US Army will test a smart grenade launcher that hits hidden targets
After years of work, Orbital ATK (born from Orbital Sciences) is close to delivering a clever weapon that could help American soldiers in very tricky situations. As of early 2016, the US Army will start acceptance testing for the XM25, a smart grenade launcher that can defeat enemies behind cover. In normal use, all you have to do is point at an enemy (up to 1,640 feet away) and let the XM25’s laser rangefinder decide when your grenade explodes. If a target is hiding, however, you can dial in extra distance (up to 2,300 feet away) and explode the grenade in mid-air. Troops theoretically don’t have to expose themselves to line up a shot — they just pick a close-enough point and pull the trigger.
If and when the XM25 enters service will depend on how well the testing goes. However, this may be more of a formality than a make-or-break trial. The Army used a handful of prototypes in Afghanistan back in 2010, and it was clearly happy enough with the live combat results to move ahead. So long as the launcher enters widespread use relatively quickly, it could do a lot to end firefights quickly and keep soldiers safe.
[Image credit: US Army, Flickr]
Via: Ars Technica
Source: Orbital ATK
Blocks wants your help funding its modular smartwatch
After a long, long development process, Blocks is getting relatively close to releasing its modular smartwatch — and it wants your help making that final push. The startup has launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund its customizable wristwear. Pledge $195 and you’ll get the circular core watch, which gives Android devices and iPhone the fundamentals like activity tracking, phone alerts and voice control. However, things get really interesting when you drop $250 or more — you’ll get at least four modules that can add everything from advanced fitness tracking to GPS to mobile payments. The hope is that you’ll get just the smartwatch you want, rather than settling for whatever other manufacturers feel like giving you.
Provided everything goes well, you’ll get your timepiece around May 2016. That’s still several months out, but it’s clear that Blocks now has a concrete path to making a real, shipping product. It has a promising future, too. There are plans for more first-party modules with cellular access and fingerprint readers, and Blocks is hoping for third-party modules that add functionality you might never have anticipated.
Source: Kickstarter
DARPA’s new program plans to stimulate your nerves for self-healing
DARPA wants to modulate your nerves. The research agency’s new Electrical Prescriptions (ElectRx) program is designed to discover the science and the technology that will stimulate the peripheral nervous system to detect and fight diseases. The nerves in this complex system are critical to all sensory and motor signal communications in the body. They constantly maintain and monitor your health status. When these nerves pick up a disruption, like an infection or injury, they trigger an automatic response in the brain or spinal cord that adjusts the workings of an affected organ to activate healing. But sometimes, when a disease compromises this natural flow of signals, the nerves produce a signal of pain or lead to autoimmune disorders, even diabetes. ElectRx is designed to address this glitch in the human system.
“Through the combination of a growing understanding of how the nervous system regulates many aspects of our health and advancing technology to measure and stimulate nerve signals, I believe we’re poised to make fundamental changes to the way we diagnose and treat disease,” program manager Doug Weber said in a statement. To that end, seven teams of researchers have been selected to research and demonstrate a way to modulate the nerves artificially so a healthy signal flow can be maintained for self-healing.
The agency’s goal is to be able to prescribe a “therapeutic stimuli” when “unhealthy activity” is diagnosed. The teams will work on both experimental research and established technologies to discover and demonstrate the science needed to achieve that goal. At the end of the four-year program, DARPA hopes to implement the system in clinical trials as an alternative to traditional treatments for chronic pain, inflammatory disease, PTSD and more.
“DARPA has identified the gaps of knowledge and they have divided it into different areas,” Elisa Konofagou, professor of biomedical engineering at Columbia University, who will be leading her team through the research of non-invasive ultrasound for neuromodulation in the program told Engadget. “They’re hitting all the marks – the physiological relevance, clinical relevance and the technical challenges. [In the program], we have optical, magnetic, acoustics and electrical devices. So they’re approaching it from all sides and trying to see which ones will be relevant for which organs.”
