Fitbit Launches Blaze, Its First Smartwatch With Some Fashion Sense

Last year was a big one for Fitbit. In April, Apple threw down the gantlet to wearables and fitness- tracker makers with the Apple Watch, and in June Fitbit went public in a larger-than-expected initial public offering. With its first major release since these milestones, Fitbit has come out swinging by introducing the Blaze, the company's first smartwatch with some fashion sense.

Strictly speaking, the Blaze isn't Fitbit's first smartwatch. That honor goes to the Surge, famously worn by President Obama when cruising around with Jerry Seinfeld or walking the First Dogs. Still, the Blaze is Fitbit's first watch that doesn't look like something you might use for help in scaling Everest. The silver and black watch definitely looks a little like its fruit-branded competitor, but it sports an open lug design that makes it appear a little lighter on the wrist. The face still looks like a screen, but at least it's one that wants to make a good impression.

A bunch of band options let you customize the Blaze. It comes with one of the textured rubber bands familiar to Fitbit customers, in black, plum, or blue, and you can purchase additional rubber straps, real leather bands, and a metal bracelet to swap in if those are more your speed. The tracker itself (the black square unit) swaps in and out, and the bands are integrated on the silvery frame around it. At least at launch, you won't be able to buy the Blaze in its native state on any band other than the active rubber, emphasizing that, at its core, this is a smartwatch meant for fitness.

This brings us to an important point: The Blaze isn't a smartwatch that you can weight down with apps or customize to organize your entire digital life. It is primarily meant to be a detailed fitness tracker that can be worn all the time, offering a few additional features for convenience. Apart from interacting with Fitbit's own fitness app, the Blaze can push calendar appointments, calls, and texts, but it doesn't get into the weeds with such things as e-mail or Twitter notifications.

The screen is a full-color display, with a soft (but not dull) appearance. You can navigate menus with the push buttons on the frame or use the touchscreen itself. Workouts and sleep are automatically detected and the heart rate monitor functions continuously, minimizing the number of times you have to fiddle with it when you're merely doing daily activities. The Blaze does need your phone to get GPS data, but this helps with the multi-day battery life that Fitbit believes is crucial for a product like this.

The Fitbit Blaze will set you back $200 (roughly Rs. 13,350) for the tracker and the rubber strap that's included. Additional rubber straps will cost $30 (roughly Rs. 2,000), leather options are $100 (roughly Rs. 6,680), and the steel bracelet is the most expensive, at $130 (roughly Rs. 8,676). Fitbit plans in the coming months to offer additional options made with fashion partners such as Tory Burch.

While the base model is less expensive than Fitbit's Surge, adding the leather or metal band places it squarely in price competition with the likes of the Apple Watch Sport and the Moto 360.

"It's important to understand that Fitbit has a singular focus on health and fitness," said Fitbit CEO and Co-Founder James Park in an email when asked about competing with other smartwatches. "With the introduction of the Fitbit Blaze, we have developed a smart fitness watch that is fitness first, has the most relevant smart features that won't overwhelm users ... This focus is our competitive advantage."

The Fitbit Blaze goes on sale Wednesday via Fitbit's larger retailers such at Amazon, Best Buy, and Target in the United States.

Asus launches ZenWatch 2 in India through Flipkart

Taiwanese tech giant Asus has launched launched two variants of its ZenWatch 2 in India. Both the watches are available on Flipkart.

The ZenWatch 2 is available in two sizes -- 1.63 (WI501Q) and 1.45 (WI502Q) and has been priced at Rs 14,999 and Rs 11,999 respectively.

The device comes with an option to mute an incoming call on the smartphone by covering it with your hand. It also features "Find My Phone" for identifying your phone`s location.

Ideal for businesspersons, it has "Business Helper" to quickly access upcoming agendas, mails, and call log right from your wrist. It also doubles up as the user`s health companion by tracking fitness activities with industry-leading accuracy.

The ZenWatch 2 works on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor with a 512MB RAM and has a 4 GB internal memory.

Available in interesting colours -- Silver and Gunmetal for WI501Q and Silver for W1502Q -- the watches come in two strap variants - rubber and leather.

iPhone 7 to Ditch 3.5mm Jack; Apple to Launch Wireless Headphones

Another rumour is pointing to the demise of 3.5mm headphone jack on the iPhone 7. 

A report coming out of iPhone supply chain with allegedly "confirmed" information added 

that Apple will release wireless earphones alongside.

