Garmin’s Forerunner 935 smartwatch knows how hard you work out

Two months after updating its Fenix line of multisport fitness watches at CES, Garmin revealed its latest GPS-enabled timepiece, the Forerunner 935. However, unlike the Fenix family, which was designed more for general outdoor adventuring, this new tracker is built specifically for serious athletes looking to get the most out of their training.

The 935 ushers in a series of new training features. For example, the Training Status tool analyzes your previous workouts and general fitness level to illustrate whether you’re training productively, peaking or overdoing things. Training Load, conversely, takes a longer-term view and analyzes a week’s worth of workouts to determine if each individual session is too easy or too hard. Finally, Training Effect estimates the aerobic and anaerobic benefits of a single training session. Like the Fenix line, this watch can connect to Garmin’s Connect IQ store so you can download apps like TrainingPeaks, which puts full workouts right there on your wrist.

Garmin is billing the 935 as top-of-the-line and, accordingly, this watch is packed with features. It incorporates GPS/GLONASS location tracking, an ABC (altimeter, barometer, compass) sensor, and the company’s Elevate wrist-mounted heart rate monitor. This will allow users to see their BPM in real-time without wearing a separate chest strap. The 935 can also be paired with Garmin’s Running Dynamics Pod (which clips to your waistband) to track and display metrics like cadence, ground contact time and stride length.

While the 935 does lean heavily towards runner training, it can be used to track your performance in a variety of other athletic pursuits. It will monitor power zones, time seated and standing, platform center offset and power phase while on a bike (it also works with the Varia cycling system). When you’re in the water, the Forerunner will monitor your distance, stroke and swim pace.

With GPS on, the Forerunner boasts up to 24 hours of battery life, 50 hours in low-energy mode and two weeks if you turn the location tracking off altogether. It will sell for $500, but you can also spring for a $650 “tri-bundle option”, which includes both yellow and black straps, HRM-Tri, HRM-Swim, and the quick release kit, which helps you swap out straps without tools.

O2 becomes the last major carrier to enable WiFi and 4G calling

It took a while, but O2 has become the last of the four major UK carriers to launch WiFi and 4G calling on its network. The company confirmed today that iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus owners can now make calls in “notspots” when a wireless connection is available, with other phones coming online “very soon.”

The timing of the launch isn’t accidental. The introduction of 4G calling, or VoLTE, coincides with Apple’s iOS 10.3 update, which began rolling out to UK iPhones on March 27th. VoLTE technology enables clearer calls and improves indoor coverage over 4G networks, enabling customers to seamlessly switch to WiFi when 4G networks suddenly become unavailable.

Before today, O2 offered WiFi calling via its Tu Go app and website, but it wasn’t very well publicised. EE and Vodafone have offered WiFi and 4G calling since 2015, while Three only got on board at the beginning of the year.

Source: O2

Ultimate Ears’ cheapest Boom speaker looks like a colorful barrel

When the design teams at Ultimate Ears got together to create the Boom and Roll, the end result was a set of vibrant bluetooth speakers that took cues from a can of Pringles and a flying saucer. It should come as no surprise, then, to learn that UE’s new entry-level model, the $100/£80 Wonderboom, also shies away from the conventional portable form factor. You could say it looks like a small barrel, or resembles a watermelon with hundreds of rubber bands tied around it, but it’s colorful, strangely cute and — most importantly — affordable.

The Wonderboom delivers everything you’d expect from a UE speaker. It’s 105mm tall by 95mm wide — not much bigger than a can of Coke — and delivers 360-degree sound, outputs plenty of bass and can be used in almost any environment thanks to its IPX7 waterproof rating (which lets it float in water for up to 30 minutes). The company also claims up to 10-hour battery life and 100-foot Bluetooth range.

UE speakers are known for their giant rubberized volume buttons and the Wonderboom is no different. However, it also features dedicated UE button on top that lets can be used to play, pause and skip tracks, but also pair the speaker with another Wonderboom for full stereo.

The Wonderboom comes in six “fresh” colors: Stone (Grey), Phantom (Black), Fireball (Red), SubZero (Blue), Cashmere (Pink) and Lilac. It’ll hit North America, Europe and the UK in April and will cost $100/£80.