Konofagou’s team is on the experimental side of the spectrum. Instead of looking at electrical stimulation, which she believes is the most intuitive but also the most invasive because it requires electrodes to be implanted deep in the body, her team is working on an alternative. “We want to use a surrogate, which will be ultrasound,” she says. “It has the potential of being applied non-invasively and can be used to be focused at different depths.” At the end of phase one, which will span the first two years of the program, the team will need to demonstrate proof of concept in mice before moving on to behavioral testing and efficacy stages of the stimulation.
ElectRx is as much about about finding the science needed to maintain good health as it is about understanding the mechanisms that make it possible. In this case, Konofagou’s team will study mechanical waves of an ultrasound to see why they might bring about the desired stimulation. “The mechanism is the most challenging because as engineers we like to run with whatever works and we don’t always care why it works,” she says. “That stuff takes a much longer time to figure out. But DARPA wanted to figure this out too.”
[Image credit: Adam Gault via Getty Images]
Comcast puts more internet video on your X1 cable box
You probably don’t think of your cable box as a place to watch online video, but Comcast is determined to provide more reasons to stream from your set-top: it just brought over 30 new internet video sources to the X1. Virtually all of the content comes from big-name TV networks like ABC, BBC America, Discovery and (of course) NBC. Their offerings initially focus on news and sports, but they’ll eventually include more extras and “complimentary” productions. This shouldn’t be a mere rehash of what’s already on your DVR, in other words. No, this won’t persuade you to keep cable if you were already thinking of cutting the cord. However, it might serve as a nice complement to the TV you’re already watching — you can stream that behind-the-scenes bonus clip while remaining planted on the couch.
Source: Comcast
[TA Deals] Pay what you want for the Mobile-First Developer’s Bundle
Learning how to develop games and apps for smartphones has never been easier, or cheaper, than the Mobile-First Developer’s Bundle that you can grab from Talk Android Deals. Whether you want to focus on iOS or the world’s most popular mobile operating system Android, the Mobile-First Developer’s Bundle will jump-start your learning curve, and it won’t cost you an arm or a leg either.
The Mobile-First Developer’s Bundle includes the following 8 courses which you can snag for as little or as much as you want. That’s right, you decide how much you want to pay for the bundle, that includes:
- Learn Android Development from scratch
- Learn Swift Programming Step-by-Step
- Learn to build Mobile Games using Unity 3D
- Projects in HTML5
- The Ultimate Android Course for Complete Beginners
- Learn iOS 8 Mobile App Design and Make Top Money
- Create a Native App for your WordPress Website in 8 Days
- Mobile App Design in Sketch 3: UX and UI Design from Scratch
If you decide to beat the average price for the bundle, which currently stands at around the $8.65 mark, you will also get the following two courses thrown in as well:
- Monetize Your App: Major Advertising Networks
- The Complete Android Lollipop App Development Course
The Mobile-First Developer’s Bundle represents huge value for money, with the 10 courses being worth $1,740 collectively. Regardless of how much you decide to pay for the bundle, ten percent will be donated to the Project Hope charity. So what are you waiting for? Whether you are just starting off or considering a change in career, it all begins with one small step, right here, right now.
Come comment on this article: [TA Deals] Pay what you want for the Mobile-First Developer’s Bundle
Moto G (3rd Gen) coming to Republic Wireless
Republic Wireless, a carrier known for offering low-priced smartphones and plans that take advantage of multiple cell and WiFi networks, announced today that the third generation Moto G would be available for use on the network soon. Launching with Republic Refund plans, the Moto G will be the third device officially offered by Republic Wireless (the second generation Moto E and Moto X are already available for purchase). The Republic Refund plans give users several options and price tiers, depending on what they need. Here’s the breakdown:
- The $5 plan will give users unlimited WiFi calling, texting, and data
- For $10, the Republic Refund Base Plan offers unlimited WiFi calling, texting, and data, as well as unlimited cellular text and calling
- The $25 Republic Refund Plan offers all of the above, plus 1GB of data on the 4G network
- For $40, that 1GB is bumped up to 2 GB
- Each additional GB after 2 will cost an extra $15
To refresh your memory, the third generation Moto G is packing a 5-inch 720 x 1080 display, Android 5.1, a 1.4GHz Snapdragon 410 processor, a MicroSD card slot, 13MP rear camera, 5MP front camera. It’s available in 8 or 16Gb variants, which come with 1GB or 2GB of RAM, respectively. Republic is pricing the 8GB Moto G at $199, and the 16GB model at $229.
