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It’s an interesting time to be a watchmaker. Big companies like Motorola have been bringing smartwatches to market, and smaller companies like Pebble have raised a lot of buzz for wristwatches with ePaper displays, customizable software, and more.
Heck, one of the main characters on a prime time TV show is a clockmaker.
Anyway, there’s a new smartwatch in town. It’s called the AGENT, and it syncs with your smartphone, offers long battery life, and works with a Qi wireless charging pad.
Here’s a roundup of tech news from around the web.
- AGENT Smartwatch hits Kickstarter, offers wireless charging, smartphone sync
The makers of yet another smartwatch are turning to Kickstarter to raise funds. This one’s got a few nice features including a sunlight readable display and support for wireless charging, and it’t not bad looking, to boot. I still don’t get how it’s raised over $300k in such a short time though. It’s still a watch. That’s selling for $149 and up at the moment. [Kickstarter] - E Ink shows off 3-color ePaper displays, coming to shopping store labels, not eBook readers
Tired of E Ink displays that only show shades of black and white. Here’s one that shows red too. But a 3-color screen isn’t really much use for reading eBooks, so these screens are initially aimed at electronic displays at retail stores and similar applications.. [The Digital Reader] - Here’s what it’d take to see $200 touchscreen PCs
A thought exercise looking at how Intel could help PC makers produce $200 tablets and touchscreen notebooks. Hint: lower the prices of the chips and motherboards. Of course, dropping the price of any component would probably help. [Computer Graphics World] - Synaptics launches ClearPad S7500 touchscreen tech for notebooks/tablets
Synaptics is best known for making touchpads (those things that hang out below your notebook keyboard). But the company also makes touchscreen tech, and today they introduced the new ClearPad S7500 for notebooks and tablets with screens up to 15.6 inches. [PRNewsWire] - Android TV box WiFi performance comparison
One of the biggest problems I’ve found with many cheap Android TV sticks and boxes if flaky WiFi. CNXSoft set out to compare WiFi performance of 9 devices… with odd results that show that your router setup might be just as important as choosing a good Android device. [CNX Software] - Earl rugged Android tablet has raised more than $215k so far toward a crowdfunding goal of $250k
The Earl tablet is a rugged Android tablet with an outdoor viewable display and a solar panel, among other things. Right now it doesn’t actually exist yet. But the developers are getting a little closer to their fundraising goal to turn the concept into reality. [Earl] - Report: HTC senior staff jumping ship, morale is low (as are sales)
Back when HTC was an OEM that made phones and PDAs for big brands, the company was kind of a big deal. But since HTC has started selling phones under its own brand, the market’s been much tougher… and now it looks like the US division is “in disarray” as senior employees keep leaving. [The Verge]
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Wow… even the UI seems to be a pebble ripoff.