Lenovo Smartband SW-B100 fitness tracker quietly listed on company’s website

Lenovo is poised to enter the emerging wearables market with its first wearable device, the Smartband SW-B100. The Smartband has been listed on the product page of the company’s official website. Smartband SW-B100 targets young people who are interested in new technological fitness tracking devices.

Early this month, Android Police spotted this device in an FCC filing along with many photos and a copy of its user manual.  Based on the photos, it looks like Lenovo is giving Android Wear a skip and the Smartband SW-B100 will have a basic operating system. The bracelet design and clasp of the device looks similar to Samsung Gear Fit.

The Smartband has features similar to other fitness wearables. It helps you to track your daily exercise, heart rate and sleep. It also sends notifications which you can customize to improve the efficiency of your personal life and work. It can log in automatically  to a PC without you having to enter a password.

Various features of Smartband SW-B100 include:

• Exercise Tracking: The Smartband can keep track of Steps, Distance, Calories and Heart rate. You can get its daily, weekly and monthly data graph in APP.


• Sleeping Tracking: It can track sleep and provide daily, weekly and monthly data graph in APP.


• Smart Device Interaction: The device can call or message alerts and reminders with number or name.


• Alert Reminder: It has a smart clock and gives appointment alerts and exercise reminders.


• SNS sharing: enables sharing of track information to main SNS

The device works with Windows PCs as well as Android and iOS phones. Requirements are Win8 and above, Android 4.3 and above, and iOS 7.1 and above.

According to the website, the Smartband will be available in blue and orange colors. Details about its display, battery etc. are not available. It is also not mentioned when the device will become available and what will be its pricing.

Lenovo Smartband SW-B100 fitness tracker quietly listed on company’s website

Three Android Apps Made By Microsoft Came To The Play Store

It seems like Microsoft employees like making apps for android in their free time. A group of Microsofties at Microsoft Garage developed three neat apps for the Android platform. These apps are called Next Lock Screen, Journeys and Notes, and Torque. For those of you who don’t know, Microsoft lets their employees projects in their spare time. This is called Microsoft Garage.

Next Lock Screen by Microsoft Garage

Next Lock Screen is an application that replaces your default lock-screen with a more business friendly version. It displays information like reminders, tasks, phone calls, and meetings on the screen. Some items can be swiped to see more information about them. Even conference calls can be joined through this lock screen application.

This app also lets you see the most frequently used apps in the docked area below, and multiple dynamic wallpapers change in the background as well.

Journeys and Notes

The Journeys and Notes app allows you to share information about your journeys. Its a social app that tries to help people share information about certain routes and commutes. If you enter the relevant information, you will find input by other users of the same app about that route.

You can also write some of your own comments. Its a fun way to kill some time and maybe help share interesting facts about places in the route.

Torque (Android Wear)

The smartwatch application Torque was also developed by the Microsoft Garage group. It helps you perform a quick voice-activated search by a flick of the wrist. It uses the Bing search engine for every query.

Three Android Apps Made By Microsoft Came To The Play Store

Sony may launch a new 12-inch Tablet in Q1 of 2015

Sony Mobile is rumored to be working on a large 12-inch tablet, which it is planning to launch in the first quarter (Jan-March) of 2015. This hint has come from supply chain makers in Taiwan. According to sources, this will be a high-end tablet with a stylus and will be primarily meant for graphics. This means that the tablet will cater to a niche market.

Unfortunately, no other details about the tablet are known as yet but since it will be high-end, it will have a high resolution screen and a great processor. If it is made a part of the Xperia family, it will have a thin water proof body.

Apparently several other mobile manufacturers are also planning to come out with big size tablets next year. Although the demand for larger sized tablets is expected to be moderate, the vendors are keen to enter this market segment.

Sony had recently unveiled the small sized Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact at the IFA. Currently, Sony’s largest Tablet is the Xperia Z2 Tablet having a 10.1-inch touch screen. Other large-sized tablets available in the market are Samsung Galaxy Note Pro with a 12.2-inch display and Microsoft Surface Pro 3 having a display of 12 inches. Apple is reportedly working on a new huge 12.9-inch tablet that will be powered by A8X chipset.

Sony is expected to unveil its new 12-inch tablet at either the CES or the MWC in 2015 possibly along with its next flagship, the Xperia Z4.