We don’t have a release date as of yet, but the product page at Republic’s website says “coming soon.” We will continue to update you when we get more information on the Moto G and Republic Wireless!
The post Moto G (3rd Gen) coming to Republic Wireless appeared first on AndroidGuys.
All-In-One Toolbox keeps your phone up to speed [App Review]
If you’re running a budget Android device, it can be rather daunting to experience slow speeds and lag. Fortunately, there are a few solutions, and today we are going to take a look at one of the simpler fixes: A performance boosting app. While there are several on the Play Store, we’ve got our hands on one of the better ones: All-In-One Toolbox.
Setup
Unlike most other cleaning apps, the All-In-One Toolbox app is straightforward from the moment you click the app icon. You’re taken directly to the main screen and don’t have to sign up or read boring tutorials. Once you are in, you can tweak a wide plethora of settings. Mostly related to features of the program, you can adjust anything from the notification icon to enabling silent boot (which mutes sounds at boot up and shut down).
Features
The first thing that you may notice is the simplicity and cleanliness of the app. There are no confusing sections or areas to get lost in. One central place branches off to the features, and it’s a breeze to use.
Speaking of features, there are three main tools for you to use. “Clean” is a function to clear out storage hogs by cleaning the cache and any excessive files that the app detects. It cleared out 1.12GB on the first clean, proving its effectiveness.
You also get “Boost”, which is designed to clean up RAM and memory. You can select which processes you want killed, and 567MB got cleaned the first time around. However, the majority of this will soon come back so it’s more of a gimmick than an actual useful feature.
And lastly, there’s the “Toolbox”. This divides into many handy tools, such as App2SD and Backup & Restore. These features allow you to move apps to your external SD card and create a backup of content before you reset your phone. This also rids the need of having several different apps to fulfill these actions.
Perhaps the best feature here is the ability to download plugins. Some of these include “GameBooster Plugin” and “AppLock Plugin”, all features that you can easily get if you want them. Again, these may come in handy as they eliminate the need to have several different apps that take up large storage space.
Everything was smooth and no glitches or lag was experienced. There are adverts, but these can be removed by purchasing the full version, in-app, for $3.99.
What we liked:
- Clean and easy user interface
- Range of handy features
- Stability and effectiveness
And not so much:
- Annoying notifications
- Advertisements
4 out of 5 stars
At the end of the day, the All-In-One Toolbox app is really ideal for users who have poor performance from their devices. The effective range of features leaves no one in the dust with a slow phone.
The post All-In-One Toolbox keeps your phone up to speed [App Review] appeared first on AndroidGuys.
2015 iMac Reviews: ‘Best All-in-One’ Desktop, But Lacks USB-C and Fusion Drive Isn’t Standard
Apple today launched new 4K and 5K iMacs alongside the Magic Keyboard, Magic Mouse 2 and Magic Trackpad 2. The refreshed all-in-one desktop computers feature faster processors and graphics, two Thunderbolt 2 ports and more affordable Fusion Drive storage upgrade options.
Following the announcement, several media outlets have published hands-on reviews and first impressions of the new iMacs, including Ars Technica, CNET, Engadget, Macworld, Mashable, Tech Insider and The Wall Street Journal. Many of the reviews also provide a closer look at the new Magic accessories.
