CES 2017: Kanex Debuts GoPlay Sidekick Game Controller for iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV

Kanex today introduced the GoPlay SideKick, a pocket-sized wireless game controller for iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV. The MFi-certified controller connects to Apple devices over Bluetooth 4.0 and offers up to 20 hours of gameplay on a single charge with almost any controller-supported game on the App Store.

The console-inspired game controller features pressure-sensitive buttons, dual analog joysticks, trigger buttons, a directional pad, and a Lightning connector, while one of its more interesting features is its patent pending protective clamshell case with an integrated stand that props up an iPhone during gameplay.

Kanex said the GoPlay SideKick will be available in February for $59.95. For reference, Apple sells the SteelSeries Nimbus Wireless Gaming Controller and HORIPAD ULTIMATE Wireless Game Controller for $49.95 each. Other options include, among others, the MOGA Rebel and Mad Catz CTRL i.

Tags: Kanex, CES 2017
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2017 flagship smartphones can be thinner but more powerful, says Qualcomm

Qualcomm has announced its latest processor at CES 2017 that is likely to become the beating heart of many of the new smartphones expected to launch this year.

With devices like the Samsung Galaxy S8, the Huawei P10, and the HTC 11 on the horizon, we’ve been given a possible look at what those devices will be capable of thanks to the reveal of the new hardware.

The good news is that they are going to be powerful.

It’s connected

The new Snapdragon 835 processor will offer all the latest connectivity including the Bluetooth 5, 802.11ad Wi-Fi, and although hardly any networks around the globe offer it (Sydney’s Telstra is expected to offer it later this year), support for Gigabit LTE which could see you get speeds up to 533Mbps.

That’s considerably more than even the most competent home broadband connection, and should mean there are plenty of ways your new phone will be able to keep to connected to your devices or the world.

Plenty of power

Your next smartphone is going to be more powerful too with the new Qualcomm processor being beefed-up to cope better with AR and of course VR offerings like Google Daydream. When it’s not augmenting your reality, the new phones powered by the new processor will be offering 4K HRD10 and 3D audio support to help fully immerse you in what you are doing.

Better battery

The company isn’t just chucking more processing and graphics power at the problem. Qualcomm is promising that the next wave of smartphones will have a better battery life as well, up to 2.5 hours more in best case scenarios. And if you do run out of juice from all that VR gaming, you’ll be able to charge up again quickly. Enhancements here suggest you’ll get 5 hours of talk time from just 5 minutes of charging using a new version of Quick Charge – Quick Charge 4.

Better photos

There’s a greater focus on camera technologies too like autofocus and enhancing zoom smoothness while support for cameras up to 32 megapixels, or as is the way with dual camera setups, 16 megapixels a piece.

Smaller smartphones

Trying to meet the demanding requirements of “mobile virtual reality and ubiquitous connectivity” as Qualcomm puts it, while supporting a variety of thin and light mobile designs, the company has also focused its efforts on making the new processor 35 per cent smaller than the previous generation.

That reduction in size, which makes the processor now considerably smaller than a US penny, could also lead to the next generation of handsets being thinner too.

Not just smartphones

ODG

Although the Snapdragon chipset range has always been prominently used in flagship smartphones, that’s not the only place you’ll be able to find it this year. One company already committed to using the new 835 chipset is smart glasses maker ODG.

It is using the 835 chipset to create a new headset dubbed the R-8. Not to be confused with the Audi supercar, the Augmented Reality headset promises to “bring the power of mobile virtual computing to consumers.”

Consumers will be able to access the familiarity of movies, sports, gaming, navigation and education experiences but on smartglasses that are light and sleek.  

When will phones get the new Snapdragon 835 chipset?

Qualcomm are being coy about when we’ll see the new processor and which handsets will be powered by the new 835 processor, however the company has stated that we’ll see the first commercial devices become available in the first half of 2017, presumably just in time for devices like the Samsung Galaxy S8 to become a reality.

Honor 6X vs Moto G4 vs Moto G4 Plus: What’s the difference?

