Forbes is reporting that Microsoft is prepping a smartwatch for launch as soon as this summer. The device will draw on optical engineering expertise from Microsoft’s Xbox Kinect division to continuously measure heart rate through the day and night, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the company’s plans, while the battery will last for two days, roughly on par with … [Read more...]
WSJ Says Samsung Will Ship Wrist Communicator This Summer
The Wall Street Journal is saying that Samsung, which already has several bits of wristware in its product line, will come out this summer with a wrist-worn communicator that will not require a cellphone. Citing "people familiar with the company's plans," the Journal says the device will run the open-source Tizen operating system (like the Gear Fit and Gear 2, but unlike the … [Read more...]
Fixya Crowdsources Five Smartwatch Reviews
We here have been writing and editing tech product reviews for going on three decades, so we claim some significant expertise about them. But Fixya's showing an interesting approach to the process we haven't seen before: collecting thousands of troubleshooting reports and drawing conclusions about the products. Fixya aggregated about 6,000 user reports about five smart … [Read more...]
Pebble CEO Talks About the Android Wear World
So let's say you're the CEO of a highly touted startup that's just clearing the runway, when Google announces that it's creating an ecosystem in your product category that you're not part of. What do you do? One thing you and your investors do is give an optimistic interview to a publication that's as high on the journalistic foodchain as you can manage. Say, Fortune … [Read more...]
Inside the Moto360 Design Process
There's a nice interview in The Verge with Jim Wicks, the design chief on the upcoming Moto360 smartwatch, the flagship hardware of the Android Wear OS. (Remember: none of this -- hardware or software -- will ship for months.) The team, of course, had a lot of choices: mimic smartwatches that already existed, re-invent the idea of timepieces, or something else. They decided to … [Read more...]
Google Enters the Real-World Wearables Market with Android Wear
Now we know for sure: Google Glass was a toy. Google announced today its entry into the practical world of wearables, with Android Wear. This version of the Android operating system will essentially expand on notification devices like the Pebble watch or the Samsung Gear. Where those devices drive information from a phone to a wearable device like a wristwatch, Android Wear … [Read more...]