Two products with the model numbers 360S and 360L have passed through the telecommunications agency Anatel in the past week. While much information has been omitted from public eyes, a couple details lead us to believe that Motorola is reaching the launch of a successor to last year’s Android Wear-powered Moto 360 smartwatch — and in two sizes.
Update: This post has been updated to include prior knowledge regarding a leaked image of Moto 360 prototypes by Lenovo’s CEO.
Update 2: No surprise, the tweet has since been removed after a couple hours.
What does the smartwatch in the above image look like to you? Yes, it looks like a Moto 360 except, wait — it doesn’t exactly. The watch pictured above just appeared in a video tweeted out by Motorola Mobility, and its differences with Motorola’s first Android Wear watch have led some to believe that it’s an inadvertent leak of the company’s much anticipated successor to the 360. The tweet is still live as of writing.
As part of a launch event for its new Android smartphones, Motorola has announced two new Bluetooth headphones compatible with most Android devices.
The $59.99 Moto pulse are stylish-looking on-ear headphones with beefy 40mm drivers, fold-flat ear cups for portability and a claimed 18-hour battery life. The $69.99 Moto surround earbuds are aimed at sports and fitness use, being both waterproof and sweatproof and equipped with a collar band designed to be light yet remain in place during exercise.
A companion Android app provides easy pairing, battery notifications and a location function to reunite you with either pair of headphones if you lose them.
Motorola has seemingly introduced a revised 2nd generation Moto Hint, bringing some moderate improvements to the Bluetooth headset that the company introduced last year. It’s similar enough to last year’s model that most won’t even notice that there’s any difference, but upon closer inspection, this seems to be a worthy upgrade…
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BLU has a growing reputation for admirable devices that cost very little, and its latest handset looks to continue that trend. The BLU Life One goes on sale at the end of this week, on July 17th and is currently available to pre-order for just $99 unlocked and SIM-free.
Motorola launched the Moto Hint alongside the 2014 Moto X and Moto G last year, and it quickly became known as one of the better — albeit also more expensive — offerings on the market for those on the lookout for a Bluetooth headset. That still holds true today, but now Motorola is offering the Moto Hint at its online store for a cool $50 off the original price, down to just $100. It’s the lowest price we’ve seen, and it looks like some third-party retailers on Amazon are matching that price (at least for the darker colored model, which is currently going for $100.89).
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We’re nearing the one year anniversary mark of the first generation Moto 360’s original unveiling, and it’s about time for Motorola to show us what it has up its sleeves for the next iteration of its famed circular smartwatch—if said next generation does exist in the first place. If a newly surfaced filing from Bluetooth SIG is to be believed (via droid-life), the product does indeed appear to have a successor, and it might be closer than we think…
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The infamous Amazon Fire Phone is getting a substantial update today, bringing the device from Android Jelly Bean (yes, Jelly Bean) up to the almost not-ancient Android 4.4 Kit Kat. With this version of Android, the phone is getting a plethora of new features that—almost—help bring it into 2015.
Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport says that anonymously tracking smartphones and tablets through airport security has enabled it to cut the average waiting time by a third.
The system, developed by Danish company Blip Systems, scans both WiFi and Bluetooth connections to look for MAC addresses of mobile devices passing through security. Counting the number of devices in each queue enables the system to estimate the length of the queue. The queue length is displayed to passengers in minutes, so they can choose which queue to join, and also used to help the airport allocate the right number of security personnel.
Blip says that it anonymizes this data, and only uses device counts. The same system is used in a number of other airports around the world, but this is the first time it’s been used in the USA.
Via The Verge
It is the second day of the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, and we’re back on the show floor to discover the diamonds in the rough. Noke, the world’s first Bluetooth-enabled padlock, is one of those hidden gems. Noke replaces the nuisances of losing your keys or needing to remember random combinations with convenient unlocking over Bluetooth technology when your Android smartphone is within close range.
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Wireless charging has been around for some time now, but charging pads are really almost as clunky as wires: you still have wires going to the pads, and you have to put your device in a specific place to charge them. What we really want is true wireless charging, where power is beamed directly to the device through the air.
Which is exactly what Energous has been demonstrating at CES with a system it calls WattUp, reports Engadget.