Citing people in the iPhone supply chain, Andrews Forum reports that the iPhone 7 will not 

have a 3.5mm jack. This, however, doesn't mean that your existing EarPods won't be 

compatible with the iPhone 7. The report adds that Apple will make available a 

Lightning "convert up" to allow headphones with a 3.5mm outlet to be used with 

the Lightning connector.

Last year, a report claimed that Apple was planning to ditch the 3.5mm headphone jack in 

an attempt to make the iPhone thinner by 1mm. The new report has corroborated he 

reasoning, adding that Apple also plans to promote its wireless headset. The previous 

report also claimed that the Lightning connector will retain the same size, and will also 

come with a digital-to-analogue converter for backwards compatibility with wired headphones.

The removal of headphone jack might not sit well with users. Almost every smartphone, 

tablet, desktop, laptop currently ships with this audio port. But considering Apple's past 

record, removal of the 3.5mm port doesn't seem unlikely. The company ditched the 

compact disk drive from its computer lineup with the MacBook Air, and soon many rival 

manufacturers were doing the same. Last year, the company launched the MacBook 

which has just one USB Type-C port for data transfer and power input.

Besides, the Cupertino-based company has been hinting at its dislike towards the 3.5mm jack for a while now. In 2014, the company introduced the MFi (Made for iPhone) program specifications 

to allow third-party manufacturers to make earphones that could be connected to the iPhone 

or iPad via a Lightning cable. Philips Fidelio NC1L, which features battery-free active 

noise cancelling technology,connects to an iPhone via a Lightning cable.

Oculus is giving out free Kickstarter Edition Oculus Rift to initial backers

Oculus has come a long way and on the eve of the pre-order launch, the company has decided to give something back for backers who pledged and supported them at the very beginning. The VR headset maker has decided to give out Kickstarter Edition Oculus Rift VR headsets to initial backers for free.

The same was announced on Kickstarter, which is where it all began, and those who backed the project in its initial days will get receive an email with information regarding how to obtain one for free. As for availability, backers will get their special edition headsets by 1 February.

Also if you belong to a country where Oculus is currently not shipping its consumer edition headsets to, you get special privileges as backer. Details about the same will be conveyed in an email from Kickstarter.

So far the only confusion seems to do with the Touch controllers, to which Oculus founder Palmer Luckey tweeted that pre-ordering the VR headset will also put you in to be eligible to buy the controller. The headset also works well with Xbox controllers.

A couple of hours from now Oculus will be hitting a big milestone with pre-order for its Oculus Rift VR headset going live. The company has come a long way and is now owned by Facebook. While there are plenty of indicators that VR is going to be big this year, things may head south as not all systems will be able to support VR headsets. Oculus even has a webpage and is now branding gaming systems with its ‘Oculus Ready’ standard.

Last we heard just one percent of the currently available PC’s worldwide will be able to run VR headsets and deliver the optimal experience. Another problem is to do with content. For now every pre-order will get owners a copy of Lucky’s Tale and EVE: Valkyrie. Sony on the other hand seems pretty comfortable developing content for its PlayStation VR platform.

Twitter planning 10,000-character limit for tweets: Report

Twitter Inc is building a new feature that will allow users to post tweets as long as 10,000 characters, well beyond its current 140-character limit, technology news website Re/code reported on Tuesday.

An expansion of the limit to 10,000 characters would allow a tweet of more than 1,000 words with spaces between words and punctuation. For comparison, Lincoln's Gettysburg Address was 272 words, and President John F. Kennedy's inaugural speech was 1,366 words.

Twitter may launch the service towards the end of the first quarter but has not set an official date, Re/code said, citing sources familiar with the plans. They said the character limit could change before the final version of the product is unveiled.

Jack Dorsey, the company's co-founder, who returned as chief executive in October, in a series of tweets did not say whether Twitter would expand the limit. But he did call it "a beautiful constraint."

He added that the company has seen more people sharing screenshots of text, which are a way to get around the 140-character limit.

"We're not going to be shy about building more utility and power into Twitter for people," Dorsey wrote in a screenshot of text that was longer than 140 characters.

"As long as it's consistent with what people want to do, we're going to explore it."

The micro-blogging website, in an attempt to keep the current look for the Twitter timeline, is testing a version of the product that displays 140-character tweets but expands to reveal more content when users click on the tweet, Re/code said.

Twitter has been experimenting under Dorsey to make the service more engaging.

In the few months since Dorsey returned, Twitter introduced the 'Moments' feature, added polls to tweets, rolled out a "buy" button and replaced its star-shaped "favourite" icon with a heart-shaped icon called "like."

