Команда киберспортсменов Samsung Galaxy стала чемпионом мира по League of Legends

Команда Samsung Galaxy (SSG) стала чемпионом мира по League of Legends. 
В финале со счётом 3:0 SSG буквально разгромила действующих чемпионов мира, также представляющих Южную Корею - SK Telecom 1.
Финальная игра проходила в Шанхае (Китай) на крытом стадионе "Птичье гнездо" при забитых до отказа трибунах.
В 2016 году команды уже встречались в финале и тогда победу одержала SKT. Начиная с 2013 года только Samsung Galaxy и SK Telecom одерживали победы на главном турнире года: в активе SKT три кубка, у Samsung Galaxy - два.

How Samsung Galaxy rebuilt to take down the SKT dynasty

Three years ago, days after winning the 2014 League of Legends World Championship, Samsung Galaxy was at the lowest point in the organization's long history. The entirety of its title-winning team, Samsung Galaxy White, left the club to pursue higher salaries in China, as did every starting player from its sister team Samsung Blue. Over the next year, Samsung Galaxy would become a punchline, a roster filled with no-names and rookies languishing at the bottom of the Korean league.
On Saturday, in front of over 40,000 fans at the Bird's Nest in Beijing, Samsung Galaxy completed its rebuild, ending the dynasty of fellow South Korean side SK Telecom T1 to win the organization's second world title. The team's 3-0 triumph was a result of trusting the process, slowly putting together a roster that could take down the greatest player in the world.
Looking back, Samsung's lost year of 2015 is part of its success story. Even though it spent the season bottom of the LCK standings, the team stuck by the two starters who stood out: Lee "CuVee" Seong-jin and Lee "Crown" Min-ho. Then, adding veteran Kang "Ambition" Chan-yong before the 2016 season took it to the next level. Samsung made a surprising run to last year's Worlds final before being stopped in the final by SKT, losing a classic five-game series at a sold-out Staples Center.
When a majority of teams would have made sweeping changes after failing to win Worlds, signing a superstar free agent or making a flashy trade, Samsung did the opposite. It stuck with the same five players, only adding a young jungler in Kang "Haru" Min-seung to take the load off Ambition's shoulders. The team didn't stray from the rebuild.
Now, in this year's rematch with SKT, led by the game's all-time best player/coach combination in Lee "Faker" Sang-hyeok and mastermind Kim "kkOma" Jung-gyun, Samsung saw its patience rewarded, its blueprint succeed. The longest-tenured member of the team, CuVee, who endured jeers and taunts during the team's darkest season, played a pivotal role on the night, quieting the pro-Faker and SKT crowd with the performance of his life.
But no player took a longer road to the Summoner's Cup than Samsung's captain Ambition. Once regarded as the best mid laner in South Korea before transitioning into the jungler role, he was the first victim of Faker's legend five years ago. At every upswing in his career, Ambition met with an even better performance from Faker. But over the course of this World Championships, the recently married jungler played the best games of his career, when just two years ago people believed it might be time for him to retire.
"It's been seven to eight years of my professional career, [and] I was never the best," he said. "I was one of the top but never the best. I think winning this Worlds in this moment pays back for all those times that I struggled. Maybe all that time struggling was meant for this moment."
Together, Samsung Galaxy did the unthinkable: taking down the SK Telecom T1 dynasty in a one-sided victory. Head coach Choi "Edgar" Woo-beom, who has watched his team rise, fall and rise again, sees his players not as subordinates or pieces on a chessboard, but as a family. "I have two sons, but besides my own sons they [the players] are like my sons," he said.
Tonight, there is no bad to speak of. The rebuild is complete, and Samsung Galaxy is the champion of the world once more.

IDC: Samsung лидирует на глобальном рынке смартфонов с большим отрывом

Южнокорейский техногигант Samsung в июле—сентябре 2017 года, как и кварталом ранее, стал лидером по мировым продажам смартфонов, поставив торговым партнёрам на 9,5% трубок больше, чем годом ранее — 83,3 миллиона штук, констатируется в обзоре аналитической компании International Data Corporation (IDC).
Доля Samsung на рынке смартфонов увеличилась с 20,9% до 22,3% по сравнению с тем же кварталом прошлого года. Для сравнения: американская корпорация Apple за отчётные 3 месяца поставила 46,7 млн смартфонов (рост на 2,6% в годовом выражении), её доля на рынке сохранилась на уровне прошлого года — 12,5%.
«Samsung снова стал лидером на мировом рынке смартфонов, поставив 83,3 миллиона единиц, что на 9,5% больше, чем в прошлом году. Корейский гигант представил новый 6,3-дюймовый смартфон Note 8, что положительно сказалось на его операционных показателях. Samsung сообщает о значительном спросе и, похоже, положил конец истории прошлого года с фиаско Note 7», — отмечают в IDC.
В первой пятерке компаний-производителей смартфонов по поставкам оказались сразу три китайские компании: Huawei, OPPO и Xiaomi. Huawei поставила 39,1 миллион смартфонов, увеличив показатель на 16,1% в годовом выражении (доля достигла 10,5% против 9,3% в третьем квартале 2016 года). Компания OPPO увеличила поставки на 19% в годовом выражении до 30,7 млн смартфонов (доля рынка достигла 8,2% против 7,1% годом ранее).
Xiaomi вновь оказалась на 5-м месте среди крупнейших поставщиков смартфонов в мире по объемам. Компания увеличила поставки в годовом выражении более чем в 2 раза - до 27,6 млн смартфонов. Её доля рынка повысилась до 7,4% против 3,7% в отчётном периоде годом ранее.