Chinese manufacturer Honor announced at CES 2017 that it would be bringing its 6X smartphone to the US and Europe. The device arrives in early January for £225 and it brings with it some pretty impressive specs for the cash.

Here is how the Honor 6X compares to the kings of budget smartphones: the Moto G4 and Moto G4 Plus.

• Honor 6X preview
• Moto G4 review
• Moto G4 Plus review

Honor 6X vs Moto G4 vs Moto G4 Plus: Design

• Honor 6X more premium-looking build
• Moto G4 and G4 Plus more subtle branding
• Honor 6X smaller, lighter and slimmer

The Honor 6X features a metal-frosted body with 2D curved glass and a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor. Branding isn’t subtle but overall, the 6X offers a premium-looking build.

The Moto G4 and Moto G4 Plus both have metal frames and a textured rear with more subtle branding than the Honor device, featuring just an indented “M” on the rear. The G4 has no fingerprint sensor, while the G4 Plus has one built into the physical square button positioned on the front.

The Honor 6X is the smallest of the devices being compared here, measuring 150.9 x 76.2 x 8.2mm compared to the Moto G4 and G4 Plus that both measure 153 x 76.6 x 9.8mm. The 6X is also the lightest at 162g, compared to the 155g of the G4 and G4 Plus.

Honor 6X vs Moto G4 vs Moto G4 Plus: Display

• All three have 5.5-inch, Full HD displays
• Experience likely to be slightly different across two brands

The Honor 6X, Moto G4 and Moto G4 Plus all have a 5.5-inch display with 1920 x 1080 pixel resolution, meaning a pixel density of 401ppi across the board.

Theoretically that should mean a similar experience in terms of display, though they will no doubt vary slightly in some areas, such as colour balance and brightness as this is down to manufacturer settings rather than the size and resolution of the display.

Honor 6X vs Moto G4 vs Moto G4 Plus: Camera

• Honor 6X has dual rear cameras
• Moto G4 Plus has highest resolution rear camera with PDAF and LDAF
• Honor 6X has highest resolution front camera

The Honor 6X has a dual-rear camera featuring one 12-megapixel sensor and one 2-megapixel sensor. The rear cameras have an aperture range between f/0.95 and f/16, allowing users to alter focus and create effects such as a blurry background. This feature is found on a number of devices, including Huawei’s Mate 9, but it doesn’t always work perfectly.

The Moto G4 has a 13-megapixel rear camera with an aperture of f/2.0, while the Moto G4 Plus has a 16-megapixel rear camera, also with an aperture of f/2.0. The G4 Plus has both laser and phase detection autofocus too.

In terms of front-facing camera, the Honor 6X has an 8-megapixel snapper, while the Moto G4 and Moto G4 Plus has a 5-megapixel camera.

• Huawei Mate 9 review

Honor 6X vs Moto G4 vs Moto G4 Plus: Hardware

• All have octa-core processors and microSD support
• Moto G4 Plus has largest RAM option
• Honor 6X has largest battery capacity

The Honor 6X has a Kirin octa-core processor under the hood, supported by 3GB of RAM (in the UK). There are storage options of 32GB and 64GB, depending on the region, and both have microSD support.

The Moto G4 and G4 Plus both have a Qualcomm octa-core chip, and microSD support but their storage and RAM capacities differ. The G4 is available in 16GB or 32GB options, both with 2GB of RAM, while the G4 Plus is available in 16GB, 32GB and 64GB models, the former two with 2GB and the latter with 4GB of RAM.

The Honor 6X has the largest battery capacity of the three devices being compared here, with 3340mAh, while the Moto G4 and G4 Plus have 3000mAh.

Honor 6X vs Moto G4 vs Moto G4 Plus: Software

• Honor 6X has more software customisation
• Moto G4 and G4 Plus closer to pure Android

The Honor 6X runs on Android with the company’s EMUI 4.1 software overlay on top, while the Moto G4 and G4 Plus run on Android with very little software enhancements.

The software experiences of the Honor and the Moto devices will therefore be quite different. If you want a more customised device, the Honor will offer this, but if you want a purer Android device, the Moto smartphones are a good option.

• Honor 6X vs Honor 8: What’s the difference?

