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Samsung may unveil foldable smartphone next year

​Seoul, Nov 11 (IANS) Battling with multiple issues like the discontinuation of Galaxy Note 7, recall of 2.8 million exploding washing machines and corruption scandal, South Korean giant Samsung has reportedly filed a patent with the Korean Intellectual Property Office for a smartphone that can be folded in half and is expected to arrive next year. "Called the Galaxy X, the front of the smartphone will sport traditional Samsung home button in between a back button on the right and a menu button on the left," GSMArena reported on Friday. Samsung has been working on foldable displays for years is now ready to officially unveil its first offering in 2017. "The aspect ratio of device display looks 21:9 or close to that, and considering the physical design of the device it will be interesting to see how useful all of that screen real estate will turn out to be," the report added. Representatives of the South Korean prosecutor's office recently raided Samsung offices in Seoul on suspicion that the tech giant might be involved in a corruption scandal involving President Park Geun-hye. Hit by the Note 7 fiasco, Samsung Electronics has also decided to recall about 2.8 million top-loading washing machines due to risk of impact injuries. The affected washers are manufactured between March 2011 and current production dates.