The early reviews of the new iMacs are generally favorable, with high marks awarded to their improved displays with wider color gamut. The 2015 models are widely considered among the best desktop computers available, but some critics view the lack of USB-C and base configuration of 5400 RPM hard drives as shortcomings.
Then there are the frustrating choices Apple has made across the lineup: No Thunderbolt 3 or USB Type-C even though those technologies are apparently ready to go, and no standard Fusion Drive or SSD in any but the top-end 27-inch iMacs. At $100, the jump to a Fusion Drive (albeit a smaller one than in years past) is cheaper than ever, but Apple could really afford to stick that 24GB drive inside every single one of these iMacs to alleviate the unmitigated misery that is using a 5400RPM hard drive in a $1500 desktop computer in this the year of our Lord 2015.
If you’re OK with the list of omissions and you can spring for the storage upgrade, the 4K iMac gets you a great professional-quality screen and a powerful quad-core processor for a pretty reasonable price. The 27-inch iMac is the computer that most blurs the line between consumer all-in-one and high-end workstation, but as long as you aren’t gaming you can get some pretty serious work done on the 21.5-inch iMac. But if Apple can make Fusion Drives and 4K screens standard on all iMacs when the Skylake refresh comes around, we won’t have much left to complain about.
For everyone else, even if you don’t regularly view 4K content, a sharp-looking Retina-level display is one of those things that’s nearly impossible to give up once you get used to it, and the new 4K iMac is competitively priced with the handful of 4K-display Windows PCs we’ve reviewed.
If you have a model from the past few years, this isn’t a must-have upgrade, but it may certainly be worth picking up the new keyboard and mouse or trackpad to give your older iMac a facelift.
The iMac is still the best all-in-one, with an attractive (if predictable) design, near-standard 4K and 5K screens, and even better color accuracy than before. The 21.5-inch version is in some ways the more interesting of the two models, as this is the first time the smaller Mac has been offered with a Retina display. […]
As you can see, then, the iMac mostly hits the right notes, although I wish Apple were more generous with the other specs — besides display quality and resolution, that is. The 21.5-inch version is no longer offered with discrete graphics, not even on the 4K edition, which seems like a mistake. Meanwhile, hybrid Fusion drives only come standard on machines priced from $1,999.
When four pixels are doing the work that only one used to do, the El Capitan interface really shines. Everything’s sharper. Photos look startlingly real, almost like they were printed on paper. And then there’s text, which looks razor sharp like it just rolled out of a laser printer. Even toolbars and Dock icons are more pleasant because all the on-screen graphics have added subtle details that were impossible at lower resolutions. […]
The base storage configuration of the 4K iMac is a 1TB, 5400rpm hard drive. It’s been a few years since I regularly used a Mac with a spinning disk as its primary hard drive, and man, did it feel slow. Starting up was slow. Launching apps was slow. Everything… just… took… longer. It’s disconcerting to take a brand-new, top-of-its-line Mac out of the box and be disappointed by how sluggish it feels, but that’s what I experienced, and it’s pretty much down to that slow hard drive.
Apple did change how the Fusion Drive works in 2015. To allow for a lower-cost Fusion Drive option, Apple paired a 1TB hard drive with a 24GB SSD. In the past, the 1TB Fusion Drive matched a 1TB standard hard drive with a 128GB SSD. Now, if you want the 128GB SSD, you’ll need to have a 2TB or 3TB Fusion Drive offering.
The upside of the new Fusion Drive configuration is that it makes the feature — and its faster response times — affordable for anyone. The downside is you don’t see speed improvements of documents and apps offloaded to the SSD as much because the cache is smaller.
It’s not just about resolution though. The new iMac screens can show color better too. […]
But the average person probably won’t notice. I had to look at side-by-side comparisons to really see what has changed. This feature is better for photo and video professionals, not necessarily regular users who just want to do some light editing of photos they took with their iPhone. Just know that you’re getting a really nice screen and that Apple took the extra step to make sure it keeps getting better. Nothing wrong with that.
iMacs:
When you look at these new iMac screens, reds and greens in particular look brighter or more vibrant, like somebody cranked up the saturation dial to 11. With 25% more colors to work with, there’s also more detail because the monitors aren’t eliminating certain hues.
