Gadgets

By John McCann Introduction and display Wind the clock back to 2013 and the Pebble smartwatch was taking the fledging wearable market by storm, bringing notifications to the wrists of gleeful iPhone users. It wasn’t exactly a looker, and the e-ink screen was hardly eye popping, but it sold by the bucket load and it…

By Sarah Perez A company called Elemental Path is developing a new line of smart toys for children which will be powered by the super computing system IBM Watson, enabling the toys to engage in real and personalized conversations with kids, and evolve with the child as he or she grows. CogniToys, as the toy…

By Natasha Lomas From military deployment as remote surveillance and killing machines, to hobbyist toys, future delivery bots and now, coming later this year, stadium rockers… Drones have quite the application trajectory. Read More …read more Source: TechCrunch Gadgets

By Jon Russell LG was among the first wave of smartphone makers to venture into smartwatches. The G Watch and G Watch R are probably among the best in the market right now — not that this statement says much — but LG has just announced its latest addition, the LG Watch Urbane, as Apple…

By Darrell Etherington Nvidia has a streaming game service called GRID, which it debuted last year via its Shield dedicated Android gaming devices. The maker of PC and mobile gaming graphics hardware is dabbling in becoming more of a service provider with GRID, especially since it actually has the potential to cannibalize the sale of…

By Darrell Etherington Apple is indeed working on a car, according to the Wall Street Journal. The Mac maker kicked off a top-secret project tasked with developing an electric car with a minivan aesthetic, per the WSJ’s sources, after CEO Tim Cook approved the project nearly a year ago. It includes “hundreds” of staffers and…

By Jordan Crook,John Biggs,Greg Kumparak,Darrell Etherington This week, we saw a new iPad case that creates physical buttons at the flip of a switch, a TV that listens in on your conversations, and heard that Xiaomi is planning its entry into the States. It’s been hectic to say the least. Read More …read more Source:…

By Darrell Etherington We’ve already heard reports that Samsung could be pumping the breaks on TouchWiz with its next flagship, but a new report from the generally accurate SamMobile today says that it will also be removing most of its in-house pre-loaded software from the Galaxy S6, and instead offering a host of Microsoft’s smartphone…

By Darrell Etherington Sony’s SmartEyeglass Attach! is something it debuted at the Consumer Electronics Show this year, offering up a smart display module that adds connected intelligence to any kind of existing eyeware, be they optical frames, protective goggles or sunglasses. The concept design is very similar in practice to Google Glass, so it might…

By Natasha Lomas Scarab is a wearable device in the works whose makers are aiming to build a comprehensive environment monitoring device which contains 16 sensors to gather all sorts of environmental data-points such as UV exposure, noise levels and other pollutants. Read More …read more Source: TechCrunch Gadgets

By Juan Martinez When it comes to smartphones, all conversations should start with the HTC One M8 ($649, £549 and AU$899 off-contract) and the iPhone 6 (starting at $199 on-contract, £539 and AU$549 off-contract). Attempting to enter the arena of the big dogs, Asus’ new Zenfone 2 (starting at $200, £120, AU$210 for 2GB RAM)…

By Juan Martinez When it comes to smartphones, all conversations should start with the HTC One M8 ($649, £549 and AU$899 off-contract) and the iPhone 6 (starting at $199 on-contract, £539 and AU$549 off-contract). Attempting to enter the arena of the big dogs, Asus’ new Zenfone 2 (starting at $200, £120, AU$210 for 2GB RAM)…

By John Biggs As a longtime lover of all things Fitbit, I’ve missed the good old days. The bright, readable displays and the little tidbits like a slowly growing flower to indicate progress were a real joy back in 2008 when the company launched onstage at Disrupt. Now, seven years later, after multiple styles and…

By Darrell Etherington Windows 10 is coming this year, and a Technical Preview came out today. The Preview is limited in terms of devices it can run on, and in terms of features it offers, but it’s a start, and a first look at the next generation of Microsoft’s mobile OS. I loaded it onto…

By Kyle Russell I’m at the W Hotel in San Francisco to hear Xiaomi CEO Lin Bin and VP Hugo Barra give their pitch to Silicon Valley. We’ve been told we shouldn’t expect an announcement of the company bringing its products to the US, so the impression is that this is about explaining what Xiaomi…