Garmin Fenix Chronos is about as smart as sportswatches get
Garmin has introduced a new premium version of the Fenix sportswatch. Based on the Fenix 3, the new Fenix Chronos packs in all the navigational and sporting nouse of the original, but places it in a high-quality design, at home in the wilds of the outback, or roughing it in the boardroom.
There are three major options, with a titanium band and body at the top level, along with a price of £1099. This model sits alongside an 316L stainless steel body option, which can be taken with either a metal band (£949) or a leather strap (£848).
The Fenix Chronos is built to last, with waterproofing to 100m and a sapphire display to avoid scratches.
There’s an optical heart rate sensor built into the back of the watch, which is packed with sensors, giving you GPS tracking, a barometer, altimeter and compass, allowing you to track your activities no matter where they take you.
To help you stay connected, the Fenix Chronos offers Connect IQ, Garmin’s system that will let you install apps and make other customisations to your device for a more personalised result.
The Garmin Fenix Chronos is something of an oddity, a crossover device that takes the £395 sportswatch and wraps it in a more premium, a watch that can be worn any time, any place, and still look good.
- Garmin Fenix 3: Adventure ready for any sport
- Best sports watches 2016: The best GPS watches to buy today
Sony Xperia XZ joins the Xperia X Compact leak party
We’ve been talking about a phone called the Xperia XR for a while – thought to be the latest Sony flagship, the replacement for what might once have been called the Xperia Z6.
It’s been a busy few days for Sony leaks: while we’ve seen the specs and some early photos of this forthcoming Sony handset, the name was still in some debate. However, that debate might have been set to rest thanks to a leak on Sony’s own website in the Czech (we think), which it the strongest indication of Sony’s next Xperia flagship name that we’ve seen.
TechTastic
The Sony Xperia XZ name hasn’t appeared before and its appearance on an official Sony website could mean that this is the go to market name for Sony’s next-gen flagship phone.
This name sits alongside the Sony Xperia X Compact name on the same website. For that device, @evleaks shared that with the world just recently, again, bringing authenticity to this latest leak.
The speculation is that these handsets are heading for Berlin, for a launch at IFA 2016. We’ve been following all the leaks relating to the Sony Xperia XZ, so you can get an eyeful of its probable design and specs right here.
- Sony Xperia XZ: Rumours, release date and everything you need to know
- Sony Xperia X Compact breaks cover, and you didn’t expect that
Russia’s free, PC multiplayer Halo game has been cancelled
Remember that Halo game you heard about that wasn’t launching in North America? Well, now it’s not launching anywhere. Halo Online was originally intended to be a free, multiplayer game designed exclusively for the Russian market. Despite launching a closed beta in its target market, the project’s staff has announced that Halo Online is no more. The game has been cancelled.
According to the Halo Online page on VK, Russia’s largest social network, the future of the game was in question for the last six months — with both the team and fans waiting on Microsoft for an announcement. The post says that Microsoft failed to make a decision during the past six months, but said it knows now that “the current form of the game will not be released.” Players have until the end of the month to use any in-game currency they might still have.
The game’s social pages are also being shut down, with staff stating that it doesn’t want to give the community false hope for a revival. “This decision was not easy for us,” the staff wrote on VK. “But we understand that there is nothing worse than uncertainty.”
Via: Polygon
Source: Halo Online
US banks will launch their Venmo competitor in October
In an attempt to add a little hipness to personal banking, a consortium of US banks has been quietly working on its very own Venmo competitor. While the details of the service are currently a little thin at the moment, the Wall Street Journal reports the banks have landed on a name: “Zelle.” As in: “Hey, I forgot to bring cash for this pizza, can I just zelle you some dough?”
According to one of the Journal’s sources, the name is meant to evoke “the speedy gazelle,” but (name aside) Zelle is intended to be the banking industry’s savior in the mobile payments space. The service has actually been available for some time under as clearXchange, but never saw much promotion. Although some banks offered the service to their users, it was buried within their proprietary mobile banking services and it lacked a dedicated app. Although it’s not a bank itself, Venmo is owned by PayPal and works with most bank accounts or debit cards.
In 2015, clearXchange was acquired by Early Warning, a joint fraud protection operation owned by Bank of America, BB&T, Capital One, JP Morgan Chase, US Bank and Wells Fargo. The newly branded Zelle, however, is expected to debut at a payments industry conference sometime in October. Their target, meanwhile, has quietly been expanding beyond person-to-person payments and rolling out new features like more third-party support to allow purchases from a variety of merchants.
Source: Wall Street Journal
Wander through ‘Dear Esther’ on PS4 and Xbox One next month
Before Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture, indie developer The Chinese Room (TCR) wowed people with Dear Esther. The first-person narrative started as a mod for Half-life 2 in 2008 before the team released it as a standalone game in 2012. At that point, the game sold 16,000 copies on Steam in its first five-and-a-half hours and the team recouped its development costs ($55,000) in one fell swoop. Next month, it’ll finally grace the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in the form of Dear Esther: Landmark Edition. Fun fact: Original financier Indie Fund proposed releasing the game on PlayStation Network instead of Steam. So this is kind of a four-years-in-the-making homecoming for the game.
