Reviews of the new Samsung Galaxy S5 cell phone and Gear Fit wristwear unveiled at Mobile World Congress are starting to hit. The Wall Street Journal's got a pretty good write-up of the Fit, which is admiring but mixed. Its major points: Battery life is disappointing: two days with notifications on, four with them off. Interface is good Device is pretty and … [Read more...]
Glass and the New Coming Barcodes
Adweek has a thin story about the fact that advertisers and agencies are experimenting with Google Glass, which only makes sense; if there's a digital agency not experimenting with Glass, they'll be out of business shortly. But it gives us a hook for something we saw last week at Mobile World Congress: using Glass to scan barcodes. It turns out that supermarket UPC codes are … [Read more...]
TechCrunch Says Basis is Selling to Intel. We Have Our Doubts. (Update)
Late last night, TechCrunch posted a story saying that Basis -- the heart monitor wristwear company -- was selling itself to Intel for $100 million. We suspect that the reality is a bit more complicated. At Mobile World Congress last week, we heard and spoke to a bunch of high-ranking Intel execs. We had the opportunity to ask Intel president Renee James about upcoming Intel … [Read more...]
Hands-On With the Samsung Gear 2s and Gear Fit
As promised, Samsung unveiled the new Gear 2 and Gear 2 Neo tonight at Mobile World Congress, along with a surprise: a sports band that fits neatly into its ecosystem. The new products, frankly, are lots better than we'd expected -- and vastly improved from last year's initial versions. (There also was the Galaxy 5 smartphone, a nifty piece of gear. But it's not wearable in … [Read more...]
STMicroelectronics Demos Smart Headphones That Can Sense What You’re Looking At
We had an unexpectedly long and interesting conversation today with STMicroelectronics, a company you almost certainly have never heard of unless you're deep into digital componentry. They're a big ($8 billion 2013 revenue) chip maker, based in Switzerland, and their products are in -- among many other things -- the Pebble watch and Jawbone Up. As a tech demo, Marco … [Read more...]
Vuzix Looks Ahead: Hands-on With Prototypes
We've already written lots about Vuzix: how it's focusing on enterprise and industry instead of the consumer market, how it's the first actual commercially shipping eyewear wearable. Nothing in this business stands still, though, and Vuzix continues to move ahead. We caught up with CEO Paul Travers at Mobile World Congress. One new product the company's showing is a thin … [Read more...]
Omate Shows Off the Million-Dollar TrueSmart Wristwear
We caught up Sunday with Laurent LePen, the CEO of Omate, at Mobile World Congress. He was showing off the first production models of the million-dollar Kickstarter project TrueSmart watch. Omate raised a million dollars for the TrueSmart on KickStarter, and the plan is to ship within a couple of months. The watch looks pretty chunky, about the size of one of those old … [Read more...]