The rumours, murmurs and whispers from a busy week in wearable tech
And finally is our round-up of all the wearable tech, VR and smart home news you might have surfed past in the last seven days of internetting.
You might think that with IFA just finished and some big announcements all round, the rumour mill would take a well earned break but as this week’s news tidbits prove, it’s done no such thing.
HTC is working on an Android Wear watch
First up and most intriguingly is the news of a smartwatch codenamed Halfbeak which HTC is building. Halfbeak would be its first Android Wear smartwatch and according to Phandroid it will have a round 360 x 360 display and will be announced at a launch event on 29 September.
HTC has been pretty cautious when it comes to wearables but if Halfbeak goes on sale before Christmas, it has a good chance of stealing away sales from the Moto 360 2015 and the Samsung Gear S2.
Withings Activité could get a luxury model
According to Withings’ CEO Cedric Hutchings, talking to Trusted Reviews, the brand could be working on proposals for a high end Activité watch. “We might do it,” said Hutchings.
But we won’t see fitness tracking watches that “put gold stuff and gold branding on so people will pay a lot’ and instead Hutchings will focus on building a premium wearable on its own terms.
Samsung Gear S2 is priced up in Germany
The facts are these – the Gear S2 will come in two flavours and go on sale in October. Now, onto the much more interesting speculation: Best Buy in Canada has put up prices for both models as CA$399 which is the equivalent of £260 for the regular model and CA$429 (£280) for the Gear S2 Classic.
And a German retailer has also leaked European pricing which looks like this: €379 for the Gear S2 and €449 for the Gear S2 Classic in Germany with rumours that the smartwatch will sell for $349 in the US.
We’ll keep you posted on any international prices that we get confirmed by Samsung.
Leap Motion offers big prizes to AR and VR devs
Registration is now open for Leap Motion’s 3D Jam competition and the prizes are now worth $75,000. Six OSVR Hacker Dev kits are up for grabs as well as NVIDIA GeForce graphics cards and Unity Pro licenses for developers making games for augmented and virtual reality.
There’s also a $50,000 cash prize split between the AR/VR track and the Open track which can include internet of things and robotic applications.