With an old and new iMac side by side, I could spot the difference on some photos, but not all. One problem is that many of our photos—including ones taken with the latest iPhone 6s—are saved in a reduced color palette called sRGB. To take advantage of the new screens, you need images or video saved in a format called DCI-P3. (Not coincidentally, the Mac’s Photos app can now save to that format, but you’ll have to start with high-quality images, like from a DSLR.) […]
Amid this flurry of iMac improvements, two mysteries remain. First, amid the rabbit warren of ports at the back of the iMac, Apple didn’t include a port called USB Type-C—used on the new MacBook laptop (with some controversy) for charging and input alike. Not including USB Type-C on the iMac sends an odd message about Apple’s commitment to that burgeoning standard.
Magic Keyboard, Mouse 2 and Trackpad 2:
I haven’t had a chance to test how long the batteries last, but Apple reports all three can go for about month on a single charge, and the mouse can give you a nine-hour day’s worth of pointing and clicking with a two-minute charge.
Apple’s new 4K and 5K iMacs, Magic Keyboard, Magic Mouse 2 and Magic Trackpad 2 are available today.
Apple’s Input Design Lab Reveals Secrets Behind Development of New iMacs
Recently, Apple let Medium behind the doors of its Input Design Lab while the company was in development for the new set of iMacs and accessories that just launched today. While visiting the lab, journalist Steven Levy got some behind-the-scenes glimpses of the “fanatical” production process taken by the team at Apple, and even discussed topics — like the iMac’s relevance — with a few Apple executives.
Highlighting Apple’s laser focus on details, Levy relates a story of how the Magic Mouse 2 initially “stirred consternation and late nights” among its creators due to the sound it made as it was moved around being “not right.” While the team had kept the overall look and feel of the mouse the same as its predecessor, the internal changes had altered the amount of friction between the device and a table, thereby changing the sound it made.
“When we did the previous mouse we spent so much time dialing those feet, the material, the geometry, everything, so that it sounds good and feels good when you move it on the table,” says John Ternus, whose title is VP for Mac, iPad, Ecosystem and Audio Engineering. “But then you change the mass of the product and you change the resonant frequency of the product and all of a sudden the feet that we loved weren’t great anymore. They weren’t what we wanted.”
With the impending launch of the iPad Pro and the growing reliance on mobile computing over heavy desktop use, Levy also brought up the topic of the iMac line and its relevance in 2015 with Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior VP of Worldwide Product Marketing.
Schiller explained Apple’s products as a continuum, where you use the “smallest possible gadget to do as much as possible before going to the next largest gizmo in line.” Starting with the Apple Watch, to the iPhone, iPad, and so on, he states that users shouldn’t frantically try to use all of the company’s products at once, but do as much on one at a time before needing to pick up another.
“…The job of the iPad should be to be so powerful and capable that you never need a notebook. Like, Why do I need a notebook? I can add a keyboard! I can do all these things! The job of the notebook is to make it so you never need a desktop, right? It’s been doing this for a decade. So that leaves the poor desktop at the end of the line, What’s its job?”
“Its job is to challenge what we think a computer can do and do things that no computer has ever done before, be more and more powerful and capable so that we need a desktop because it’s capable,” says Schiller. “Because if all it’s doing is competing with the notebook and being thinner and lighter, then it doesn’t need to be.”
When asked about the possibility of introducing an iOS-like multitouch display into the iMac line, the team behind the desktop computers remained adamant against such a move. Schiller reiterated that any input on a desktop that sits above keyboard level feels “uncomfortable” and that the iMac was built from the ground up with a cursor input in mind.
