Last year, Qualcomm and UnitedHealthcare started a pilot program in 12 states to pay people to stay active. This year, the companies say, they are extending it to 40 states and broadening the number of fitness trackers the program works with. Under the UnitedHealthcare Motion program, employees can earn up to $4 per day if they meet distance, intensity, and frequency goals … [Read more...]
CT Band Adds Smarts to Dumb Watches: CES
The idea of adding a sensor pack to regular watches is not new. Nor is the idea of expanding regular watch functions with a smart band quite new. But the French startup RIFFT has what appears to be a particularly smart approach, and they're unveiling it at CES. The CT Band comes in seven colors of leather (stitched or unstitched) and 11 colors of silicone. There are three … [Read more...]
Sensor Makers Combine, as TDK Buys Invensense
If your knowledge of TDK stopped at cassette tapes, your thinking is way out of date. The company is a market leader in magnetic sensors and actuators -- particularly in the automotive and industrial markets -- and is a big player in wireless charging. And today, it bought Invensense, which makes a very popular line of motion and environmental sensors. Invensense is an … [Read more...]
Valencell and STMicro Team For a Biometric Dev Kit
STElectronics is one of the big boys in the MEMS sensor world, and Valencell is an emerging leader in biometric sensors. (If you own earbuds that feature any kind of biometric sensor, it probably includes Valencell tech.) The companies announced today a development kit for biometric wearables. The ST SensorTile is a 13.5mm square module that comprises a microcontroller, a … [Read more...]
Google Aquihires Smartwatch Developer of Alexa-Based Cronologics
Android Wear 2.0 is late -- not that anyone seems to be panting after it. So Google has bought out a company called iMCO, which just shipped a shipped a smartwatch that used Amazon's Alexa voice recognition engine. The CoWatch runs an Android-based OS called Cronologics. It does the usual things that you expect a smartwatch to do, although reports are that the $299 CoWatch … [Read more...]
The Last Days of Pebble
The eminent tech journalist Steve Levy has, over the years, been writing a series of articles about Pebble, chronicling the company's growth. He filed the last one yesterday -- this time, about its demise. CEO Eric Migicovsky told Levy that Pebble realized too late that what people seem to want out of smartwatches above all are health apps. Migocovsky also said that Pebble's … [Read more...]
Pebble Sells to Fitbit, Ceases Sales [Updated]
Fitbit confirmed this morning that it has bought software and intellectual property of smartwatch pioneer Pebble, explicitly excluding its hardware. No price was mentioned in the company's statement. Bloomberg News reported late yesterday that Fitbit has offered jobs to Pebble's programmers as Pebble CEO Eric Migicovsky is about to join VC firm Y Combinator. Fitbit's … [Read more...]
Moto Says No New Smartwatch Anytime Soon
Once upon a time, the Moto 360 was the best Android Wear smartwatch on the market, which is not unlike calling someone "the world's tallest midget." But as Google got busy with other projects and consumers failed to warm to the attractions of the platform, sales appear to have leveled off. A couple of months ago, Google said that the next version of Wear, anticipated for 2016, … [Read more...]
Osterhout Raises $58 Million for AR Glasses
The Osterhout Design Group has finished its first fundraising round, picking up $58 million to develop its line of augmented and virtual reality glasses, the company said. ODG is an interesting company. Its roots are in military heads-up displays, and it first hit the media radar in 2014 when it sold a pack of patents to Microsoft for a reported $150 million. So while the … [Read more...]
Reports: Pebble Selling Out to Fitbit
Reports started surfacing late last night that smartwatch and crowdfunding pioneer Pebble is about to sell out to Fitbit for a comparatively small payday. TechCrunch, citing a post on the big-ticket site The Information, says Fitbit will pay something less than $40 million for Pebble. Our previous coverage of Pebble would indicate that that price would pretty much cover the … [Read more...]