Twitter has come under increasing pressure to boost user growth and ad revenue. It had its slowest user growth in 2015 - it now boasts just over 300 million users - and was eclipsed by photo-sharing app Instagram, owned by Facebook Inc, which surpassed 400 million users last year.

On Tuesday, however, some users took to Twitter to express their opposition to the possible longer tweet with the hashtag #beyond140.

"Just say no to #beyond140!," Andrew Wright tweeted.
Re/code reported in September that the new feature was in the works.

Twitter declined to comment.

This report clocks in at 407 words and 2,569 characters.

Amazon Echo to help people get in shape

 have all heard about the benefits of exercise. In fact, we all aim for a healthy living which means more energy, better mood, weight loss and stronger bones. We often depend on personal trainers in the gym to get in shape, but what if a device helps you in work out.

Yes, you heard it right, Amazon, the American electronic commerce and cloud computing company, has launched Echo personal assistant (powered by Alexa) with new features which will help an individual in the work out. For instance, he or she will be provided with 'a set of exercises designed to increase metabolism, improve energy, lower stress and remove fat'.

According to The Verge, Amazon said in a statement: "We can't help but wonder how helpful workouts by voice command will be, but maybe we shouldn't judge until we try it out ourselves."

Amazon Echo is a wireless speaker and voice command device from Amazon.com. The device consists of a 9.25-inch (23.5 cm) tall cylinder speaker with a seven-piece microphone array. The device responds to the name "Alexa"; this "wake word" can be changed by the user (to one other choice at present: "Amazon".)

The device will cost $99 for Amazon Prime members (for a limited time) and $199 for the rest.

LG Nexus 5X Review- Superb Plastic Smartphone

Google has continued its association with LG and this year also launched new Nexus 5X made by South Korean giant, which is renowned for its famous range of G series of smartphones. Google has also come out with Nexus 6P made by Huawei, which is very high-end smartphone and is quite expensive compared to LG Nexus 5X because of its high-end features and form factor.

Design

The new LG Nexus 5X design has been borrowed from LG Nexus 5, which is simple piece of soft plastic. In this age of metal and glass covered smartphones, LG has not adopted the metal and glass combination in its new Nexus device and made it with fine and refined plastic, which does not look cheap at all. It is made entirely of high quality plastic with rounded corners and the rear of the device has a matte finish, which gives it good look, prevent fingerprints and also provide easy grip. This device may not look premium but still is attractive and being of high-end plastic used, it is lightweight and weighs just 130 grams. It can be easily tugged in your pockets and you can easily operate it with one hand as it has compact display of 5.2 inches.

The Nexus logo and LG branding, which is painted, has been provided on the back and the rear camera protrudes a little bit but that does not make much difference as we have seen such bulging camera even on high-end Samsung Galaxy S6 also.

The power button and the volume rocker are placed on the right side which are very easy to press. The SIM card slot has been provided on the top left side and a microphone and front camera on the top. The headphone jack and the USB Type-C port is placed at the downside. The USB Type-C port is the new standard adopted by many vendors and LG has followed the new trend in its latest iteration. But the only drawback is that the that the cable coming with the box is USB Type-C on both ends, and you must remembe always to keep handy the supplied charger and cable for charging the device.

The device comes with a single front-facing speaker at the bottom chin, which provides good sound. The call quality of this phone is also fine and we did not face any issue even in basements.

Display

The Nexus 5X sports a 5.2-inch IPS LCD display, with a Full HD resolution having a pixel density of 424 pixels per inch. This size of the display is ideal for your work and watching content provided you are not fan of big size screen. The display is quite sharp and it has very good viewing angles and reproduces natural colors. You will enjoy your streamed content and watching Youtube content on this screen. The text appears crisp on the screen and while browsing various websites, we enjoyed the reading content on the screen as well. Like any other high-end smartphones, which do not provide good reading experience in direct sunlight, this phone also has same issue but you can still manage with the highest level of brightness.

Performance

The LG Nexus 5X is driven by a hexa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 processor, clocked at 1.82 GHz compared to Snapdragon 800 which powered the earlier Nexus 5. It comes with an Adreno 418 GPU, 2GB of RAM and 16GB or 32GB of internal storage, which is not extendable. Since the internal storage is not extendable, we suggest to buy the 32GB variant and 2GB of RAM is quite sufficient for normal usage but had LG provided 3GB then it would have been one more plus points in favour of this device.

Coincidentally, this is the same processsor, which LG has used on its flagship device, LG G4 and performance of new Nexus 5X is very fast and it runs like a breaze. While using the Nexus 5X, we observed that there are no issues as far as running of apps and switching between the apps is concerned. This phone handles multi-tasking smoothly and you can play resourceful games on this phone without any lag or hiccups.

