of its business rivals in the business: Qualcomm.

Samsung announced mass production of its second-gen 14nm FinFET process technology on Thursday and made a point of noting it would make Qualcomm's Snapdragon 820.

That's Qualcomm's super-chip expected to power high-end handsets and tablets in the first half of this year. In the past, Qualcomm has given Tawian Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) its chip-building business.

Either due to design or build issues, however, Qualcomm's main chip in 2015 - the Snapdragon 810 - exhibited thermal challenges leading to widespread reports of overheating and aggressive chip throttling that reduced performance.

Indeed, Samsung itself took an unprecedented step by not relying on the Snapdragon 810 last year. Instead, it decided early in 2015 that it would opt for its own Exynos processor in flagship handsets such as the Galaxy Note 5 and Galaxy S6 line-up.

It's interesting that Samsung is building chips for one its main competitors but it's not the first time this has happened. Samsung has previously won chip fabrication business from Appleand builds some of that company's A-line of processors used in iPhones and iPads.

So what does Samsung's new 14nm FinFET process bring to the table?

The company touts more power efficiency from the 3D structure on transistors: A 15 percent higher speed boost and 15 percent lower power consumption over the prior generation. While Qualcomm will benefit from that, so too will Samsung, which is using the same process for its own Exynos 8 chips this year.

The production win will help Samsung's bottom line as well; an important point as the company struggles to keep growing profits in its mobile division on weakening handset sales.

Reuters notes that the Qualcomm deal could bring more than $1 billion in revenues to Samsung and that Samsung will be the sole manufacturer for the Snapdragon 820.

Xiaomi sold more than 70 million smartphones in 2015, missing 80 million target

Last week ZDNet's Corinne Reichert posted the 2015 shipment figures for Huawei. TechCrunch reports that Chinese rival Xiaomi issued a statement with sales figures of more than 70 million in 2015, falling short of its 80 million target.

Despite the differences in shipment and sales figures between the two rival companies, Xiaomi claims that it is the top smartphone maker in China for sales in 2015. Reported figures are worldwide so Xiaomi's claim of winning in China may be accurate. Huawei also reports on shipments and not sales to end users.Huawei became the first Chinese company to ship more than 100 million smartphones, 108 million were reported, in a single year. The number of shipments for Huawei were up 44 percent from the previous year. Securing the Nexus contract with Google and releasing such a high quality phone as the Nexus 6P, see my full review, surely helped contribute to Huawei's success.

It's safe to say that both of these Chinese smartphone makers had a very successful year and are putting serious pressure on the rest of the market. By comparison, Apple was predicted to ship 226 million iPhones while Microsoft was expected to ship 31.3 million phones in 2015.

It was estimated that 1.16 billion Android devices would be shipped in 2015. That means Huawei shipped nearly 10 percent while Xiaomi was at about 6 percent of all Android smartphones.

Smartphone encryption ban? It's a boon for criminals and terrorists

In one of the single most wrong-headed moves possible by legislators (and that's saying a lot), New York is attempting to ban encrypted smartphones.

In my role as Cyberwarfare Advisor for the International Association of Counterterrorism and Security Professionals, I recently authored a briefing paper entitled "Strong encryption for everyone is a national security advantage," intended to guide agencies, departments, legislators and organizations into making the right decision over encryption.

What follows are the three key reasons.

BACK DOORS WILL BE USED AGAINST US

Built-in back doors forced into our encryption technologies will be used against us far more than those back doors will help law enforcement. It's very important to be aware that flaws built into smartphone encryption (and other forms of crypto) will be very quickly exploited by bad guys and terrorists, and used against our citizens for everything from basic crime to blackmail.

Apple iPhone ban? New York looks to outlaw sale of encrypted smartphones

A proposed bill in New York seeks to require that all smartphones sold in the state can be decrypted or unlocked and proposes hefty fines for vendors failing to comply.

The proposed law marks the latest effort by lawmakers to make it easier for law enforcement to access and read encrypted data stored on smartphones.

Should the proposed bill successfully pass through New York's state assembly and senate, Apple and Google could face fines of $2,500 per device sold in the state after January 1, 2016, if a retailer knowingly sold a smartphone that could not be unlocked or decrypted by the device manufacturer or operating-system provider.

In other words, there's no requirement for Apple, Google, or device makers to create a backdoor. But if any manufacturer wants to sell a smartphone in the state, the device would need to comply with those requirements or else face a civil suit by the attorney general or district attorney.

New Yorkers who have an opinion about the proposal before it goes to assembly can give their 'aye' or 'nay' via a polling widget on the New York State Senate's page for the bill.

DAVID GEWIRTZ

Encryption is not the enemy

A 21st century response to terror

• Read More

The proposed bill comes amid a long-running debate over backdoors and weakened encryption, in part sparked by Apple's move with iOS 8 to encrypt data stored on iPhones by default.

Apple says it's not technically feasible for it bypass an iPhone's passcode, making it unable to respond to government warrants for data stored on an iPhone.

Google has implemented similar encryption for data stored on new devices sold that run Android 6.0 Marshmallow, though currently few are in consumers' hands.

Apple has also been criticised by the FBI and US Department of Justice for implementing end-to-end encryption in iMessage and FaceTime, which it says prevents it from complying with a wiretap order for data in transit.

Techdirt, which first reported the proposal, notes that the proposed bill from New York Assemblyman Matthew Titone was first introduced on June 8, 2015 to the Committee on Consumer Affairs and Protection. As the publication pointed out, if the bill is passed it would likely spawn a market in New York for smartphones from other states.

Titone has resubmitted the proposal to the same committee in the wake of a controversialwhite paper on smartphones, public safety, and encryption by New York District Attorney Cyrus Vance.

The paper suggested that federal legislation should require that "any smartphone manufactured, leased, or sold in the US must be able to be unlocked, or its data accessed, by the operating system designer".

The proposal comes as debate heats up over the UK's so-called 'Snooper's Charter', or the draft Investigatory Powers Bill, which seeks to require companies to decrypt messages when requested by the government.

US tech companies are worried that the bill amounts to a UK law requiring them to place backdoors in their products to bypass encryption.

Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and Yahoo have asked the UK government to "expressly state that nothing in the Bill should be construed to require a company to weaken or defeat its security measures". Apple has submitted similar concerns, stating that, "A key left under the doormat would not just be there for the good guys. The bad guys would find it too."