Once upon a time, Intel wanted to establish itself as the go-to chipmaker for wearables. What's more, the company bought the pioneering fitness band company Basis -- its first consumer-facing business in a very long time. Now comes word that Intel has finally and officially killed its wearables business. In truth, it was a long time coming. Intel rarely talks about internal … [Read more...]
Misfit Moves to Full Display, Away from Intel/Google: CES
Misfit, one of the grand old brands in consumer wearables, had a couple of surprises at CES; one obvious, the other less so. The obvious one was the unveiling of its Vapor smartwatch, which abandons Misfit's signature design language. From the first, Misfits trackers have been small aluminum disks (or later, tubes) with only subtle LEDs as indicators and year-long battery … [Read more...]
Android Wear 2.0 Delayed Until 2017
The Android development team at Google dropped a new developer preview of Android Wear 2.0 today, but buried the lead until the very last paragraph: it won't ship until "early 2017." Developer Preview 3.0 adds some interesting features: support for fully round watch faces; on-watch support for a Play Store (important for Wear watches being used with iPhones, which don't run … [Read more...]
Google Reportedly Readies Android Wear Watches of its Own
The website Android Police is reporting that Google is getting ready to ship a pair of Android Wear smartwatches under its own brand. This bodes ill for the health of Android Wear. The whole point of Android Wear was to create a software platform that OEMs could basically plug into hardware, but only about a half-dozen companies -- all of them pretty big, but at least one of … [Read more...]
Google Glass for Enterprise Hits the FCC
All electronic devices in the United States need approval from the FCC before they hit the market; it's usually (but not always) the last stop between Engineering or Manufacturing and Sales. Google has filed an application for Glass for Enterprise, the refined business version of the Glass that the company sold to "explorers" up until early this year. The enterprise version … [Read more...]
Itsy-Bitsy Solar Panel to Power New Google Lens
First smart glasses, now smart contact lenses? How are they going to get all that info on something the size of your thumbnail? Not to mention using solar power? Google thinks it can be done. The company has been granted a design patent for a wearable communication device shaped like a contact lens, including sensors, memory and a microprocessor. Power would be provided by … [Read more...]
Holo Headgear From Google?
Google glasses set a lot of imaginations on fire, while leaving the real world relatively unscorched. Now Google has applied for a patent for marrying holographic displays to Google Glass. The company applied for the patent for “Lightguide With Multiple In-Coupling Holograms For Head Wearable Display” in early 2014. According to TechCrunch, this will let Google use AR … [Read more...]
Has Google Glass Gained a New “Aura”?
There were media reports last night that Google Glass is now living under the name "Project Aura," and that the company has snapped up a bunch of people from Amazon's Lab126 hardware development group. Also, Business Insider notes that one recent Google hire is Adrian Wong, the lead electrical engineer for Glass, who had left to join Facebook's Oculus group but returned to … [Read more...]
Motorola Unveils New Moto360 Smartwatches With Mid-Range Specs
It's apparently smartwatch week; in addition to Huawei, ASUS, and Samsung, Motorola's dived (dove? diven?) back into the pool with updated Moto360s. They're a lot like their predecessors: Android Wear, round screen, customizable at purchase, small "flat-tire" cutout at the bottom of the dial. But there are also some notable improvements and extensions to the line. This is … [Read more...]
Google Reorganizes into Alphabet [Updated]
There are some press releases that make you check to be sure that it's not April 1, but no: Google says it's re-organizing itself into a company called Alphabet. Larry Page and Sergey Brin will be CEO and president, respectively. Sundar Pichai, whose star has been rising rapidly at Google, becomes CEO of Google itself. The idea of Alphabet is to break out the moon-shot stuff … [Read more...]