bloomberg.com - When Microsoft revealed a replacement to Windows 8, it skipped the number 9 and went straight to Windows 10. Apple's iPhone 8 was followed by the iPhone X (pronounced "ten"). But Samsung refused to follow: The successor to its Galaxy S8 is the Galaxy S9 (and a larger S9 Plus), and it's coming out in March.
The phone is critical for the company. Samsung needs to show it has the hardware and software chops to maintain its leadership in the Android market, while proving Apple isn't king of smartphone design. Then there's fending off rising Chinese competition from Huawei and reassuring investors that Vice Chairman Jay Y. Lee has the company's future under control since his legal woes commanded global headlines.

theverge.com - One of the biggest stories out of this year's CES, and the recipient of our Best in Show award, was a prototype phone from Vivo that showed off the world's first in-display fingerprint scanner. This is a method of biometric authentication that could prove to be the best of all worlds - no need for bulky screen bezels, awkward rear-mounted sensors, or complex arrays of face-detection tech. That prototype later shipped in China as the X20 Plus UD, and now Vivo has brought a concept phone to MWC that represents the next evolution of that idea. It's all about figuring out how to get rid of bezels for good.
The concept phone is called Apex, and its headline feature is what Vivo describes as "Half-Screen In-Display Fingerprint Scanning Technology." The idea here is that instead of placing your finger on a thumbnail-sized icon to unlock the phone, you'll be able to do so in a much larger area of the display.

techtimes.com - The Google Pixel 3 is expected to be the company's most exciting smartphone series to date and more details are surfacing, trying to anticipate what it will bring to the table.
First off, the upcoming Pixel 3 will be the fruit of Google's acquisition of HTC's smartphone division. Google so far teamed up with various OEMs to make its Nexus and Pixel devices. This year, however, it has its own hardware division and it should make the Pixel 3 in-house.
The new Pixel 3 smartphones are expected to make their debut this fall and although Google has yet to offer any details, several leaks and rumors so far have tried to paint a picture of what to expect.

theverge.com - For a year and a half now, Google's semi-official strategy for messaging apps has been a three-legged stool: Allo for consumer chat, Hangouts for corporate chat, and good ol' SMS for texting (with RCS in the future). None of those strategies were ever really going to challenge the players who are leading the messaging app space: WhatsApp, iMessage, Facebook Messenger.
It's possible, however, that the last leg of that messaging stool is about to get a lot more interesting. Android Police just dug into the code for the very latest version of Android Messages, the app Google makes for SMS. And inside it are references to two very intriguing features.