Wearable Computing & Fashion News - Page 32

Scientists were able to invent a nano-pixel ultra high definition. The researchers at the Oxford University were able to achieve this by using a very small layer of a phase-change material which also allows you to be bend while maintains thousandths of a millimetre thickness.

Phase change materials are used for heat management purposes, and is used in rewritable DVDs. The layer is kept between two transparent electrodes and were able to produce pixels are as small as 300 nanometers which is smaller than the width of a human hair.This technology and has a lot of usefulness especially for wearable technology that benefits from foldable or flexible screens while having minimum thickness, such as smart contact lenses.

This implementation will still time take to appear as ready-to-use products. As of now, they aren't able to use it to display movable pictures but it is able to produce different colour changes. Professor Harish Bhaskaran explained,"The cool part about this is that the functional part is very thin. Because of that you could actually have displays that are non-intrusive, because you can keep the electronics far away."

Google I/O 2014 - There's a meme here, surely? I don't always order pizza, but when I do, it's from my smartwatch. Well, Google did just that at Google I/O when it showed off the Moto 360 smartwatch.

The Moto 360 smartwatch is powered by Google's upcoming Android Wear OS, which has some nifty tricks up its sleeve. Whenever you update an application on your smartphone, the smartwatch will update the counterpart app on your smartphone. But ordering a pizza from what your watch? Now that is something I've never seen before.

The Moto 360 will be available for sale later in the summer, but Google also took the time at the event to announce that LG's G Watch will be available to order later today from the Play Store.

Google only just announced it was launching its Glass Explorer program in the UK, but now we have news that the Mountain View-based search giant has refreshed the hardware in its Glass headset.

Glass now features 2GB of RAM, double the RAM from its previous iteration. The company has been pushing out constant software enhancements that have been slowly increasing battery life, but the refreshed Glass headset also sports a slightly larger battery. Google says that with the blend of software enhancements and the increased battery, we should expect an additional 15% charge on Glass.

The extra RAM on the other hand, according to Glass' Product Manager, Steve Lee, "will allow for more Glassware [apps] to run in parallel and for each Glassware to start more quickly. You'll notice the device generally feels a bit faster and more reliable". The new software baked into Glass will pave the way for a voice-activated viewfinder that will help users frame photos better - something that has been needed since Glass was released.

Samsung and Pebble became early supporters of smartwatches, and that decision has paid off with both companies controlling the estimated $96 million market. Samsung has 78 percent of market revenue with its Gear smartwatch, as Pebble is in No. 2 with 18 percent revenue share.

The smartwatch market is poised to explode in popularity, as one in 5 consumers have expressed interest in the technology, according to the NPD research group. The average price of a smartwatch is $189, with prices varying from $160 up to $257 - and 25-34 year olds are most interested in smartwatches.

"The smartwatch market is poised to continue to grow in 2014," said Ben Arnold, NPD executive director of industry analysis, in a statement. "With nearly $100 million in U.S. sales in less than a year, the category is off to a promising start with just two major brands."

There are plenty of smartwatches on the market today that will give the wearer alerts for emails, texts, and calls. The problem for some people is that smartwatches are often not that attractive. A new wearable device has turned up that brings some of the notification features of a smartwatch to users who don't like the looks of a smartwatch.

The product is called Ringly and it looks like some sort of fashion ring that people would wear normally. The big difference between Ringly and normal fashion rings is that Ringly has tech inside to sync with your smartphone. Ringly can alert the wearer of smartphone app notifications, texts, phone calls, and emails. It's aimed mostly at women.

Ringly will work with iOS and Android devices and will be offered starting at $145. Eventually the device will sell for $195. Ringly will be offered in four styles that all feature gold plated bands with different square semi-precious stones set inside. Power in the battery for the ring will last up to three days. When the user taps their pointer finger and thumb together, the ring lights up and a combination of lights and vibrations tell the user what notifications are active on the phone. A tiny flashing light is also on the side of the ring.

Sometimes new gadgets turn up in the strangest places before they are actually announced. A perfect example is the time when an unreleased iPhone was found in a bar after a drunken Apple employee left it on a bar stool. A report is making the rounds that a gadget writer happened to be in New York City walking around when he ran into a person testing the Microsoft Surface watch.