Source: Ultimate Ears (US), (UK)

Google Search App Updated With ‘Trending on Google’ Widget, New 3D Touch Actions

Google announced a fresh update to its Search app yesterday, highlighting Gboard keyboard integration, a raft of 3D Touch enhancements, and a new Trending widget.

Launched last May, Gboard offers users the ability to search for emoji, includes a built-in animated GIF search, and supports glide typing and voice transcription. Users can also use the keyboard to share information and content sourced from online searches, including video and images. The option to enable Gboard can be found in the Google Search app’s settings after the app has been updated.

While the Gboard integration was slipped in some weeks ago, the latest update brings a new “Trending on Google” widget that keeps users in the know about hot topics and breaking news by displaying live trending Google searches. Tapping on a trending search opens the Search app where users can find out more.

The Trending widget can be accessed using a 3D Touch hard press on the Search app icon, or by swiping right on the home screen and activating it via the Edit option at the bottom of the main widget screen.

Google has also added a number of other 3D Touch Quick Actions to the Search app icon, including Quick Search, Voice Search, Search for Images, and Search Incognito. In addition, additional in-app 3D Touch integrations mean users can hard press on web pages, map results, cards in the feed, or search results for previews and more information.

Google Search is a free download for iPhone and iPad from the App Store. [Direct Link]

Tag: Google
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iTunes U App Gains Image Annotation Tools, Video Message Sharing Support

Apple yesterday updated its iTunes U education app with some notable new annotation and media sharing features.

In an extension of iTunes U’s markup support, which was previously limited to PDF documents, version 3.5 of the app now enables users to apply visual notes to image files using the same annotation toolset.

Elsewhere, video messages can now be shared between teachers and students, while the ability to open audio and video files in other apps has also been included.

The update comes on the heels of changes earlier this week to Apple’s Classroom app, which lets teachers set up iPads for educational settings. That update gave educators the ability to create classes manually and send invitation codes to students for them to join, as well as extending classroom file sharing options with AirDrop support.

iTunes U is a free download for iPad and iPhone available on the App Store. [Direct Link]

Tags: education, iTunes U
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HTC targets the classroom with 10-headset Vive bundle

The folks over at HTC Vive have been talking up the potential of VR in education since day one, and this year, they’re hoping to make a bigger push into this space by focusing on multi-user scenarios. At this week’s Vive Ecosystem Conference in Shenzhen, the company announced the Vive Group Edition bundle for China, which includes ten Business Edition headsets plus two Business Edition base stations for 49,999 yuan or about $7,260, and it’s due to ship in May. This offers a much lower entry barrier for commercial users, as it’s almost a 40-percent saving when compared to buying ten full Business Edition kits, meaning schools and small businesses are more likely to afford the system.

For those who are wondering, yes, the Group Edition package is missing the controllers plus extra base stations, and for a good reason. According to the company, the idea here stemmed from a growing number of customer requests for high-end multi-user VR solutions, but that quickly becomes costly as each headset needs to be hooked up to a relatively powerful PC. As such, the only way to lower the cost without too much compromise is by sticking to the bare necessities on the VR side: a number of headsets and just two base stations per room.

While the lack of controllers here may sound worrying, HTC Vive’s China President Alvin Wang Graylin assured me that the lean kit is perfectly suitable for light interaction use cases. These can be as simple as watching a video together (so cinemas can also take advantage of this package) to something more fun like going on virtual tours — be it a seated experience or a room-scale experience. I can imagine students enjoying geography, biology and history lessons more by being virtually transported to different places, and they’ll also get a better sense of scale by walking around an animated solar system; these can all get by without controllers, and Graylin added that there are plenty more of such education VR apps in the works.

But of course, customers can always add controllers to their Group Edition orders should their budget allow. This then opens up more opportunities in the classroom. During the conference earlier today, HTC showed off a chemistry lesson app which let teachers and students do virtual experiments together using controllers. It may take the fun out of seeing real chemicals fizzing or burning away, but this way the class gets to simulate the more dangerous experiments with no actual risks.

Another somewhat educational app that caught my attention during the conference — and I know I’m late to this one — was Night Cafe: A VR Tribute to Vincent Van Gogh (available on Steam), which lets you explore a tranquil world rendered in the style of Van Gogh’s painting, and you even get to meet the man himself. Had this technology been available earlier, I might have paid more attention in my art lessons back then.

