IFA, one of the largest European tech shows, is rapidly approaching. And at about two weeks out, we’re seeing a litany of teaser vids showing off new gadgets. This year — much like the last — it’s all about smartwatches.
Almost a year to the day, we saw the IFA teaser for LG’s G Watch R, and now we’ve got another — Asus’ upcoming ZenWatch 2. In the teaser video, which you can watch riiiight here, the full image of the watch (top) pops up for a brief second, but the rest is filled with all the slow-mo, close-up gadget porn. We were pretty impressed with the ASUS’s first Android wearable, and hopefully this one will fix some of its few flaws.
But it seems that ASUS won’t be the only one with more wearable wares to show off. Samsung already teased the Tizen-powered Galaxy Gear S2 during the tail end of its Note 5 announcement:
Motorola may have announced all the smartphones it plans to make in 2015, but we’ve still got the refresh of the Moto 360 to think about, and this year, it may come in two separate sizes — according to documents passing through Brazil’s FCC. That watch may also be ready for primetime in two weeks. Basically what I’m trying to say is brace yourselves: The smartwatches are coming.
Modular smartphone woes: Among the many likely reasons why Alphabet’s decided to postpone its Project Ara experiment (with one probably being a collapsing Puerto Rican economy), the engineers say that the phone has one major problem — it can’t pass a drop test. Hopefully, the Ara team will work this out so our modular smartphone dreams aren’t completely dashed.
No more electropermanent magnets. #ProjectAra #FailedTheDropTest
— Project Ara (@ProjectAra) August 19, 2015
An all-new HTC: Taiwanese tech company HTC has definitely seen better days, but it’s not ready to throw in the towel quite yet. TrustedReviews reports that HTC’s next powerhouse may ditch the M9 branding, which was always a little clunky, for the more streamlined HTC o2 (that could just be a internal codename, as well). It’s reported to be running the powerful Snapdragon 820 processor, so it should be able to handle anything you throw at it. [TrustedReviews]
Autonomous cars the way they should be: If a car could drive itself without you needing to pay attention — let along be behind the wheel — what would you do instead? According to a Ford patent, you be loungin’. Ford is looking at a way that would basically turn your car into a four person lounge where you can relax, chat, or just take a nap if you want. Patents don’t mean products, and I think humans will need to evolve a little more before I’m able to completely let go of the wheel. [Business Insider]
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