We're pretty sure we've heard about this before, but it may be worth repeating. The "adult toy" manufacturer OhMyBod is taking preorders for a vibrator controllable with a Bluetooth phone. (You may insert jokes about pairing and discoverability at your own discretion. We're too high class to do it ourselves.) They were showing it at CES. Just wait for the howls when Google … [Read more...]
BearTek Bluetooth Gloves
Anyone can make a glove that lets you control your phone by touching it. BearTek gloves let you control devices without even doing that. The globes use a Bluetooth module hidden in the gauntlet of the left glove. You control devices -- smartphone, a GoPro camera -- by touching your thumb to various control points on the glove. There are three models: for snow sports, for … [Read more...]
CES: Nuance Voice Recognition for Wearables
CES is so last week, but there were a bunch of announcements that you ought be be caught up on so we'll be trickling them out as we can. Nuance, the voice recognition company behind the Dragon Dictate line, has a robust business building its technology into pretty much anything you (or it) can imagine. The company had a pretty busy CES, announcing deals with auto companies, … [Read more...]
CES: Sony Core Fitness Tracker
Sony is a massively frustrating company to cover. It frequently produces exceptional cutting-edge products across the entire range of consumer technology, which it then overprices, underpromotes or somehow screws up in some other fundamental way. At CES, Sony showed the Sony Core, wristwear along the lines of the Fitbit Flex, but with software that appears to go far beyond … [Read more...]
CES: Pebble Watch Upgrades to Metal
Pebble, the pioneering smart watch, moved modestly upmarket at CES, debuting watches made of stainless steel, with metal and leather watchbands. The Pebble Steel will run the same apps (and the company officially announced the app store we wrote about a couple of weeks ago). Other than the metal housing, the main differences are the use of Gorilla Glass and the inclusion of a … [Read more...]
CES: CSR and Cellini Team for Connected Jewelry
The British chip company CSR and the boutique jeweler Cellini have produced a pendant with a light that flashes when your phone gets a notification. It's a lovely piece of silver and a good demonstration both of system miniaturization (on the CSR1020 platform) and a sensitivity to fashion. The light seems a little less than subtle, but it's probably better than haptic … [Read more...]
CES: Epson Shows Moverio Visor and Pulsense Activity Tracker
We wrote a couple of weeks ago about Epson's Moverio smartglass platform. Epson formally showed it at CES, and it's pretty much what had leaked. The choice of demo partners listed in the press release is revealing, though. On the consumer side, they showed a few fighting games and first-person shooters, but also Scope AR, an augmented reality application that promises to … [Read more...]
CES: Intel Shows Edison, a Wearable Computer on an SD Card
Fights among microprocessor companies happen on a platform-by-platform basis. Intel won desktop computers, ARM processors are popular in phones, AMD has a grip on the graphics market. The latest battleground is wearables, with Freescale (among others) staking a claim. But at CES, Intel made it clear that it's coming heavy in the wearables market, and it's going to do it with … [Read more...]
CES: Pivothead SMART Goggle Livestreams HD Video
One of the complaints about Google Glass is that other people are worried that they're being monitored without their knowing it. For Glass, it probably isn't true. But Pivothead's new SMART eyewear is designed to livestream HD video, which may be a little creepy. Pivothead, whose Indiegogo campaign ends January 11, has released an SDK that will allow the SMART to interact … [Read more...]
CES: Garmin Announces Vivofit Fitness Band
You probably think of Garmin as a GPS company with some high-end wristware. They're making a move down-market with the Vivofit fitness band. It looks a lot like a Fitbit Force, but the Vivifit has a larger display (not unlike a Fuelband). Unique in the category, the Vivofit claims to learn your activity patterns and set goals based on that, upping them as your fitness … [Read more...]