That is hard to believe, but not much harder than believing an unreleased iPhone could be found in a random bar. The person wearing the watch originally tried to say it was a random wristband from China before spilling the beans according to the report.

First thing to note is that the image here is said to be a parody, but the watch has an elongated form factor along the lines of the Fitbit One or Galaxy Gear Fit. The icons are said to have been in flat Windows 8 style. The watch uses Bluetooth 4.0 Low Energy. The person who saw the watch says that the screen had low resolution. Lots of sensors were inside the watch including a heart rate monitor, accelerometer, gyroscope, GPS, and a galvanic skin response sensor in the watchband. Only time will tell if these leaks are correct.

Microsoft is gearing up to release a smartwatch that will be compatible with its Windows Phone OS, along with support for Google Android and Apple iOS devices. Using technology refined by Kinect engineers, the watch will have two days of battery life and support continuous heart rate monitoring. A product announcement and launch date have not been released, though it could be available to consumers later this summer.

Throughout much of its dominant era, Microsoft didn't put a lot of effort into cross-platform compatibility, though including support for Android and iOS makes smart business sense. Both the iPhone and Android-powered smartphones currently control the market, and excluding users would greatly hurt potential sales.

It is an exciting time for the smartwatch market, with Samsung, Fitbit, Nike, Jawbone, and other companies already deeply involved - with Microsoft, Apple, and other companies expected to release their own devices. However, continuous heart rate monitoring would be a valuable asset for Microsoft, providing a better overall health analysis of watch owners.

During its event in San Francisco this morning, Samsung launched the Digital Health Initiative, pushing open software and hardware platforms to the next level, investing $50 million to help startups and companies work together. The company previously announced the Samsung Catalyst Fund, a $100 million offering, in what could innovate digital health in the future.

The recently announced Simband wearable is one piece of the puzzle, offering a hardware platform for others to build off of. Innovation of medical sensors, which unlike hospitals don't require additional government scrutiny, is moving along with the idea of "intelligent digital health" being promoted by Samsung.

Focused on software, the Samsung Architecture for Multimodal Interactions (SAMI) relies on cloud-based sensor data that is open and secure. The software relays heart rate, blood pressure, respiration, hydration, glucose concentrations, and other readings, which can be stored online and shared with medical professionals.

Samsung has a new patent application out there that shows some tech that may eventually make its way into the firm's next generation smartwatch. The patent app outlines several new bits including a circular face, gesture controls, and image recognition. The gesture tech supports different hand gestures and movements to launch certain apps.

The app also shows a feature that lets users tap on the screen to control items around the house remotely. Other features that the patent highlights for smartwatches include sensors for monitoring pulse and the ability to show inactivity.

The smartwatch described in the patent is expected to be one of Samsungs first entries into the market with Android Go as the OS. One of the more interesting features of the watch will be its ability to identify barcodes, images, and objects. The user would only need to point the device at an image to read a barcode or read text with optical character recognition.

While Google Glass has been regarded as a major advancement in wearable technology, the general public has been, for the most part, hesitant to purchase a pair of Google Glasses themselves. While I am sure that there are thousands of early adopters, techies, and trend followers who have dived head first into the world of Glass, the $1500 price tag makes it very hard for many consumers to swallow, including myself.

According to new estimates, Google Glass is only comprised of about $80 in components which leaves one to wonder why exactly the new technology is worth the $1500 premium that Google has placed on it. Now before anyone jumps on me, I am sure that manufacturing, packaging and marketing cost are factored in as well, but at tops, I see Glass being worth only about $350-500. I also get that Google needs to recoup some of the R&D cost on Glass, but even then a $550-700 price tag would see fair.

When Teardown.com broke Google Glass down piece by piece, the company itemized each part and figured out the fair-market value on each component. Looking at the bill of materials below the most expensive piece of the whole device is its processor, coming in at $13.96, and the next highest component being the non electronic parts including the frame and such which accounted for an additional $13.63. Overall the entire list comes out to just under $80, and assuming that Google orders these parts by the tens of thousands, I am willing to bet they only pay about $50-60 per Glass device they ship.