Samsung Assemble Cryptocurrency Mining from the Old Smartphone

Samsung's new 'upcycling' initiative has seen the company reject obsolete technology for new and creative utilities, including the development of bitcoin mining rigs from old smartphones.

'Upcycling' Program Has Show Companies Changing 40 Galaxy S Used Into Bitcoin Mining Rigs

Although little technical specification has been available regarding the rig, Samsung claims that eight Samsung Galaxy S5s can mine with superior energy efficiency compared to standard desktop computers.

The mining rig was launched at Samsung's developer conference recently held in San Francisco. The rig is the brainchild of Samsung's Creative Lab - an internal center for innovation and development at Samsung located at Samsung Digital City in Korea.

Also read: Complete Explanation of Bitcoin Mining Hardware

Apart from the cryptocurrency mining rig, the Samsung program also "transformed" the old Galaxy into an ubuntu-powered laptop, and a Samsung Galaxy Repurposed smartphone to monitor fishtank. The company has also used an old phone featuring facial recognition software as the basis of the security system.

Samsung Plans to Make Upcycling Software available for the public

The company has pledged to make plans for freely exhibited projects available online, in addition to software that allows Samsung Creative Lab to open and replace old phones. A spokesman for Samsung, Robin Schultz, said that "the innovative platform provides an environmentally responsible way for the old Galaxy mobile device to liven up new life, providing new possibilities and potential for more value for devices that might be forgotten in the desk drawer or discarded."

Kyle Wiens, CEO of iFixit - the company involved in fixing the Galaxy S3s for the Samsung initiative - has given tremendous compliments to the upcycling program. Wiens stated "what [Samsung] builds is a layer between hardware and you so you can install whatever you want in it. This is a more efficient step than jailbreaking, it removes Android completely. "Wiens explains the initiative as avoiding the challenge of keeping old stuff running in the software for a long time, adding that with the phone in particular, old software is not secure and can not run new applications. So the question is, if you has perfect functional hardware that does not have great software anymore and you want to keep it running for ten years, how do you do it? "

Wiens Explains Project Has Potential to Increase Second Market Value from Outdated Samsung Devices

Wiens stated that "[Samsung] wants to keep the value of their devices in the long run. If people know they have to spend 1000 dollars on a Note, they would be easier to spend thousands of dollars if they know they can sell it for $ 500. "

Samsung is currently the host for GitHub for upcycling projects. The site is expected to serve as a basis for decentralized communities in building innovative innovative technologies in the future - where individuals can access the software necessary to remove Android, before accessing, sharing and innovating for new goals and manifesting outdated technologies.