Samsung Announces Round ‘Gear S2’ Smart Watch
Samsung today unveiled its newest smart watch, the Samsung Gear S2, which is the company’s first watch that includes a round display instead of one that’s square or rectangular.
Positioned as Samsung’s seventh smart watch release, the Gear S2 comes in three varieties: Classic, standard, and 3G. The Classic version includes a black case with a black leather band, while the standard version includes a dark gray case with a matching rubber band or a silver case with a white rubber band. According to Samsung, the Classic model is for users “who prefer a more timeless watch design,” while the standard model is “ideal for those who are on-the-go and have an admiration for minimal and modern design.”
The third model, the 3G Gear S2, features the same design as the standard model but includes a 3G radio to connect to 3G cellular networks. With dedicated 3G capabilities, the 3G Gear S2 can be used without a phone, unlike the Apple Watch and most other smart watches on the market.
“For the past several years, Samsung has pioneered and advanced the wearables category, bringing brave new concepts to the smart wearables market,” said JK Shin, CEO and Head of Samsung’s IT & Mobile Business. “The Samsung Gear S2 reflects Samsung’s most progressive innovation. It is the perfect complement for any occasion, easily taking you from day to night, from work to workout–and ensuring that you get more out of every moment in your day, by making it smarter and ultimately more personal and fun.”
Each of 11.4 millimeter thick Gear S2 watches includes a 1.2-inch diameter touch display with a resolution of 360 x 360 (302 pixels per inch), a 1 GHz dual-core processor, 512MB RAM, and 4GB of storage space. It charges wirelessly, has two to three days of battery life, and includes NFC, WiFi, and Bluetooth. On the battery front it outshines the Apple Watch depending on use, but it has less storage space than the Apple Watch’s 8GB.
The bezel of the Gear S2 rotates, a feature that’s used to navigate through the operating system to interact with apps, and it also uses dedicated Home and Back buttons. Samsung plans to release apps and watch faces designed specifically for the circular display of the Gear S2. Taking a cue from Apple, Samsung designed a new 24-hour fitness activity log for the Gear S2, which will let users view daily progress and get reminders to help them stay on track with fitness goals.
Samsung’s Gear S2 watch runs the Tizen operating system instead of Android, making it incompatible with the Android Wear app for iOS that Google launched earlier today.
Samsung has not yet released pricing details on the Gear S2 or provided a release date, but the company plans to provide more information at the IFA consumer electronics trade show in Berlin, which starts later this week.
University of Oklahoma Becomes First School to Accept Apple Pay Across Campus
As of this week, the University of Oklahoma will begin accepting Apple Pay across its entire campus, becoming the first university to widely embrace Apple Pay. Students attending the University of Oklahoma can use Apple Pay at any of the campus’s 400 point-of-service locations, including bookstores, restaurants, and more.
Starting this week, Sooners are now able to pay for items at any one of OU’s 400 point-of-service locations — everywhere from Couch Restaurants to the One University Store and the OU Bookstore. That’s right: Buying textbooks, technology and food on campus has never been easier — or more techy.
In a quirky post announcing Apple Pay, the university created a list of reasons why “having Apple Pay campus wide is so awesome,” ranging from being able to pay without a wallet to the security of the transactions.
The University of Oklahoma appears to be the first college to begin accepting Apple Pay campus wide, but in the near future, more than 700 universities and colleges will adopt the payments service. Apple CEO Tim Cook made the announcement during the company’s third-quarter earnings call, specifically naming the University of Oklahoma, the University of Kentucky, and Auburn University, Cook’s own alma mater.
Since its October 2014 debut, Apple Pay has steadily grown in popularity. Apple Pay works with hundreds of debit and credit cards in the United States and it is accepted at more than 1 million locations across the country.
(Thanks, Joshua!)
Unreal Engine 4.9 Released With Improved Graphics, Remote Push Notifications and CloudKit Support
Epic Games has released Unreal Engine 4.9 with several new features that developers can implement in iPhone and iPad games on the App Store, including efficient dynamic shadows, movable lights and decals, improved in-app purchase functionality, remote push notifications and CloudKit support.
Unreal Engine 4.9 supports dynamic modulated character shadows from directional lights on iOS and Android, while up to four dynamic point lights are supported on each object being illuminated. Unreal Engine 4.9 also ships with a Flurry mobile analytics plugin for iOS out of the box for advertising.
