Now that the Apple Watch is truly out from under its covers, details about software and performance are starting to emerge. To answer the question of how long the battery lasts, Apple today posted a page setting power life expectation. They're saying the Watch will last 18 hours, assuming you check the time about five times an hour, get around five notifications an hour, use … [Read more...]
Apple Watch Details: April Ship, Prices from $349 to $10,000 and Up
Apple took a lot of the veils off the Apple Watch today at a typically elaborate event in San Francisco. Most of the Watch demos had been originally shown in September, but the demos were deeper and more apparently ready for shipment. The most important details: Pre-orders on April 10, with previews in stores. Shipment April 24. Battery life touted at 18 hours of typical … [Read more...]
MWC Day 3: Orion Reinvents Push-to-Talk and Gets Fashionable
There is something compelling about the walkie-talkie interface: push a button, talk, release, listen. Simple and instant. Public safety workers -- cops, firefighters, EMTs -- love it, and they still mourn their old Nextel phones. Now, a couple of guys with a background as emergency medical technicians (and some impressive big data cred) are reinventing push-to-talk (PTT) for … [Read more...]
How Silicon Valley Is Helping the Swiss in the Smartwatch Fight
As recently as a year ago, the Swiss watch industry was hoping that the smartwatch business would just dry up and go away. But just as Swatch led the fight against the Japanese onslaught of quartz movements, the Swiss watch industry is now embracing smartwatches, using a common platform from California and its own excellent design sense. It may not surprise you to learn that … [Read more...]
WSJ: Apple to Make 5 Million Watches, But Not Sure Why
With Mobile World Congress and its attendant blizzard of news about all things mobile coming up in a couple of weeks, Apple is newsbombing the proceedings with leaks about the forthcoming Apple Watch. The Wall Street Journal has carried a couple of interesting pieces in the last day. One article puts the initial production run at 5 million units. The other, more interesting, … [Read more...]
Two New Tech Bras: One To Control Music, The Other To Detect Cancer
By some cosmic confluence, two proposals for tech bras crossed our desk this morning: one for a bra that can adjust your music to match your heart rate, and one that hopes to detect breast cancer early. The Keep Beat bra, from British designer Victoria Sowerby, does the usual heart rate detection, but then sends your data to an app that slows and speeds your music depending … [Read more...]
“Digital Clothing” Hits Brooklyn
The New York Times has a story about an exhibition of "digital clothing" at the Pratt Institute, a prestigious design college not at all far from WTI's world headquarters in Brooklyn. Billie Whitehouse is (perhaps inevitably) represented by a blazer with haptic feedback and some oddities including a bra with LEDs that indicate -- well, it's not really clear what. As with … [Read more...]
Ringly Raises $5.1 Million Series A Led by Andreessen Horowitz
A ring that flashes and vibrates when it gets a notification from your phone. For this, Silicon Valley VCs ponied up $5.1 million. Ringly isn't saying publicly how many units it's shipped, but allows as how they've pretty much sent out all their first round of pre-orders at $145 each. The new pre-orders will go out this Spring for $195. The goods are nice: high quality … [Read more...]
CES: Misfit Gets the Swarovski Crystal Treatment
What fitness trackers apparently need is some bling, and Misfit and Swarovski will give it to you. The companies announced today a new line of Swarovski Shines: a clear crystal model and a violet one that can do solar charging. (Misfit Shines, it should be noted, use watch batteries and run for the best part of a year.) You can pre-order now at misfit.com; retail sales … [Read more...]
Amanda Parkes on the Importance of Fabrics and Fashion
Amanda Parkes is one of the smarter people standing at the intersection of technology and fashion. An MIT-trained designer, she's the chief of technology and research at Manufacture NY, a fashion think tank in Brooklyn, NY. Parkes gave an excellent and enlightening interview to the site Business of Fashion, in which she talks about how wearable tech is less about the gadget and … [Read more...]