WattUp […] works using a mix of RF, Bluetooth and a lot of patent-pending technology. The transmitter is where most of the magic happens. It communicates with and locates compatible devices using low-energy Bluetooth. Once they’ve established contact with a device, they send out focused RF signals on the same bands as WiFi that are then absorbed and converted into DC power by a tiny chip embedded in the device. These transmitters can be built into household appliances, TVs, speakers and standalone “energy routers.”
What looks like an oversized Internet router beams power up to 20 feet, so have enough of these – or transmitters embedded into other devices around the home – and your portable devices are powered wherever they are. All that’s needed is for the receiving devices to have the necessary chip.
Energous used an iPad app to demonstrate switching power between devices, but the plan is to build intelligence into the system so that it beams power to devices automatically depending on how much charge they have left. Once your phone has enough power, it switches instead to powering your tablet. As you move around the home, power transmission is handed off to the next source in much the same way as your phone switches between different WiFi networks.
Energous wants to license the technology to manufacturers, and the big smartphone manufacturers are clearly in the company’s sights. This, not pads, is the way charging should work, and sooner or later this – or some equivalent tech – is how our portable tech will be charged. I’m very much hoping for ‘sooner.’
We told you yesterday about a new phone that ASUS is teasing, and the company made it look like it had some kind of interesting tricks up its sleeve (dual back cameras?) for the upcoming ZenFone refresh. But while the next ZenFone is definitely expected to be announced at the upcoming CES 2015, new specs have shown up in documents submitted to the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (via Android Police) for a phone dubbed the “ZC451CG,” and they aren’t all that spectacular.
Last week Google released the latest version of Android Wear, 5.0.1 Lollipop. The latest update entails many enhancements and refinements, but most notable is the long awaited official watch face API support and new notification, brightness, and alert settings. If you’re anxious to try out the new features of Android Wear’s latest (whether it be Lollipop or some future release), but haven’t received the OTA update yet, you can try to manually install it with ADB tools.
9to5Toys is rustling up the best deals around the web for Black Friday and there are a lot of nice bargains for Google fans. Google Play’s Store deals are now live but they are matched and often surpassed by retailers such as Amazon and eBay…
First up, you need to make sure every HDTV in your love ones house has a Chromecast. Currently $24 at Amazon and $23 at NewEgg, you can venture into a Staples and get one for $25 then use with a 25% off printable coupon to get it to $18. Costco will also give you a $10 Google Play card and charge you $25. You’ll get 2 months of Hulu and 3 months of Google Play with every Chromecast purchased.
Next, you’ll want to make sure you have yourself a Chromebook and Google is hooking up all new Chromebook users with 1TB of Storage for 2 years ($240 value)
Adorama’s ebay store has the below Asus 13-inch Chromebook with Gigabit wifi for $150. Specs:
Amazon has the Haswell Acer Chromebook C720 for $149.99 shipped at Amazon or at Best Buy. That is the best price we’ve seen on a new Chromebook.
Amazon also has an HP Chromebook for $149.99 shipped. This one comes with a USB charging and a nice slim design and a screen that gets great reviews. Specs:
Need something bigger?
Acer’s new 13-inch Chromebooks are just $169.99 (an impressive $80 or 32% off). Available in 3 colors.
Need a Wear Watch? It will be hard to beat LG’s G Watch dropping down to $99 but all Google Play watches will get a $50 Google Play Credit when purchased from the Play Store today.
Android and Nest deals are below:
Samsung has announced its own location-based alerts system, designed to allow businesses to send alerts to your smartphone. These highly-localized messages could range from offers on products in the section of the store you are in, to directions to your seat in a stadium or theater.
Called Proximity, the service is based on Bluetooth LE beacons and will work in a similar fashion to Apple’s iBeacon service already in use in stores like Macy’s, American Eagle, The Bay, Lord & Taylor and Walmart – along with such diverse locations as MLB stadiums and airports …
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Last month, Google announced its future plans for Android Wear, including an update with offline music support and GPS functionality. Earlier this week, an update started rolling out to select Android Wear devices, bringing the beginnings of those features, but now Google has officially announced the update in a post on the official Android blog.
Motorola this afternoon started rolling out a minor update to the Moto 360, bumping to build number KGW42R. The update, in the grand scheme of things is relatively minor, but does fix several bugs that have plagued Motorola’s Android Wear smartwatch since launch.