Samsung tops global smartphone market in Q3

Samsung Electronics Co. stood as the world's top smartphone producer in the third quarter in terms of shipments, data showed Friday, helped by rising sales of budget models.
Industry tracker Strategy Analytics said the South Korean tech giant sold 83.4 million units of smartphones in the July-September period, with its share standing at 21.1 percent. It marked a sharp growth from a year earlier when the company shipped 75.3 million units. 
"Samsung's growth is being driven by strong demand for its A, J and S series models across Latin America, India and elsewhere," Strategy Analytics said.
The company said early this week that while its combined shipment of smartphones increased in the third quarter due to robust sales of the Galaxy J models, its overall earnings decreased on-quarter as their profitability is weaker compared with flagship devices. 
US tech giant Apple Inc. accounted for 11.9 percent of the market in the third quarter, slightly down from last year's 12.1 percent.
"Despite a delayed launch of the flagship iPhone X model, the new iPhone 8 portfolio was relatively well received in major countries, such as Germany and China," the industry tracker said.
China-based Huawei and Oppo followed with 9.9 percent and 8 percent, respectively, over the cited period. Xiaomi also posted a share of 7 percent, rising sharply from 3.9 percent held a year earlier.

Samsung Electronics забирает около 500 патентов от незапущенного американского поискового стартапа

По сообщению портала IAM-media, Samsung забирает себе около 500 патентов, зарегистрированных бывшим поисковым IT-стартапом Quixey.

Компания, основанная в Маунтин-Вью (США, Калифорния), финансировалась целым рядом крупных корпораций типа китайской Alibaba Group, Samsung Electronics, а также крупными финансовыми структурами Softbank и Goldman Sachs.
Основным бенефициаром Quixey считалась Alibaba. Однако, если верить публикации IAM, большая часть патентов американского стартапа недавно отошла Samsung. Как выяснилось, Quixey не смог выполнить все обязательства по кредитам от Alibaba, а южнокорейская корпорация Samsung Electronics была заинтересована в патентах больше, чем китайцы, поскольку многие сотрудники Quixey уже перешли в конкурирующую (и ныне принадлежащую Samsung) компанию ViV Labs, занимающуюся созданием искусственного интеллекта, интегрированного с поисковиком. Таким образом, с приобретением ещё порядка 500 патентов, Samsung усилит свои позиции в области поисковых IT-решений.
Открытым остаётся вопрос, кому принадлежат ключевые патенты, так как полностью информация о распределении патентных документов между инвесторами пока не разглашается.

Samsung Electronics scoops up nearly 500 patent assets from defunct US search startup

With a valuation of just over $600 million, Quixey was not quite a unicorn, but it is one of the biggest Silicon Valley startups to go out of business thus far in 2017. The Mountain View-based developer of mobile search platforms and digital assistants folded in May after raising $165 million in venture money, with Chinese giant Alibaba as its single biggest backer. But according to USPTO records, it is not Alibaba but Samsung Electronics that is poised to come away with most of the company’s patent assets after a series of assignments in October.
Quixey made eight separate assignments to Samsung Electronics on 19th October, totalling 194 properties. An annex attached to each assignment shows that when including applications and non-US patent rights, the total number of assets changing hands is 487. While the large majority of the portfolio is US-based, it also contains PCT, Chinese and South Korean rights. All of the applications were made in 2012 or later.
The startup had been around since 2009. It originally focused on building a better search engine for mobile app stores, later transitioning to building a digital assistant. Along the way it attracted investments from Softbank and Goldman Sachs, but its biggest backer was the Alibaba Group. Axios has an interesting blow-by-blow of Quixey’s demise which makes clear that a souring relationship with Alibaba was a big factor.
Of particular interest: Alibaba made a $30 million secured loan to Quixey in summer 2016, which gave it the right to veto future investments into Quixey. USPTO records show that one part of the security for that loan was the startup’s IP. Quixey assigned a security interest in 311 US patents and applications to Alibaba.com Investment Holding Company at the same time the loan was agreed to.
This year, Alibaba exercised its right to stop Quixey from raising new VC money, opting to wind up the business instead. In February the startup laid off all of its workers and brought in an outside firm (no word on who) to handle the sale of its IP portfolio. It would appear that much, if not all, of the portoflio has been sold to Samsung.
There is good reason for Samsung to be interested in the Quixey portfolio – it bought the company’s chief competitor, Viv, in 2016. Many of Quixey’s former employees have reportedly moved over to Viv, which was founded by the team behind Siri, since the company stopped operating.
What’s potentially more interesting is why Alibaba didn’t want the patents developed by its once-promising portfolio company. The Axios report indicates that Quixey was not able to meet its loan obligation to Alibaba, suggesting that it could have kept the securitised patents, but at least some of those rights have now made their way to Samsung. If the Chinese e-commerce giant held onto a few key rights, it hasn’t shown up in the assignment record yet.