Fingerprint Sensor

One of the highlights of LG Nexus 5X is its fingerprint scanner on the back, which Google calls Nexus Imprint. The scanner is located on the reverse of the smartphone behind the rear camera. This has been placed at very appropriate place where your index finger can reach easily. The fingerprint scanner responds very fast and you can wake up and unlock the device simultaneously by single tap which is very accurate. Moreover, it is very easy process to setup and you are required to complete 5 taps to register a fingerprint.

The other beauty of the fingerprint scanner is that it is very easy to use and faster in recognising compared to premium Samsung Galaxy S6 which I have been using for over six months now. You can touch the scanner from any direction of your finger and it will still recognise it. This fingerprint scanner responds very fast and my experience is that it takes less than half a second to act.

Battery

The LG Nexus 5X gets its juice from 2700mAh (embedded) battery, which is good enough to last full day with an average use. But if you are using the phone heavily like playing too many games, surfing a lot and frequent visitors to your social networking sites and turning to Youtube  very often in the day then you are advised to keep a power charger handy. The saving grace for this phone is that it comes with Doze feature introduced in Android 6.0 Marshmallow OS, which detects when your phone is not being used actively and will take it to sleep mode so that the battery consumption could be curtailed. This phone does not come with wireless charging but the provision of fast charging is there and this phone easily gets charged to full from 0 in approximately 90 minutes.

Camera

Google Nexus smartphones were criticised for not equipped with the good quality cameras and this time Google has addressed this issue very carefully. This time both the LG Nexus 5X and Huawei Nexus 6P provide the enhanced and almost the same camera experience.

The Nexus 5X has the same 12.3MP rear camera with 1.55µm sensor and f/2.0 aperture , which has also been provided on the more expensive Huawei Nexus 6P. This camera does not have optical image stabilisation (OIS), which is quite useful feature for clicking images in low-light. But Google has compensated the absence of OIS with 1.55um pixels, which is capable of capturing more lights than those smartphones cameras having OIS. The Sony IMX377 sensor provided on LG Nexus 5X is quite impressive and you can record slow motion video at 120 fps, which is quite interesting feature of this camera.The other high-points of Nexus 5X camera is its IR laser-assisted autofocus and its capability to shoot 4K video at 30fps. It also houses a 5MP front shooter with f/2.2 aperture which is quite good for the selfies.

We clicked few images and found the results looking very good on the phone. The clicked images appeared sharp,  crisp and came with detailed contrast. The few samples captured in daylight and in the dark are reproduced below:

Images clicked in the night:

Marshmallow OS

Google Nexus devices are popular for clean, true and latest Android experience. Google has taken this plus points forward by introducing LG Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P with the latest Android Marshmallow 6.0 OS out of the box. Moreover, the owners of the latest Nexus devices will have the advantage to get the latest updates first and this is the reason that many users adopt Nexus devices for pure Android experience and to avoid unnecessary bloatwares. Compared to other vendors, which do not update their phones easily or do not do at all despite their tall claims at the time of launch, Google does not disappoint its users and hence one of the best reasons for grabbing this device.

Although there are not dramatic changes in the Google OS from Lollipop to Marshmallow but still many useful features have been added in the latest 6.0 OS version, which enrich the experience of LG Nexus 5X. And some of these features are Doze, battery saving feature; upgraded Google Now for accessing the feature within applications by holding down the home button; new charging speed indicator, new window animations, improved notifications, faster app search etc.

Verdict

If you are planning to buy no-non sense phone and do not care much about metal and glass and can definitely consider LG Nexus 5X which comes with very improved camera features, provide true Android experience and also with assurance of timely updates. Its Fingerprint scanner is the best among the leagues and its processor does not heat up the way other devices get heated up having Snapdragon processors. The only drawback we can point out for the sake of pointing out is its plastic body, non expandable internal storage and Singel SIM support. We would advise you to opt for 32GB variant.

LG Nexus 5X was launched in India two months ago at Rs. 31,900 for 16GB and Rs. 35,900 for 32GB variants, which we opined that it is on little bit higher side keeping in view of today’s landscape. Similar phones with minor differences in specifications such as Moto X Play and Moto X Style, which also provide almost the pure Android experience are available at less prices. But of late, LG Nexus 5X is now available at reduced price of Rs. 23,000 for 16GB and Rs. 31,000 for 32GB variants, which make them good buy at these prices.