Last week, Motorola finally took the wraps off of a handful of new products. The new Moto G and Moto 360 went on sale almost immediately, but the new Moto X was teased as being available later this month. Today, however, the company has officially announced that starting Tuesday, September 16th, you will be able to pre-order the new Moto X for AT&T. The unlocked, “Pure Edition” of the device will also go up for pre-order that same day.
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MceLc7-w1lQ]
Logitech today announced a new Bluetooth Multi-Device Keyboard (K480) that doesn’t just make switching between devices easy, it also doubles as a stand for your smartphone or tablet. While Logitech has made similar keyboards previously that let you switch between connected devices, the new keyboard adds a “Easy-Switch dial” that makes it super easy to switch between three devices on the fly:
Now you can type a report on your computer and, with the flick of the Easy-Switch™ dial, respond to a message on your smartphone and type a tweet on your tablet. The universal keyboard can connect to three different Bluetooth wireless devices at once, whether you are using a Windows®, Mac® or Chrome OS™ computer, or an Android™ or iOS tablet or smartphone.
The keyboard is available now in the US and Europe for $50 in two color schemes (white & black). You can images of the two colors below and see more specs and order the keyboard now on Logitech’s site.
Toshiba upped its already solid Chromebook game today with the aptly-named Chromebook 2 laptop. With an optional 1920×1080 pixel display, Haswell processor, 4GB of RAM, HDMI AV out and AC/Bluetooth 4 wireless, it ticks most of the boxes on what you’d want on a high end laptop. It even claims 11.5 hour battery life and new forward facing speakers designed with help from Skullcandy.
It comes in starting at $249 for the 720P 16 Model and is set for release on Oct. 5
Spec sheet follows:
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Locks always struck me as the perfect application for Bluetooth LE: walk up to the lock, it detects the phone in your pocket or bag, checks the code and unlocks. If you need to let someone else in, you authorize their app on a one-off or permanent basis. Simple, secure, convenient.
There are a bunch of Bluetooth door locks on the way, so why not a Bluetooth padlock too? Noke is a Kickstarter campaign for a $59 lock where you simply click the hasp to unlock. Provided your phone is with you, and the app code matches the lock, it opens without key or combination. The app is compatible with any Android handset or iPhone that supports Bluetooth LE.
Cleverly, you can also program the padlock with a Morse code-style pattern that you can click to open the lock if your phone battery is dead.
The campaign has an ambitious $100,000 target, so it’s by no means certain it’ll get funded, but as with all Kickstarter campaigns you lose nothing if it doesn’t make it. $59 is the Kickstarter price, with a planned retail price of $99.
The campaign doesn’t say anything about the security credentials of the lock, so it’s probably best considered something for relatively low-security applications like gym lockers and ‘cafe locks’ for bikes (ones you use just to stop someone hopping on and riding off while your bike is within sight).
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdcWd594lRw]
If you’ve ever wished your motorcycle had better mirrors, or that you could get directions from your GPS without taking your eyes off the road, the Skully AR-1 may be the answer. Billed as “the world’s smartest helmet,” it incorporates a head-up display to show the view from a built-in 180-degree rear-facing camera as well as turn-by-turn directions from the integral GPS …
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After weeks of leaks, rumors and speculation, the NVIDIA Shield Tablet and Wireless Controller have officially been announced this morning. NVIDIA posted a series of videos on their YouTube channel promoting the new device with the slogan “high-performance gaming everywhere”.
In terms of aesthetics, the device looks like we imagined. It features dual 5MP cameras, dual front-facing stereo speakers, and an 8-inch, 1920×1200 display. The specs under the hood are equally impressive. The device boasts an NVIDIA Tegra K1 GPU, an ARM Cortex A15 CPU clocked at 2.2GHz, and 2GB of RAM.
In terms of pricing, there are two different models of the device. A 16GB WiFi variant and a 32GB WiFi + LTE version, selling for $299 and $399, respectively. Both models will ship for a July 29th release.
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Following a leaked image of the supposed NVIDIA Shield tablet yesterday, more details have emerged regarding the company’s future plans. According to information obtained by video game website “Video Cardz,” NVIDIA has a new lineup of devices called the “Shield Family” planned. Included in this line-up is the Shield gaming tablet, as well as a Shield Controller.