According to a report in Forbes, Microsoft is about to launch a wearable device in the coming weeks. The gadget will reportedly hit the shelves in time for the holiday shopping season.

Microsoft’s upcoming creation will focus on tracking physical activities that include steps, heart rate, and calories burned among others. Read more »

Soon after announcing the launch details of the Samsung Gear S in the UK, the company also shed light on its availability in India. The smartwatch launches this week in India in black and white color options and will cost $470 (INR 28,900).

We don’t yet know whether the watch will be available in its Swarovski edition. Read more »

Smartwatches fall into two categories – a functionality-first type with square displays and looks-first with round design. An ideal execution of the second type will be an actual watch with a real movement and hands, but also with a display hidden in there somehow.

It’s the “somehow” that’s the crux of the issue but Longshine Technologies thinks it has the answer – a transparent OLED touchscreen. Read more »

The Samsung Gear S watchphone will be arriving in the UK a week after the Galaxy Note 4 hits. The Tizen-running smartwatch has its own 3G modem so it can do calls and use mobile data on its own, no need for a connection to a smartphone, unlike the majority of smartwatches out there.

The Gear S comes in Black and White but only the Black version will be stocked at first. Read more »

Asus announced the ZenWatch in September and promised it will hit store shelves in Taiwan in November. Sadly, however, according to information obtained by VR-Zone sources, Asus will offer the smartwatch in extremely limited quantities at launch.

If the information turns out to be true, then we wouldn’t keep our breath for Asus to release the ZenWatch outside Taiwan any time soon. There’s no additional information as to what is holding the company back to launch the wearable at this time. Read more »

The Tizen-based Samsung Gear S now has its very own full web browser thanks to Opera.

The Opera Mini will allow you to browse the internet on your wrists and has the familiar features – mobile compression that shrinks pages to as little as 10% of their original size and speed dial with your recent pages. Read more »

In case you wondered, Samsung Gear Live can boot Microsoft Windows 95. A crafty user managed to install Redmond’s classic desktop OS on the Android Wear smartwatch.

The successful port of Windows 95 was performed using aDosBox. Read more »

The Moto 360 smartwatch looks like it’s getting closer and closer to a release in India. That’s because it’s been listed by Flipkart, the sole official seller of Motorola’s products in the subcontinent.

Furthermore, the Moto 360 has already been priced, even if it doesn’t have a shipping date attached just yet. If you want the round smartwatch, you’ll need to part with INR 17,999 (that’s about $292 or €230 at the current exchange rates). Read more »

Pebble treated its smartwatch duo to a permanent price reduction. The original Pebble is now priced at $99, while the Pebble Steel costs $199 ($219 with metal band).

In addition to the lower pricing, Pebble introduced new firmware for its wearable devices. Read more »

Fashion Week in Paris is heating up and retailer Colette has partnered with Apple to show the Apple Watch to the huddled masses. The Cupertino smartwatch will not be available until “early 2015″ so this may be your only chance to catch a glimpse at the iPhone companion for months to come.

It won’t last long though, the retailer was teasing a “one day experience” earlier and its website confirmed it, saying We have a special guest today.” Read more »

Smartwatches may be going the way of the phablet – the already-large Samsung Gear S may be getting an even bigger 2.4″ version. Import site Zauba reveals that units have been imported for testing, listing the new screen size along units of the current 2″ model.

It’s not entirely clear what else has changed between the two versions though. Read more »

Now that the Moto 360, its first smartwatch running Android Wear, is already available, Motorola has started the ad campaign for it. The first one-minute ad for the Moto 360 was released earlier today, and it seems to be all about design.

Or specifically, the design of the smartwatch itself, of course. The theme is something along the lines of – “it’s time for a modern timepiece”. Read more »

The semi-circular LCD on the Moto 360 seems to be having a problem with image retention. A couple of users have reported their Moto 360 continues to show the circular charging bar on the screen even after you stop charging.

Certain LCDs are occasionally prone to image retention or persistence issue, wherein if an image is displayed on the screen continuously for too long it gets stuck on the screen for a while and is visible even if you go to another screen. This is different from image burn-in that happens on AMOLED panels, where the pixels are permanently transformed and it’s temporary on LCD but it’s still annoying to see the previous image faintly on the screen even after you move to the next one. Read more »

Word is that French luxury group LVMH is planning to release a smartwatch through its TAG Heuer brand.

The latest news is confirmed by Swiss newspaper NZZ am Sonntag, where LVMH exec and former Swatch and Hublot board member Jean-Claude Biver confirmed that TAG Heuer is working on a smartwatch. Read more »

If you like what Apple has done with the design of the home screen for its upcoming watch, but you already own an Android Wear smartwatch, this might be for you. It turns out that someone has already copied the home screen of the Apple Watch, with all those circular icons, and made it available for Android Wear devices.

There is one huge, albeit probably not unexpected caveat though: this is just a watchface. Hence, the icons don’t do anything, you can’t tap them to enter apps or the likes. Read more »