Google Glass may have been one of tech's main talking points over the past 18 months or so, but it is by no means alone in its quest to introduce face computers to the fore. In fact, one of its main competitors, GlassUp, is busily showcasing its first prototype at CES this week, and although it doesn't have the kind of resources of the Mountain View-based search giant, its efforts are certainly impressive nonetheless.
CES always kicks the tech calendar off with a bang, and having already seen Pebble's Steel smartwatch, Samsung's curved television sets and other such niceties, Sony has come through with its own interesting product for the mobile scene. After a successful launch of the PlayStation 4, the Japanese company has refocused its attention on its smartphone endeavors, and the Xperia Z1 Compact is a device that brings typical high-end features and hardware, but on a smaller scale than the Xperia Z1.
Apple has today announced that January 10th will be the date for its annual 'Red Friday' sale for consumers in Asian countries. The special one-day shopping event takes place around the same time every year, representing a chance for technology aficionados in participating countries to get their hands on some Apple merchandise at often heavily discounted rates. Although the event is officially a Lunar New Year sale, due to the fact that it takes place a few weeks before the Lunar New Year, it's affectionately given the Red Friday title as it's thought of as being the Asian variant of Black Friday.
This year's Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada, has so far managed to throw up all kinds of interesting surprising and often bizarre innovations. We've seen Parrot showcasing the insane Jumping Sumo, listened to Pebble introducing the next-generation of smartwatch and watched as Orbotrix highlighted the features and versatility of the new Bluetooth controlled Sphero 2B. The show isn't over yet, so there's still plenty more to come, including Intel’s announcement of the Edison, a "full Pentium-class PC" that's the size of a standard SD card.
If you're an iOS device user with a keen interest in snapping photos to share with friends and family, then the limitations placed upon the native Mail app will definitely have caused you some concern. For reasons beyond our comprehension, Apple saw fit to limit the amount of photos that can be attached to an email to five, meaning that anyone wanting to send more than that would need to go through mail compose process multiple times. The very popular Mail More Photos tweak that originally resolved this issue in 2012 has now been updated with iOS 7 and ARM64 support to ensure that modern device users can continue to enjoy a limitation free Mail app.
Widgets are wonderful things, but if you're on an iOS device, they're few and far between. In fact, the only way you can really enjoy a widget on an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch is to jailbreak, and since we're now in the midst of a universal untethered break across the board, now would be as good a time as any for widget fans on Apple's mobile OS to stock up. If you're of the social networking persuasion, then Share Widget, which allows you to post to multiple platforms in one fell swoop, may be of interest to you. It is a Cydia-based tweak, and you can check the details after the leap.
The Pebble Smartwatch was arguably the first of its kind, and prompted an unprecedented response on Kickstarter when its campaign began in 2012. A year since the launch of the first model, Pebble is back with a vastly different version, the Pebble Steel, comprised of steel and looking every bit like your typical watch. At $249, the new smartwatch as just been unveiled at this year's CES trade show, and with a dedicated app store also in the works allowing users to better find content for their wrist computer, it's clear that Pebble wants to step things up considerably.
2013 saw many great announcements and releases in the tech world, yet not even the latest Apple smartphone could upstage the inevitability of the next-gen console wars. Both Sony and Microsoft came through with their respective PlayStation 4 and Xbox One machines after months of teasers and revelations, and although it's too early to determine which of these two titans will reign supreme, both have enjoyed impressive starts in the video game market. Yusuf Mehdi, VP of Marketing, Strategy and Business for the Xbox, has written a reflective piece on the early progress of the latest and greatest, revealing that over three million units have been sold across 13 different countries already.
History has shown us time and time again that the companies who often provide the best products and solutions are the ones that have experience within the field and industry that they are trying to penetrate. Of course, this isn't always the case, but it definitely does help to have an intricate knowledge of the industry your product is going to be launched in. The OpenWays Group, a company specializing in providing smartphone based door locks to hotels, has extended its range of locking solutions by introducing the OKIDOKEYS, a new smart lock spin off that it hopes will capture a significant portion of the consumer section of the industry.
The Consumer Electronics Show (CES), held annually in Las Vegas, Nevada, has always been an arena for companies to showcase their latest and greatest products. Some use it as an opportunity to introduce periodical updates to existing consumer tech, whereas others seize the chance to introduce a whole new product to what is essentially a captive technology loving audience.