“iOS from its start has been designed as a multi-touch experience — you don’t have the things you have in a mouse-driven interface, like a cursor to move around, or teeny little ‘close’ boxes that you can’t hit with your finger. The Mac OS has been designed from day one for an indirect pointing mechanism.
These two worlds are different on purpose, and that’s a good thing — we can optimize around the best experience for each and not try to mesh them together into a most-common-denominator experience.”
The entirety of Medium‘s report from the Input Design Lab at Apple is well worth a read, as it goes far more in depth with topics like the new iMac’s color spectrum and even the technology, design, and instrument testing that resulted in the new Magic Mouse 2, Magic Trackpad 2, and Magic Keyboard.
Moto 360 (2nd Gen.) review
With Motorola kicking off the round Android Wear smartwatch trend last year with the original Moto 360, there was a palpable anticipation as to what its follow-up would bring. Its successor, however, enters a smartwatch market that has seen rapid growth in the number of premium, round-faced, smartwatches, with various OEMs throwing their hats in the ring.
In the face of this increased competition, does the latest smartwatch iteration from Motorola manage to stand out? We find out, in this comprehensive Moto 360 (2nd Gen.) review!
Design
As far as the design is concerned, Motorola tries to inject much of their smartphone buying experience into the second generation Moto 360, introducing the customization capabilities available with Moto Maker for their latest smartwatch. Granted, the level of customization on offer isn’t as robust as what is available with their flagship smartphones, but you do get to choose between different sizes, the design on the bezel, the color of the metallic case, and various watchstraps. This is a pretty important part of the Moto 360 experience now, with the user having a lot of control over how the watch looks.
Apart from the availability of Moto Maker, the new Moto 360 has changed quite a bit from the design language of its predecessor, with positive effect. A metallic body can now be finished in a few different colors, and the aluminum bezel can also be given a patterned design, called Micro Knurl, although that will set you back an additional $20. The crown-like button has now moved to the 2 o’ clock position, and has a very solid click to it. Motorola certainly isn’t trying to hide the button either, with it being quite large and obvious, with a lining around it, and the Motorola logo on it.
The main design additions are the nubs on the top and bottom, which are a much-appreciated departure from the watchstrap location found with the original Moto 360, and makes it very to easy to switch out the watch straps, especially with the inclusion of the quick release pins. There are also a couple of options available as far as the size is concerned. Seen in this review is the 46 mm version, which can be very big for those with smaller wrists, but a 42 mm iteration is available as well.
The way the nubs are designed actually add to the overall aesthetic, with their rigid angles fitting in nicely with the large body, which is just over 11 mm thick. This thickness isn’t unsurprising when considering other smartwatches on the market, but Motorola does seem to acknowledge the rather large size, especially of this 46 mm iteration, better than others. Motorola knows that their smartwatch is bulky, and makes every design element reflect that. Industrial might be the best way to describe each and every part, with straight lines everywhere, instead of more curves that others have added for a perception of luxury.
Display
Motorola was the first to bring the round watch face form factor to the Android Wear game, but the company did receive a lot of flak for the inclusion of the infamous “flat tire,” a small portion on the bottom that houses the ambient light sensor. In terms of utility, its presence isn’t as big of an offense as some believe, and now that it returns with the Moto 360 (2nd Gen.), seems to be more like a defining design trait. Motorola continues to justify its existence as the location for the sensor, which provides the benefit of smaller bezels.
As far as the display itself is concerned, the IPS LCD screen features a 360 x 330 resolution, and is protected by a Corning Gorilla Glass 3 panel. The 46 mm iteration comes with a 1.56-inch display, while the smaller version features a 1.37-inch screen.
The display performs as well as it should. Daylight viewing is pretty good at the highest brightness settings, and the ambient light sensor means that the user will not have to micromanage the screen. As is the case with any mobile device, the screen can still be a nuisance in dark situations, like in movie theaters, and some input will be required on the user’s part to enable Theater Mode. With it featuring just a slightly higher resolution and resulting pixel density when compared to its predecessor, the display experience isn’t all that different this time around, and for viewing and controlling Android Wear, it continues to get the job done.