Honor 6X vs Moto G4 vs Moto G4 Plus: Price

• Moto G4 Plus most expensive
• Moto G4 cheapest

The Honor 6X costs £225, which is marginally cheaper than what the Moto G4 Plus starts at but more expensive than the Moto G4.

The Moto G4 starts at £169 and the Moto G4 Plus starts at £229.

Honor 6X vs Motorola Moto G4 vs Moto G4 Plus: Conclusion

The Honor 6X and the Moto G4 Plus have very similar price tags, but the Honor 6X has a larger battery capacity, dual rear cameras, a higher resolution front camera and a more premium-looking build.

The Moto G4 Plus offers the option of more RAM, if you’re willing to pay for it, a higher resolution rear camera, Moto Maker customisation and a cleaner software experience. 

The standard Moto G4 is around £50 cheaper than both the G4 Plus and the Honor 6X, but you miss out on a fingerprint sensor and its camera isn’t as good as its more expensive brother.

• CES 2017: All the announcements that matter

Garmin Fenix 5 brings fitness finesse in smaller sizes

Garmin has unveiled a new range of three Fenix smartwatches. For the first time, the Fenix 5 series offers three unique styles and sizes without compromising on the tech and capabilities. 

The Fenix 5 has a 47mm case, but a new design that makes it more compact than the previous models. You’ll be able to buy it in a selection of styles and colours.

• Garmin Fenix Chronos is about as smart as sportswatches get

The addition of new QuickFit band design means you’ll easily be able to swap the band out for a metal, leather or silicone strap of your choice. There’s also a Fenix 5 Sapphire which costs more, but replaces the mineral glass lens with a sapphire lens which is far more scratch resistant.

Garmin also made a Fenix 5S, which is said to be designed for “female adventurers”. With its 42mm case it’s sleek and smaller than the Fenix 5. It’s going to be available in silver, with either a white, turquoise or black silicone band. 

Like the 5, it will be available as a Sapphire model, and these will ship in black with a black band, champagne gold with a grey suede band or champagne gold with a metal band. Each Sapphire model comes with an extra silicone band too, for those times you don’t want to wreck your fashion-focused strap. 

• Best smartwatches and fitness trackers of CES 2017: What to expect

As for the 5X, that’s undoubtedly the beast of the bunch. It measures in at 51mm and comes loaded with TOPO US mapping and bespoke cycling and running navigation features and maps.

One of these features lets you put in how far you want to run or ride, and then suggests routes for you, and can show you different points of interest on the way. 

You’ll also be able to configure the 5X to show you various data snippets on top of the mapping screen so you don’t have to interact with the watch during a run or bike ride, and still see both the maps and your stats. 

All three watches in the series are designed to be worn all day every day, tracking daily activities, specific workouts and heart rate monitoring. They can be worn as regular, daily smartwatches as well as being custom built for exercising. 

All three have a 3-axis compass, gyroscope and barometric altimeter for measuring altitude and movement as well as GPS and GLONASS for accurate location tracking, even in tough conditions. 

• Best smartwatches to look forward to in 2017

They each have batteries to meet those demands too. The Fenix 5 can get up to two weeks of battery life in smartwatch mode and 24 hours in GPS mode.

Due to its smaller size, the Fenix 5S has a smaller battery which can still get through eight days in smartwatch mode or 13 hours in GPS mode. The 5X fits in between those two with its 12 days battery life in smartwatch mode and 20 hours in GPS mode. 

Garmin

To complement its new range of watches, as well as its existing products, Garmin also announced that more useful apps are landing on its Connect IQ Store. 

The Uber ETA app will show the estimated arrival time of a hailed Uber ride on your wrist, once it’s been ordered from the mobile app. 

There’s also a GU Energy Labs data field to remind cyclists through the Edge device when to consume their next GU Energy Gel during races or training sessions.

There’s a Strava Live Suffer Score data field for monitoring time spent in different heart rate zones and an AccuWeather Edge Minutecast widgets supplying real-time hyper-local weather updates.  