Come September 20th, $9.99 will net you the game with “graphical and gameplay tweaks.” Remastered audio is on deck in addition to larger subtitles and a crosshair. But maybe the biggest addition here is a commentary track featuring TCR’s Jessica Curry, Dan Pinchback and Rob Briscoe detailing the development process and its place in the grand scheme of gaming.
To hear a live version of that, The Guardian is hosting a “Directors’ Commentary Directors’ Commentary,’ according to a press release, where Pinchback and Curry will do a live commentary. As you might expect from the event’s name, of course. Tickets for that are £10 ($13.19) and are available directly from The Guardian; it takes place at The Scott room in London.
For a slightly different live version of the game, The Barbican is offering a performance of the soundtrack, conducted by Curry, who composed the score. There will also be a live playthrough (with narration by BAFTA-winner Nigel Carrington) of the game during the October 14th event held at the Milton Court Concert Hall.
Not bad for what started as a mod, right?
Source: The Chinese Room
HTC’s A9 15-day update pledge goes out the window
Travel back to October 2015, when the HTC A9 was shiny and new. Amid the controversy about the price and availability — too much and too little — or how it was just a copy of the iPhone that was just a copy of the HTC M9, there was a small glowing nugget of sunshine. A promise of software updates within 15 days of Google’s official phones.
Did you hear that? The Unlocked A9 will receive every Google SW update within 15 days of Nexus devices! #BeBrilliant
— HTC USA (@HTCUSA) October 20, 2015
At the time, I was skeptical and took this to mean monthly updates (which didn’t happen either) because of the way Android is developed in the Google vacuum instead of out in the public like a proper open-source thing. There would be too many things to go wrong, and when they all went wrong there was no way Google was going to hold off updating a phone because HTC needed more time. In any case, none of it matters now.
HTC tweeted a small and generic update schedule for the phones they are planning to update to Android 7.0, and we’re going to be waiting to see anything for the A9 until sometime after the HTC 10 gets updated in Q4 (October, November, and December) of 2016. I’m not a smart man, but I know what love is and I can count to 15. HTC was able to give us a statement when we asked about the discrepancy.
With the excitement around Android Nougat, we’re aligning engineering resources around our most popular flagship products where the most customers will benefit.
This doesn’t matter. Waiting for an update never hurt anyone, and even if they wait until the very last day in 2016 the A9 will get updated long before many other phones. But HTC has been in this game long enough to know that when they put a number or a date on anything, the internet will roast them when they miss it.
You can now play solitaire and tic-tac-toe directly in Google search results
Goodbye productivity.
You can now play solitaire or tic-tac-toe directly in Google’s search results. Just search for solitaire or tic-tac-toe in the search engine on the web or from your phone, and you’ll get a playable version of either game above the search results.
Google’s take on solitaire is fairly basic, but you do get the option of selecting between easy and hard difficulty levels.
As for tic-tac-toe, you get to choose between easy. medium, and impossible levels, as well as the ability to play against a friend.
Google has baked in additional features into its search results as well. Searching for “flip a coin” generates a virtual coin toss, and typing “what sound does a horse make” provides an audio result.
Apple plans to focus on social by making a Snapchat-like video app
Apple is getting into social networking again, but this time it’s not about music. Instead, it’s developing a video-sharing and editing app for iPhone and iPad.
According to Bloomberg, Apple wants to integrate social networking within its mobile products, especially after seeing the success of Facebook and Snapchat in recent years. The report cited “people familiar with Apple’s strategy”. Keep in mind Apple’s hardware business is slowing, and Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, is targeting services as a way to generate more revenue.
The thing is… Apple doesn’t have a good history with social media services. Its iTunes social network, Ping, failed to take off, and it has greatly diminished the Connect social feature in Apple Music. This isn’t stopping the company from developing its own features in order to remain relevant among younger users, however. Plus, it can’t ignore how much time people spend on social.
Snapchat’s 150 million daily active users spend an average of 30 minutes per day on the app. So, Apple has begun developing a video-sharing app that allows users to record video, apply filters and drawings, and share their creations with contacts or followers via social networks such as Twitter. The app currently has a one-hand interface, for ease of use, and video can be shot, edited, and uploaded in 60 seconds.
A prototype for the app even lets users shoot video in an Instagram-like square shape. Apple is hoping this upcoming app, which is being made by the Final Cut Pro and iMovie teams, will appeal to the generation of young users obsessed with Snapchat and Instagram. Apple also hired a former president of a New York-based video production company to head the project.
The reports noted this unnamed app is in “preliminary development stages”, and that Apple is aiming for a 2017 release. The project could be killed, though.
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