Source DigiTimes

Sony may launch a new 12-inch Tablet in Q1 of 2015

Google Keeps Options Open for Android Wear to be Cross-Platform

Android Wear is normally referring to a wearable device which provides you with information when you are on the move.  One of the trending wearable devices currently is the smartwatches. Smartwatches sometimes are platform specific device and it is limited. For example, Tizen smartwatches is only working with Samsung Android devices.  One of the common usages for Android Wear is for the fitness tracker segment. Some smartwatches even allows the users to receive or reply notifications or messages by using voice command.

Since there is news recently that Google has made Google Glass compatible with iOS, many wondered whether Google could bring Android Wear compatible with iOS also in the near future. Android Wear product manager Jeff Chang is not ruling out it either.

“We always want as many users as possible to enjoy our experience, so in terms of enabling more people to use Android Wear we’re very interested in making that happen” Said Jeff Chang.

Well, that statement itself hinted a possibility of it happen but we are also not sure when it is going to happen. It sounds like the Android Wear team will seriously thinking about how to make that happen. Well, let us just hope so!

Google Keeps Options Open for Android Wear to be Cross-Platform

Reports show that some retailers are not very keen on supporting Apple Pay

There is a lot hype created with the Apple’s recently launched Pay system Apple Pay these days. However, it seems that its certainly not going to be cake walk for Apple to establish this method in mobile. This is because recently a number of very high profile retailers like BestBuy, Rite Aid and Walmart have announced that they would not support this latest creation from the Cupertino giant.

Some merchants have even disabled or modified the NFC readers in their stores to shut out the Apple Pay. The reason behind all these is said to be the Current C which is a payment system backed by some of the retail heavy-weights that aims to cut off credit or debit card processing fees by directly taking the money from user’s bank. The CurrentC is all set to be launched next year and would have a dedicated app for iOS and Android. Apart from just being a payment platform, this app would also serve as a platform for retailers in order to offer promotions to consumers.

There is a big list of CurrentC backers that includes Walmart, Kmart, Sears, Bad and Beyond and other US gas station chains. We don’t know how far would CurrentC be a success but for the time being it has certainly raised worries for Apple and pitched in a new competition ahead.

Source 1 | Source 2

Reports show that some retailers are not very keen on supporting Apple Pay

Apple to Rebuild Beats and Integrate It Inside iTunes

Since Apple has acquired Beats by Dr Dre earlier this year, the tech giant company is planning to rebuild Beats Music and integrate it into iTunes by next year. This movement is done in the hope to bring up Apple’s iTunes service sales which is currently declining. The revenue from the service is down 13 to 14 percent this year until the moment when this article was posted. It is a big jump compared with the 2.1 percent decline in the previous year.

It is not confirmed whether there will be a free streaming option offered when it is re-launches. Beats Music is priced at $10 monthly, with no ad-supported business model like Spotify. Beats has also recently launched an Apple TV channel and released a “Listen Now” integration with Shazam.

Before the acquisition by Apple, Beats is making headphones, therefore, that was one area whereby we expect this movement would help Apple. However, while integration with iTunes would makes sense, Steve Job’s biographer Walter Isaacson mentioned that Beats will be exploring possibility to be video content providers.

The official announcement could come as soon as in the first half of 2015. We are excited but we only can wait and see.

Apple to Rebuild Beats and Integrate It Inside iTunes

The New Samsung Galaxy A7 Has A 1080p Screen And 64 Bit Processor

Puzzlement about the screen resolution of impending Samsung Galaxy A7  for a last few day. We get the information from reliable sources they said that the secreen resolution will be 720p but from the other side they tell the screen resolution is 1080p.for conformation about this leak information the Agent Profile confirms rhar the screen resolution will be 1080p number for the SM-A700FD. this device have a dual-SIM feature with this  feature now user can use multi SIM at one time. Now we will talk about the screen that will be diagonal 5.5″, generous 400ppi pixel density, up from Galaxy Alpha’s 312ppi.

The summary they also disclose that the Galaxy A7 will have a 64-bit processor (ARMv8-A instruction set) and will be clocked at 1.5GHz.The Galaxy A3 is a Level A series of phone has a 64-bit processor, Snapdragon 410, having 1.2 GHz Quad-core Cortex A53 processor. According to the rumors and User Agent profile processor will be 1.4 GHZ. its looks like Galaxy A5 will use the same chipset.Galaxy A7 will go up to Snapdragon 61x or simply go for an over clocked 410 it’s not conform.The Samsung Galaxy A7 installed the Android 4.4.4 KitKat Operating system. There cost will be round about 450$ to 500$.

http://www.gsmarena.com/leak_samsung_galaxy_a7_to_have_1080p_screen_64bit_processor-news-10034.php

 

The New Samsung Galaxy A7 Has A 1080p Screen And 64 Bit Processor