Unreal Engine 4.9 also includes VR motion controller support and performance improvements, experimental DirectX 12 support for Windows 10, a new plugin wizard, improved HTML5 and other deep graphical improvements. The full changelog details other new features for developers.
Apple TV Gains Updated NFL Channel With Game Pass Integration
The Apple TV’s existing NFL Now channel was today revamped, changing the name to “NFL” and adding support for Game Pass subscriptions. Through the updated channel, NFL fans who have a Game Pass subscription can watch on-demand NFL games and live out-of-market preseason games on the Apple TV for the first time.
In late July, the NFL did away with its existing NFL Game Rewind program, which previously gave customers in the United States access to on-demand NFL games after they aired on broadcast television. Game Rewind was replaced with Game Pass, with access being added to the Apple TV and the NFL Mobile app on the iPhone and the iPad.
The prior NFL Now channel that was on the Apple TV was limited to historic videos, breaking news, and game highlights rather than complete games as the NFL’s contracts with television providers have previously prevented it from showing full game content on the television through the Apple TV.
Game Pass includes live access to most out-of-market preseason games, aside from those that are nationally broadcast, plus on-demand regular season, playoff, and Super Bowl games that are available after they air on broadcast television.
Game Pass is available in the United States, Bermuda, Antigua, the Bahamas, any U.S. territories, possessions and commonwealths (including American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands), and Mexico. An NFL Game Pass subscription is priced at $99.99 and access to content will last until July 31, 2016.
NFL fans outside of the United States also have access to an international “Game Pass” service that offers up live games and on-demand content, which confusingly shares the same name as the new service available in the United States.
(Thanks, Dale!)
GT Advanced Laying Off 40% of Workforce Amid Bankruptcy Restructuring
GT Advanced is laying off 40% of its workforce as it negotiates the terms of a $95 million bankruptcy restructuring plan, according to The Wall Street Journal. The cuts will enable the former Apple supplier to save $20 million per year as it looks to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the United States.
The report claims GT Advanced had about 1,000 employees when it filed for bankruptcy last October after its sapphire crystal deal with Apple fell through. The company already laid off some 700 workers at a Mesa, Arizona manufacturing facility that Apple plans to repurpose as a $2 billion global data center.
GT Advanced is reportedly committed to shifting its focus back to manufacturing industrial and solar equipment.
A group of GT Advanced bondholders put up $95 million to fund the company’s bankruptcy restructuring. The company is using the cash to fund a revised plan that calls for the ex-Apple supplier to return to its roots of making industrial and solar equipment.
While sapphire crystal rumors were widespread last year, Apple ultimately used ion-strengthened glass on the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus.
Cisco is optimizing networks for Apple devices
Apple isn’t content to expand its foothold in the workplace solely through major app deals and developer initiatives — it wants corporate networks to be Apple-friendly as well. The Cupertino crew has teamed up with Cisco to optimize enterprise networks for iOS devices and apps, especially Cisco-made videoconferencing and collaboration tools. It’s not hard to see why the two would forge a deal. This theoretically boosts iPhone and iPad sales to companies that want the smoothest possible experience, especially if they have thousands of users crowding their networks. Cisco, meanwhile, stands a better shot at selling network hardware and software to firms that are already set on using Apple gear. It may be hard to notice the change unless you’re an IT manager, but you shouldn’t be surprised if your next company-issued device has a fruit logo on the back.
Filed under:
Cellphones, Tablets, Networking, Mobile, Apple
Source:
Apple
Tags: apple, cisco, enterprise, ios, ipad, iphone, mobilepostcross, networking, work
Apple Seeds Eighth Beta of OS X El Capitan to Developers, Sixth Beta to Public Testers
Apple today released the eighth beta of OS X El Capitan to developers for testing purposes, nearly two weeks after releasing the seventh El Capitan beta and more than two months after unveiling the operating system at its 2015 Worldwide Developers Conference.
Today’s update, build 15A279b, is available through the software update mechanism in the Mac App Store and through the Apple Developer Center. There’s also a new sixth beta for public beta testers, which is identical to the eighth developer beta.
It is not clear if this update will add any outward-facing changes to El Capitan, as many of the prior betas have focused on under-the-hood performance improvements and bug fixes to optimize the operating system ahead of its public release, but beta 7 did add some minor cosmetic updates to El Capitan.
As an update complementary to OS X Yosemite, OS X El Capitan builds on the myriad features introduced last year. Behind-the-scenes improvements in El Capitan make a number of apps and processes on the Mac faster, and the introduction of Metal makes system-level graphics rendering 40 percent more efficient.