The Fenix 5 series will be available to buy at some point during the first quarter of this year. The Fenix 5 and 5S will cost $599 (around £490), with the 5X and sapphire crystal-coated versions of the 5 and 5S costing $699 (around £570). 

Canon PowerShot G9 X Mark II looks great, but has a surprising omission

Canon has taken the wraps off the PowerShot G9 X Mark II, updating the 2015 forebear, but keeping the same retro good looks. 

The big focus of this compact camera – which remains properly pocketable – is the 1-in type sensor at its heart, larger than many other compact cameras out there. There’s a front control ring too, meaning that there’s plenty of control for photographers who want to squeeze a little more out of this dinky camera.

As a proper compact camera, it has a 3x optical zoom lens, offering 28-84mm (35mm equiv) and has image stabilisation offering 3.5 stops of hand-holdability. That, combined with the maximum F/2.0 aperture should mean you can grab those lower light shots without blur.

There’s a 1-in type sensor at the heart with 20-megapixels and backed by Canon’s Digic 7 image processor and plenty of smart features, like an auto ND filter and timelapse to help you get interesting shots.

That all sounds great from a stills shooting point of view, where we’d expect to get great quality results from this high-end compact as we did with the original Canon G9 X, but there’s a real limitation on video.

The G9 X Mk II offers Full HD video up to 60fps, but it misses out on 4K video capture, something that the smartphone in your pocket has probably offered for the past year or more.

However, there is connectivity, with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi on offer, meaning you can connect to that aforementioned smartphone and share your pictures instantly, wherever you happen to be in the world.

The Canon PowerShot G9 X Mark II will be available from February 2017, and it winds the price up to a pocket-bothering £450.

Harman’s Ignite platform helps your car talk to your house

Whether you want it or not, your car is getting smarter. Between GPS, satellite infotainment systems and cloud-based services like OnStar, automobiles are becoming increasingly connected to the world around them. Here at CES, Harman unveiled a cloud-controlled development platform that aims to be a one-stop shop for controlling all of the devices and features in and outside the vehicle.

The Ignite platform, as Harman calls it, is “an end-to-end platform that enables connectivity, device management, application enablement, analytics and managed services capabilities.” With this platform, manufacturers will be able to add a slew of smart features to vehicles like allowing them to interact with each other, as well as your smart home and city infrastructures as well.

For example, when you pull into your driveway, your car’s and home’s independent IoT systems would be able to seamlessly communicate, opening the garage door, turning on the house lights and turning off the security system. It could also allow vehicles to communicate and swap telemetric data while on the road, accelerating the adoption of self-driving vehicles.

In fact, as the new sharing economy takes shape, OEMs will be able to enable fleet-wide car sharing and ride sharing schemes where user profiles are stored in the cloud and downloaded to “blank” loaner cars. This would allow fleet operators to personalize things like seat position, destinations and radio settings before drivers get in the car. Additionally, the platform will also help better manage fleets of vehicles by uploading telemetrics and vehicle analytics to the cloud for central management so cars can be taken in for service before they break down on the side of the road.

Click here to catch up on the latest news from CES 2017.

Fisher-Price built a stationary bike for your toddler

Fresh air? Sunlight? Who needs that mess when your kid can get all the exercise they need while exploring the Great Indoors? Here at CES, Fisher-Price debuted its Think & Learn Smart Cycle. If you think it looks like a tiny $150 SoulCycle bike with a tablet stand, you’re right.

According the to the company’s surveys, preschoolers watch around 19 hours of video content a week and spend roughly 20 percent of their playtime using electronic devices. So why not let the little ankle-biters burn off some energy while playing with their gadgets on a slightly larger gadget? This isn’t the first rideable that Fisher-Price has released — the company has been producing tricycles, push cycles and Power Wheels for years — nor is it the company’s first foray into STEM-based learning, but it is the brand’s first stationary bike.

The Smart Cycle connects to a tablet via Bluetooth and runs four educational apps (focused on literacy, STEM, math and social studies), which are driven by the kid’s pedaling prowess. Each of these apps cost $5, though Smart Cycle Mission to Tech City comes free with the bike. The system is compatible with Android, iOS and Amazon Fire devices.