Graylin also addressed some concerns regarding whether VR is bad for children’s eyes. Earlier this year, his company partnered with the Beijing Institute of Technology to study a group of young subjects aged 9 to 12. First, the children each wore a VR headset (presumably a Vive) for 20 minutes, and the result was that 8 percent of them reportedly had worse vision afterwards. But in a second test involving the use of tablets instead of VR headsets, the percentage of subjects with worsened vision went up to 11.5 percent.

What’s more interesting is that in the VR test, 20 percent of the subjects actually had improved vision, which was notably higher than the mere 7.7 percent in the tablet test. So in short, VR usage appears to be more beneficial — or at least less harmful — to children’s eyes than using tablets, but we should take this claim with a grain of salt until more studies come to the same conclusion. Having said that, there are already existing apps that use VR to help restore vision, namely Vivid Vision (formerly Diplopia).

It’s obviously a bit early to tell whether the Vive Group Edition bundle has the right formula, but Graylin has already set an aggressive target for the education sector in China. Currently, there are “dozens” of local schools that have partnered with HTC Vive, and the exec hopes to turn this figure “into hundreds or even thousands” by the end of this year. If all goes well, here’s hoping other markets will also be offered a similar package to increase VR adoption.

Source: HTC Vive China

The Brits have just introduced ‘the most secure coin in the world’

Why it matters to you

If you’re visiting the U.K. and you’re not familiar with the new coin, you might think it’s a fake. It’s (most probably) not.

When a 2015 survey by the U.K.’s Royal Mint revealed that around 40 million (about one in thirty) of the country’s one-pound coins were counterfeit, it realized it had to do something about all the fake money rattling around in the economy.

Following several years of design and development, the Mint this week introduced an all-new one-pound coin dubbed “the most secure coin in the world.”

The new 12-sided coin, which the Mint claims is impossible to counterfeit, includes a bimetallic design with a gold-colored (nickel-brass) outer ring and a silver-colored (nickel-plated alloy) inner section.

You’ll also find a latent image embedded in the coin. Similar to a hologram, it changes from a ‘£’ symbol to the number ‘1’ when viewed from different angles.

Additional features include hard-to-emulate micro-lettering showing “one pound” on the lower inside rim on one side and the year of the coin’s production on the other.

And if all that isn’t enough to deter makers of fake money, the Mint says the new one-pound coin also has an additional “high security feature” built in, details of which it refuses to divulge.

As with all U.K. coins, a portrait of the Queen is seen on one side. On the other is a design showing the English rose, the Welsh leek, the Scottish thistle, and the Northern Irish shamrock emerging from one stem within a royal coronet — an image created by David Pearce who won a public contest two years ago at the age of 15.

Thinner and lighter than the one it replaces, the new coin is being produced using cutting-edge technology developed at the Mint’s headquarters in south Wales.

Adam Lawrence, chief executive of the Royal Mint, said the new money has been designed to be “fit for the future, using security features that aim to safeguard our currency, and currencies around the world, for years to come. Staying ahead of sophisticated counterfeiters remains a constant challenge and this coin helps in that battle.”

More: Australia’s new futuristic $5 bill will be one of the hardest in the world to counterfeit

The new coin went into circulation on Tuesday. As for the old coin, stores will stop accepting it from October 15, 2017, though banks will happily exchange any that you have left after that date — as long as they’re not fake, that is.

Last year the Royal Mint started replacing the nation’s paper money with a high-security plastic version, kicking off with the five-pound bill.

Vivaldi browser now packs a History feature to dig into your browsing habits

Why it matters to you

The Vivaldi browser sets out to make the experience easier and fine-tuned to the user, but the easily accessible History feature could make many users uncomfortable.

Jon von Tetzchner originally co-founded Opera Software in 1995 and served as the company’s CEO until the beginning of 2015. That is when his new company, Vivaldi Technologies, crashed the browser scene with the first Technical Preview of a competing internet browser called Vivaldi. Now two years later, the Vivaldi browser continues to evolve with the addition of a new “History” feature for a better insight into the user’s online behavior.

“Instead of having to scroll through hundreds of lines, Vivaldi gives a comprehensive overview of history, presented in a visual way,” Tetzchner said. “This lets our users analyze their online activity and helps them find what they are looking for.”