El Capitan introduces a new system-wide font, a revamped Mission Control feature, a split-view feature for using two full-screen apps at once, deeper functionality for Spotlight, and improvements to Safari that include Pinned Sites and a universal mute button.
OS X 10.11 El Capitan is currently available to both registered developers and public beta testers. Apple plans to release El Capitan to the public in the fall.
Android Wear now works with iPhones
The rumors are true: Google has officially announced that Android Wear is coming to the iPhone. But there are a few caveats. For one thing, only the latest iPhones — those that are running iOS 8.2 and up — are supported (that includes the iPhone 5 onwards). More importantly, this app only works with the very latest in Android Wear watches. Right now, the only watch that works with this is the new LG Watch Urbane, which is the most recent Android Wear watch to launch. We’re told that the app will also work with all future Wear devices, including upcoming watches from ASUS, Motorola and Huawei.
But what about older Android Wear devices? Well, we’re told that the iOS app won’t work with them because they don’t run the latest Android Wear release out of the box. Only the latest Android Wear watches have this capability, a spokesperson said, in order to ensure a streamlined setup pairing with an iOS phone. That said, while older Android Wear devices aren’t technically supported, I wouldn’t be surprised if someone somewhere were able to make it work. Of course, we won’t be able to find this out until we can try it out for ourselves.
All told, Android Wear for iOS should work almost the same as it does for Android phones. You’ll get notifications from your favorite Google services like Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Now, as well as Apple’s Calendar, Google Fit, the weather, alarm, agenda, Translate and so forth. It’ll work with voice queries and you can change the watch face just as you can with the Android app. According to Google, you don’t need to have any of these apps installed; they’re all built into the iOS app itself (We’re guessing that you’ll be asked to login with your Google credentials and it’ll go from there). Any third party app notifications that show up on your iPhone will also show on the watch. However, if you want true native third party app syncing, apparently that’s still in the works.
So there you have it; if you were a little upset at the limited wearable options available for the iPhone, now you have the latest Android Wear lineup at your disposal. If you happen to have an LG Watch Urbane and you have an iPhone lying around, you can go ahead and try out the app — it’s slowly rolling out on Apple’s App Store starting today.
Filed under:
Wearables, Apple, Google
Source:
Google
Tags: android, androidwear, apple, google, ios
Android Wear Now Compatible With iPhone, iOS App Launches Today
Google has announced that Android Wear smartwatches are now compatible with the iPhone 5, iPhone 5c, iPhone 5s, iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus running iOS 8.2 or later.
An official Android Wear for iOS app will be released on the App Store today. Android Wear for iOS is compatible with the new LG Watch Urbane starting today, while future smartwatches from Asus, Motorola, Huawei and others will also support iOS.
The Verge has published an extensive hands-on of Android Wear for iPhone.
T-Mobile to Restrict Unlimited Customers Using Up to 2,000 GB of Data Per Month
T-Mobile CEO John Legere has announced that the U.S. carrier will begin taking action against customers with unlimited 4G LTE data plans that deliberately violate the company’s terms and conditions by masking excessive tethering usage as smartphone data.
T-Mobile notes that less than 1% of customers are using apps or other methods to blow past their Smartphone Mobile HotSpot allotment, which is included free with every Simple Choice plan but capped at up to 7GB per month. The carrier says that, in some cases, these customers are using up to 2TB (2,000 GB) of data per month.
Here’s what’s happening: when customers buy our unlimited 4G LTE plan for their smartphones we include a fixed amount of LTE to be used for tethering (using the “Smartphone Mobile HotSpot” feature), at no extra cost, for the occasions when broadband may not be convenient or available. If customers hit that high-speed tethering limit, those tethering speeds slow down. If a customer needs more LTE tethering, they can add-on more. Simple.
However, these violators are going out of their way with all kinds of workarounds to steal more LTE tethered data. They’re downloading apps that hide their tether usage, rooting their phones, writing code to mask their activity, etc. They are “hacking” the system to swipe high speed tethered data. These aren’t naive amateurs; they are clever hackers who are willfully stealing for their own selfish gain.
T-Mobile says that customers who continue to have excessive tethering usage will first be warned, and then lose access to their unlimited 4G LTE smartphone data plan and be moved to an entry-level Simple Choice plan if they do not comply. T-Mobile began informing customers about the crackdown on network abusers today and has posted a detailed FAQ on its support forum.
T-Mobile prepaid and MetroPCS customers are not affected at this time.
AIVAnet 