Click here to catch up on the latest news from CES 2017.

Fancy developing an app for your sex toy?

Everything’s a platform these days: Facebook, Twitter, Uber and more want developers to build software on top of their systems. But that rarely happens for sex toy manufacturers, who rarely have the knowledge, desire and customer base to bother. OhMiBod is looking to change that by offering coders the opportunity to build their own applications for its blueMotion vibrators.

OhMiBod’s Suki Dunham believes that the announcement is an “exciting achievement for sexual health technology.” She envisions folks adding gamification features for a new way to make bedroom action more competitive. Alternatively, the devices could be integrated with dating platforms like Tinder or Grindr to enable people to introduce themselves to each other in a more interactive way. Imagine if, before your first real-world hookup, you’d had long-distance, or teledildonic, sex with your would-be partner without leaving the app.

Outside of OhMiBod, the list of sex toy companies that have opened development platforms is slender at best. One factor that you probably haven’t considered is the role that patent licensing plays in the space. For instance Comingle, the open-source sex tech platform, was attacked by a patent troll as it was about to launch its first toy to the public. A similar thing happened to RealTouch Interactive, the home of America’s first digital brothel, which was forced out of business by patents. Let’s hope that OhMiBod can fly the flag for hackers and coders everywhere and avoid any such costly litigation.

Click here to catch up on the latest news from CES 2017.

AT&T to conduct 5G streaming tests with DirecTV Now

In a simultaneous test of wireless broadband and net neutrality, AT&T will test its upcoming 5G tech with DirecTV Now video streaming. Trial customers in Austin, Texas will be able to stream the services on a variety of devices over fixed 5G connections at several sites. The goal, the carrier said in a press release, is to see how “wireless millimeter wave technology handles heavy video traffic.

AT&T has already done 5G tests in Austin with partners Intel and Ericsson, but DirecTV now streaming is bound to push the tech harder, depending on the number of participants. Also known as “mmWave,” it can deliver theoretical speeds of 1Gbps (gigabit per second) and up, so it should be up to the job.

DirecTV customers can do unlimited streaming over AT&T’s normally capped wireless networks, so 5G will make that a lot more feasible for both the carrier and its clients. However, the FCC has frowned upon such “zero-rating”by AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile, saying it “denies unaffiliated third parties the same ability to compete over AT&T’s network on reasonable terms.” In other words, it goes against the “open and free” principals of net neutrality.

AT&T reportedly said it would abide by net neutrality rules if the FCC approved its purchase of DirecTV, but ironically, it’s trying to flout those rules using … DirecTV. In a letter last month, it told the FCC that stopping its zero-rated DirecTV service would “deny consumers a service they value … and curb the disruptive potential of Data Free TV, all in the name of preserving profit margins for individual DirecTV rivals.”

Whether you buy that argument or not is beside the point, AT&T said, since President-elect Donald Trump will probably roll back net-neutrality and other consumer-friendly legislation anyway. “Whatever judgment the bureau purports to pass on this program before January 20th will very likely be reversed shortly thereafter,” the company wrote.

Source: AT&T

A connected cooktop could keep you from burning breakfast

The world needs an app-connected hotplate like… well, I’m not sure if we need one, but we’re getting one regardless. FirstBuild, the company responsible for a $250 – $500 coffeemaker, is back at it with the Paragon setup. Promising precision cooking via an array of built-in sensors that automatically adjust the induction cooktop’s heat output automatically, FirstBuild hopes you’ll think the granular temperature adjustment settings on offer are worth the price of admission.

Whereas the Paragon sous vide Probe monitored and regulated the temperature of the liquid you were cooking with, the company’s Mat works with the Paragon cooking surface to keep your pan at an exact temperature. That means no more burning bacon because you accidentally set the rangetop to “high” instead of “medium high.”

The entire setup (sous vide probe, cooktop, mat) will set you back $349 via IndieGogo, with a $150 discount if you back it on the first day. Or you can use this handy-dandy link and get it for $199 beyond the campaign’s debut.

Click here to catch up on the latest news from CES 2017.

Source: IndieGogo