The era of wearables shone bright at the International Consumer Electronics Show this year. Slowly, the bulky, unattractive gadgets make room to elegant and fancy ones. Here are some of the most stylish pieces that stole the spotlight in Las Vegas. Stelle Audio Earbud Locket. The creators of the design-focused audio products befriended high-end fashion with wearable necklaces and earbuds. The relationship materialized into a beautiful Bluetooth earbud system shaped into a lovely crystal necklace. This gives the headphones an extreme makeover – they roll up nicely into a crystal locket necklace that look great even while not in use. Set up is side-aided by voice prompts guiding the user through the Bluetooth pairing. The controls are on the locket itself, eliminating the trouble in finding the cord that has the set of controls. It has a built-in microphone which allows for hands free calls with the sound quality is standard with 6mm drivers. The rechargeable lithium-ion battery is said to last through 10 hours of use. The necklace comes in two colors: onyx and seabreeze. It will become available in February at $199. Swarovski x Misfit Shine – they formed a team that designed the Swarovski Shine collection, a fancy set of fitness- and sleep-tracking jewelry. The collection features nine pieces that include watches, pendant necklaces, and bracelets with Swarovski’s looks and Misfits’ brains, able to detect steps taken, calories burned, distance walked, and sleep quality. The sparkling tech-jewels require no charging and have a battery lifetime of up to 6 months. The collected date syncs with your smartphone by simply placing the Swarovski Shine Activity Tracking Crystal on your smartphone touch screen. The preorders start at $169.99 and go up to $249.99. Bang & Olufsen premiered BeoPlay H8, the wireless headphones with...
Myo Armband
Multi-faceted wearable tech
Canadian startup Thalmic Labs blew people’s minds back in 2013 when they presented an armband that empowered the wearer to control several kinds of technology using simple hand gestures. The Myo armband changes the way we interact with everyday computing devices. Seeing how it works is like glimpsing into the future, or at Iron Man Tony Stark’s gesture-controlled hollo-computer. What is Myo? Myo is the most natural way yet to merge technology and people. Myo seems to be the next step after we’ve hit the limits of today’s form factors, whether they are personal computers, tablets, or smartphones. Thalmic Labs’ armband is a gesture control device that is placed around the widest part of the forearm. A piece of software displays a series of training gestures to get you accustomed to the interface. The gestures are simple: bend the open hand left or right, sweep the forearm left or right, spread out the fingers, clench into a fist, press the thumb against the pinky. The last gesture is the one that awakes and puts Myo to sleep. Also, when slipping it off your forearm it automatically goes to sleep, saving the battery life. You might need to reposition either your arm or the armband to have it recognize the gestures, but once you figure it out, it’s easy to use. In case you worry that if won’t fit your forearm, Thalmic Labs say that the armband was created using a comfortable flex technology which allows for one-size-fits-all design, and it comes equipped with 10 sizing clips. Myo comes in black and white. It weighs 93 grams, 0.45 inches thick. It’s expandable between 7.5 – 13 inches (19 – 34 cm) forearm circumference. How does it work? Myo uses Bluetooth Smart technology to connect...
Apple’s Autumn Crop
iPhone 6, Apple Pay, and Apple Watch
In the technology world, autumn brings with it a new line of Apple devices. From the stage of the Flint Center in Cupertino earlier this week, the launch location of Macintosh and iMac, Tim Cook announced the arrival of the new generation of iPhones and the debut of the company’s much-anticipated first wearable, the Apple Watch. Continuing last year’s trend, the company introduced two models of iPhones: the 4.7-inch iPhone 6 and the 5.5-inch iPhone 6 Plus. Their enlarged sizes flaunt curved edges with a thinner figure of 6.8 mm and 7.1 mm, respectively (the iPhone 5S is 7.6 mm thick). The curved glass screen melds smoothly into the aluminum body, and the power button has been moved on the right side of the device for easier one-hand use. With the ability of one-hand use in mind, Apple included a new smart feature called Reachability that minimizes the display, bringing the items from the top of the screen to the bottom of it, in order to reach all of the onscreen by double pressing on the home button. Furthermore, the landscape mode has been intelligently modified into a two-pane display, following the design used on Macs. For instance, when viewing iMessages or email, the left side shows a list view of the messages/emails, while the right side shows the contents of the message/email. The homescreen will also work on the horizontal position. Both phones come with Retina HD Displays that show off 1334 x 750 (326ppi) and 1920 x 1080 (401ppi) respectively. The expected sapphire display cover wasn’t used on the iPhone, but an ion-strengthened glass with an improved polarizer meant for better outdoor viewing. Focused and Fast The rear camera is still at 8-megapixel f/2.2, but adding some new features announce a vastly improved picture quality. One of these features is the Focus Pixel, designed to speed up autofocus, while auto image stabilization will take care of motion blur and hand shakiness. The face detection capabilities have been improved, the exposure is more controllable, and the Panorama feature now supports high-resolution photos of up to 43 megapixels. Video can capture 1080 HD at 60fps, while iOS8 has introduced a new 240fps slo-mo mode and time-lapse video. The front camera has been improved to FaceTime HD with a new sensor and an f/2.2 aperture, capturing 81 percent more light, thus taking better photos in low-light. Between the aluminum and ion-strengthened glass purrs the second generation 64-bit A8 processor; smaller than the A7 in the iPhone 5S, is able to deliver 25 percent faster CPU performance while being 50 percent more energy efficient. The new M8 coprocessor measures data from the accelerometer, compass, and gyroscope, and introduced the barometer that measures elevation, in addition to steps taken and distance traveled. The two chips and the Apple gaming technology, Metal, support developers in creating console-like games on the smartphone. Connectivity was improved to offer faster LTE reaching up to 150 Mbps. The new iPhones include support for Voice over LTE (VoLTE) which translates to higher-quality phone calls over LTE and, for the first time, through VoLTE, users on CDMA networks like Verizon will be able to use voice and data simultaneously. Wi-Fi 802.11ac is three times faster than its predecessor, and the iPhone 6 supports calls over Wi-Fi, a solution to the situation where a cellular connection is lacking. Can Apple Pay make credit cards passé? Touch ID is present on both devices and is an integral part of Apple’s new Apple Pay mobile payments initiative using its Near Field Communication (NFC) antenna. The three terms used to describe the service are Easy, Secure, and Private. It’s easy because with just a fingerprint, Apple Pay allows users to pay at already thousands of retail stores, by simply waving the newer iPhone or Apple Watch in front of a reader. For security, the owner’s thumbprint scan on the smartphone is required before...
