News

Samsung Galaxy Unpacked Will Take Place On February 1st

Journalists expect the new Samsung Galaxy S23 series to be the main focus of the San Francisco event.

Published

4 years ago

January 11, 2023

Nour Nasir

Samsung

Readers may remember us reporting that Samsung’s Colombian website had inadvertently revealed the date of an upcoming Galaxy Unpacked event. Now, it seems those rumors have been proven correct.

The Korean tech behemoth has just announced the first Galaxy Unpacked event of 2023, which will take place at The Masonic Auditorium, San Francisco, on February 1st at 1PM Eastern time. Unlike last year’s conference, which happened under COVID-19 restrictions, this year’s event will be held in person.

Also Read: Razer Reveals New Products, Including Leviathan V2 Pro Soundbar

Samsung remains tight-lipped about what to expect, but fans tuning in to the event’s live stream can expect to see the launch of the Galaxy S23, featuring a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor. The S23 Ultra version of the handset could also pack a massive 200-megapixel front camera, with an improved selfie shooter, emergency satellite messaging, and quite possibly a flat display.

We can’t wait to watch the live stream and eventually get our hands on the new hardware when it hits the market!

News

Visa’s Return To Syria Starts With A Test And A Bank In Lebanon

Foreign visitors will be the first users to benefit, but whether Syria’s own banks and cardholders follow is still an open question.

Published

2 weeks ago

August 27, 2026

Dana Saadeh

visa's return to syria starts with a test and a bank in lebanon

Visa is returning to Syria. Its first live international card transaction in the country was a test rather than a launch, and the milestone event ran through a Lebanese bank.

The acquirer (the bank on the merchant’s side of a card payment) was Fransabank Lebanon, with Paymera as the other named partner. Nadim Moujaes, who heads a Fransabank Group subsidiary, describes the test as both the culmination of “longstanding efforts to link Syria back to international payment networks” and “the first step in a larger path”.

Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa makes the first electronic payment in Syria using a @Visa card at a store in Damascus, following the lifting of US sanctions on Syria. pic.twitter.com/lpAN7nQ6Fc

— Tech Magazine (@TechMGZN) August 27, 2026

“We are excited to have successfully tested live transactions today as we plan to enable international visitors to use their Visa cards while in Syria,” says Leila Serhan, Visa’s senior vice president and group country manager for the North Africa, Levant and Pakistan region. Although a significant first step, that plan doesn’t come with a hard date for when a visitor’s card will work normally.

Mohammed Safwat Raslan, governor of the Central Bank of Syria, says the test paves the way for international card acceptance in Syria and that maintaining strong compliance, risk management and operational controls will remain essential. Serhan likewise stresses that Visa has worked within applicable legal, regulatory and compliance requirements. For a test transaction, it seems there was a great deal of attention paid to the rules, with the entire operation being carefully managed.

Also Read: Lebanon’s 5G Era Begins With 150 Stations And A $1M Budget

The test is the latest step in a sequence that began in December 2025, when Visa announced a strategic roadmap to support Syria’s integration into the global digital economy. In February 2026 it hosted its first industry gathering of banks, ecosystem partners and policymakers in Damascus and, the same month, signed an agreement with Syria’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology in San Francisco.

Michel Kattouah, Paymera’s CEO, called the test “the return of international card acceptance,” but while that’s positive news, there’s no word yet on when a Syrian bank will issue a Visa card to a Syrian customer.