More: Opera Neon is a web browser for the modern age that is unlike any other

When Tetzchner abandoned his popular Opera browser to create the new Vivaldi solution, he focused on three principles: A strong focus on community, continuing innovation, and the individual needs of each web surfer. The new History feature focuses on the two latter goals to redefine how the information of past actions are easily relayed to the user.

While that may seem rather creepy given the browser is seemingly collecting data everywhere the user travels, Tetzchner promises that the valued info isn’t sold off to third parties for fast cash. Instead, it’s served up locally to the user for their eyes only. Users will thus see what third parties could collect, enabling them to alter their online behavior.

Vivaldi’s new History feature strives to be a more useful tool than what is provided in competing web browsers. Users can quickly scan through their timeline of visited websites through a calendar-style presentation. It generates detailed statistics consisting of graphs and a color-coded heat map overlay that generates peak online activity points and key browsing trends.

The generated data can make seeking out an old internet address easier, too. Instead of performing a history search based on a possible website name or label, the user can simply scroll through the calendar to the time period when the user accessed the semi-forgotten website. This can be accomplished via a monthly view, a daily view, or by the overall number of views.

The new History feature resides in the browser’s Side Panel, which also provides access to the bookmarks, downloads, and more. The updated Vivaldi browser wasn’t available to download at the time this article was prepared, but based on its description, the History feature’s contents are easily accessible by a simple click in the Side Panel by anyone with access to the base device.

The latest release brings Vivaldi up to version 1.8. It follows the release of Vivaldi 1.7 unleashed in early February sporting new built-in screenshot options.  It introduced a new camera icon on the status bar that leads to a pop-up window for taking a screenshot of the entire browser window, or a specific area. The screenshot tool is also accessible through the Tools menu and through mapped keyboard shortcuts.

To grab Vivaldi version 1.8, head here.

T-Mobile, AT&T, and Sprint are already shipping LG G6 pre-orders

LG G6 is already in the hands of a few lucky customers.

U.S. carriers have kicked off pre-orders for the LG G6 ahead of its debut in the country on April 7, and customers that have ordered the device are already starting to see shipping notices, with deliveries scheduled for later this week. T-Mobile was the first carrier to announce pricing, and the first to ship the handset to customers.

A few AT&T and Sprint customers that pre-ordered the device are now receiving delivery notices for March 29, which is incidentally when the Galaxy S8 is making its debut.

The LG G6 starts at $650 unlocked, and all carriers are throwing in a free Google Home as well as other freebies for customers pre-ordering the device.

Did you manage to receive your LG G6 ahead of schedule? If so, how are you liking the device? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Where to buy the LG G6 in the U.S.

LG G6

• LG G6 review!
• LG G6 specs
• LG G6 vs. Google Pixel: The two best cameras right now
• Everything you need to know about the G6’s cameras
• LG forums

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Thanks Rob Bennett and Branden Richeson!

HTC U coming later this year with Snapdragon 835 and touch-sensitive frame

HTC Ocean is coming later this year as the HTC U.

HTC is said to be working on a flagship simply called the HTC U that will be powered by a Snapdragon 835. Codenamed Ocean, the phone will be the third in the U series — after the U Ultra and the U Play — but it will introduce a new input method called Edge Sense.

HTC is embedding sensors into the metal frame of the device, through which you’ll be able to control various facets of the interface by squeezing or swiping along the sides of the phone. The idea was shown off in a concept video that leaked last year, and it looks like HTC succeeded in turning it into a usable feature for its upcoming flagship:

More cool HTC stuff here (including the tablet that launched @evleaks): https://t.co/S3WaZkeog9 Check it out before it gets pulled! pic.twitter.com/YJwmZb0Sje

— Evan Blass (@evleaks) September 20, 2016

Other specs include a 5.5-inch QHD display, 12MP Sony IMX362 camera at the back, 16MP shooter up front that utilizes the IMX351 imaging sensor, 64GB or 128GB internal storage, and a microSD slot. HTC will introduce Sense 9 with the handset, which will be unveiled mid- to late-April with global availability kicking off in the month of May.

The HTC U Ultra turned out to be underwhelming for its $750 price tag, and HTC needs to come up with a better device to challenge the likes of the Galaxy S8 and the LG G6. The HTC U looks like it could be that device, but we’ll have to wait and see how it holds up next to the competition.