Category: Smartwatches
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Pebble gets huge update, including iOS 7 notifications and SDK v2.0

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The Pebble smartwatch has been gaining in popularity since its release, and the promising Kickstarter project has led to a full-fledged company now with some 190,000 Pebbles sold worldwide. With this latest update, Pebble has announced full support for iOS 7 notifications.

Alongside extended notifications support for, Pebble has also announced the release of version 2.0 of its SDK. Read more »

Sony SmartWatch 2 review

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The recent trend smartwatches has been popularized in part by Sony, who have already seen enough time go by since their first iteration to see a SmartWatch 2 device to market.

The SmartWatch 2 features a stylish Xperia-inspired design complete with color touchscreen, and aims to compete directly with the likes of the Samsung Galaxy Gear. Read more »

Pebble smartwatch review

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Smartwatches have been all the rage lately, and no conversation on the topic would be complete without mentioning Kickstarter’s darling, the Pebble.

Although it doesn’t have the touchscreen and flashy design of some of its competitors, the Pebble brings a great feature set at a price significantly below competing offerings from Sony and Samsung. After the break, we take a close look at the Pebble and how it works. Read more »

LeBron James enters the new NBA season all Geared up

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You have probably heard of this LeBron James fella. The professional basketball player adorned with four Most Valuable Player awards, two NBA Finals MVPs and today starts the new season as defending champion looking for a three-peat (three consecutive titles).

According to Samsung, a part of that success was down to the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 and a rainbow assembly of Galaxy Gear smartwatches the star uses. The latest video ad aired at the start of the new NBA season shows how LeBron goes about his pre-season summer break with a lot of Sammy toys around him. Read more »

WSJ: Google smartwatch to enter mass production this year

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Google’s alleged smartwatch is in the final stages of its development and the search giant is said to be in talks with Asian hardware suppliers to begin the mass production of the hotly anticipated accessory.

According to a report from WSJ, the Google smartwatch will enter mass production by the end of the year. Read more »

Hyetis Crossbow smartwatch misses on ZEISS optics

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Remember the Hyetis Crossbow, the Swiss-made smartwatch with a 41MP camera, which was going to have ZEISS optics and optical zoom and more sensors than one of NASA’s space probes? An attorney from Carl Zeiss AG has contacted us saying that Zeiss has no connection with Hyetis whatsoever and the Crossbow definitely will not have ZEISS optics.

The watch smelled of pure, undiluted vaporware before, but things look even sketchier now. Read more »

HTC co-founders promise ‘disruptive’ tablet, useful smartwatch

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Co-founders and leaders of HTC Peter Chou and Cher Wang (CEO and chairperson respectively) gave an interview to the Financial Times and strongly implied that the company is working on tablet and a wearable device.

This month HTC posted its first-ever quarterly loss and so the company is looking beyond smartphones for extra revenue. Read more »

Nokia has been working on a smartwatch concept of their own

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Suddenly, everyone is interested in smartwatches (and by everyone I mean the companies making it because the average customer still doesn’t care). Samsung has made one, Apple and Google are supposedly making one and now it seems so is Nokia.

Code named ‘Facet’, Nokia’s smartwatch concept is by far the most outlandish that we have seen, mostly because it looks very little like a traditional watch and is mostly just a band with displays all over it. Read more »

Samsung Galaxy Note 3 ad features Lionel Messi, Lorde’s Royals

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Samsung is stepping up its advertising campaign for the new Galaxy Note 3 phablet with a musical short featuring Lionel Messi and a group of kids singing Lorde’s Royals.

Messi plays the role of The Developer, a mysterious stranger that arrives with his shiny new Galaxy Note 3 and Galaxy Gear and uses them to organize the construction of a football stadium. The video is directed by Adam Hashemi, a pop video director from Denmark. Read more »

Samsung Galaxy Gear can be tweaked to run proper Android apps

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The Samsung Galaxy Gear has turned out to be quite the entertaining hacking device. Using Android’s SDK and Android Debug Bridge (ADB) ArsTechnica was able to sideload some proper Android apps on the little smartwatch and it had no trouble running them.

You only need to enable USB debugging on the Galaxy Gear settings in order for this to work – no root required. The Samsung smartwatch runs Android Jelly Bean 4.2.2 with an 800 MHz single-core chip and 512 MB of RAM so it’s able to run apps like most droids would – the only limitation is the small on-board storage and tiny screen. Read more »

Samsung Galaxy Gear review

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The smartwatch is a relatively new market niche, but seeing the interest it has been getting lately, it will certainly expand quite rapidly in the next few years. And Samsung, being one of the world leaders in smart tech, certainly wants to be a part of that expansion. The Galaxy Gear smartwatch is built around the idea of being an extension of your smartphone and not the sole star of the show. Currently, as of its launch, the Galaxy Gear only supports the Galaxy Note 3 and 10.1, which is limiting its reach quite severely, but Samsung promises to add more devices to the list in the next few months.

Instead of going all sci-fi with the Galaxy Gear, Samsung decided to take the logical path. The smartwatch can help you unlock your smartphone, acts as a fitness accessory, snap a photo or two and mainly, aid you in those cases when your phablet is out of reach or the circumstances just don’t allow you to operate it. Read more »

A duo of catchy Samsung Galaxy Gear ads go live in the United States, check them out

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Samsung launched a duo of cool ads for its Galaxy Gear Smartwatch in the United States. The commercials take the viewer on a trip down memory lane by featuring some of Hollywood’s most memorable interpretations on the watch as a tool of communication.

Both ads feature timepieces from movies such as Star Trek, Knight Rider, Predator, Jetsons, etc. Read more »

Photos of Nokia-branded wristband hint at smartwatch

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Have you heard the rumors? Everyone is making a smartwatch – Sony and Samsung already have theirs out, but Apple, Google and now Nokia are in the mix too. The first evidence of a Nokia watch are two photos of a Nokia-branded wristband.

Here’s something funny – a group of ex-Nokia employees put a smartwatch project on Kickstarter, while a former Nokia exec (VP, Entry Business Line) of is chairman at another smartwatch company. Read more »

Apple looking into flexible OLEDs for the iWatch

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The upcoming Apple iWatch – which we likely won’t see until late 2014 – will allegedly have a flexible OLED display, according to a source out of Korea.

There are also several prototypes that are currently under consideration: 1.3-inch, 1.4-inch, and 1.5-inch models, with the latter having already been made. Read more »

Galaxy Note 3 wars: Snapdragon 800 version draws first blood

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Samsung is launching the Galaxy Note 3 in two different versions – an LTE-enabled Snapdragon 800-powered N9005 unit and a 3G/HSDPA-only Exynos 5 Octa-powered N9000 model. Depending on your country, you will be getting either one of those flavors, but not the two simultaneously.

There are no differences on the exterior between the two models, nor there are any in the user interface. But there are some minor gaps in the performance, so you may want to check this head-to-head video. Read more »