Performance
Under the hood is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor and 512 MB of RAM, and given the fact that this is the de facto processing package for Android Wear, the new Moto 360 won’t let you down as far as performance is concerned. As such, swiping among all of the different notifications and cards were smooth and snappy, and extra input methods are available via companion applications and voice input.
We did have a few issues with getting the watch to recognize our voices with the “OK Google” prompt, which is certainly odd, with the device coming from a company that has been famously good at sound and voice recognition. Granted, these issues are common with other smartwatches when using them in really loud environments, like when driving a car, but we felt that these issues were even more common with the Moto 360 (2nd Gen) than most of its competition. For fitness tracking, Google Fit and Moto Body do try and provide some insight on your step count and lost calories, but these numbers tend to be pretty arbitrary. Then again, with a metallic body and leather or metal strap, this smartwatch might not be an obvious fitness companion anyway.
Hardware
In hardware, we start with the typical heart rate monitor that is available with almost every Android Wear smartwatch out there. In this case, it works well enough for the user that is curious about their current heart rate, and it can be used during workouts to get a little more fitness insight. The Moto 360 (2nd Gen) does come with IP67 certification for resistance against dust and water, but if you decide to go with a leather strap, having one makes this a watch that you will probably be removing before getting into any water-based situations anyway.
As already mentioned, the performance of the microphone is a little uneven in its performance. It failed to register the voice prompt a noticeable number of times, even when not in a particularly loud environment. It felt like consciously speaking into the microphone hole in the bottom left corner was required, and that little bit of necessary awareness was something that should ideally not be needed.
In battery, Motorola brings back their wireless charging dock, that makes the watch a kind of landscape bedside clock while charging, and remains one of the better smartwatch charging implementations out there. The battery gets a small bump to 400 mAh, and the battery life available with the Moto 360 (2nd Gen) is pretty standard. About a full day of use is possible, but it generally won’t go much beyond that. With charging times of around an hour and a half to get to 100 percent, placing the watch on the charger at opportune moments can keep it going easily throughout the day however.
Software
Finally, on the software side of things is Android Wear, which hasn’t changed a whole lot since the original Moto 360. Aside from being a notification machine, with the cards and Google Now suggestions, functionality stays pretty standard across the board. You are essentially just swiping all over the place, and occasionally using your voice to trigger a few functions.
Companion applications can be used when applicable, but as nice as some of them are, it is a small fraction of the overall Android Wear experience. The ability to respond to messages via voice input is always nice to have, but you do have to be wary of outside noise and that might make things difficult. Motorola adds in a number of functions through the companion smartphone app, and also includes customizable watchfaces, but going through the Google Play Store to find even better ways of customizing the experience is certainly the recommended way to go here.
Gallery
Pricing and final thoughts
The price of the base model of the Moto 360 (2nd Gen) is higher that it was with its predecessor, at $299, not including additions like the patterned bezel for $20, the gold body for $30, and metal bands for $50. While the hike in the price point is a bit of a bummer, changes in the overall design of the smartwatch, and the addition of the Moto Maker experience, keep the watch from feeling like a forced acceptance, because you are responsible for how it turns out.
Looking back: Moto 360 review – probably the best Android Wear smartwatch yet
So, there you have it, for this in-depth look at the Moto 360 (2nd Gen)! Overall, the latest smartwatch offering from Motorola is a worthy update to the original, that benefits from the company’s customization system. Its big size may be a concern for some, but a slightly smaller iteration is available for those who want it, and all said and done, this kind of size has become pretty commonplace with smartwatches. Android Wear continues to be as standard as ever, and even with Motorola trying to add some extras, the shell of the device itself feels more important than what it is ultimately presenting. Thankfully, you get more control over that than with most other devices out there, and we think that is the main selling point of the Moto 360 (2nd Gen).
AIVAnet 