NewsDrop: Sony Smartband 2, Lycos-Wearables, Apple Watch

April 27, 2020

Not much has happened in the past few days for smartphones and tablets, but all the more for the wearables. The SmartBand 2 has emerged from Sony, Apple brings the watch to its stores and at the same time makes life difficult for Pebble, and an old friend suddenly appears again in an unexpected place.

And otherwise? Is it about text at the wheel and penalties of a different kind, about helpers looking for a parking space, and square dogs.

Details on these and other topics can be found in episode 44 of the NewsDrop. I hope you enjoy the ehealth and have a nice weekend!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXtpDZzq91Y [/ embed] NewsDrop 44: Sony SmartBand 2, Watch in the Apple Store, wearables from Lycos and more 

If you want to read a detail again, you can find the transcription here:

Sony's fitness tracker SmartBand gets a successor. At any rate, the Japanese manufacturer was able to admire the SmartBand 2 app of the same name in the Google Play Store. In addition to a pedometer and a sleep tracker, there is apparently now also a heart rate sensor and a sleep phase alarm clock. More technical details as well as information on prices and availability will soon be available.

Do you remember Lycos – the one with the dog in the logo? Yes, there are still. At least the brand, and it now belongs to the Indian company Ybrant Digital, which began as a digital greeting card provider in the past millennium.

Be that as it may: Lycos will soon have wearables, namely a fitness tracker with a pulse sensor called "The Band" and a smart ring called "The Ring". Aside from the prices of $ 125 and $ 60, respectively, and a start on June 8, there is little information. However, part of the proceeds will go to the non-profit project Lycos Life, which is intended to enable people to analyze the air and water quality using free sensors.

There was also new hardware from Microsoft: The company from Redmond presented the Nokia 105, a cell phone that is primarily aimed at developing countries at a cost of $ 20. For the money there is a 1.45-inch color display and a battery that should last for 35 days in standby.

In contrast, the statement by Motorola sales director Colin Giles should be disappointing for Microsoft. Accordingly, the manufacturer currently has no plans to use an operating system other than Android. And with that, we should not see a Motorola smartphone with Windows 10 for Mobile, at least in the near future. Motorola's Chinese parent company Lenovo, on the other hand, is likely to be more experimental.

The Predator 8 was already on display at the Next @ Acer conference in New York at the end of April. At Computex, the Taiwanese manufacturer revealed a new detail about the gaming tablet: Intel's new Atom X7 processor will already be doing its work under the android hood. Unfortunately there is no information about price and availability yet, you can get a few more impressions of the device in our Eyes-On ehealth here.

The watch comes to the Apple stores. Sales of the smartwatch will not only begin on Friday, June 26th in seven other countries – from this date, some versions of the watch will also be available in the Apple Stores. Apple is probably sticking to the models that have been sold most successfully so far.

And apparently Apple does not particularly like competition: The iOS app for the pebble time smartwatch is currently stuck in quality control for the app store. And with that, iPhone owners can currently use their pebble time primarily as paperweights. An application for an "accelerated examination" was rejected by Apple.

While some apps, despite all supplication, do not get onto the iPhone, the others make it much too easy: At the moment, reports are circulating that iOS users are offered unsigned apps when visiting certain adult websites. Whoever falls for it and installs playMovie or EroEroMovie may catch a paid subscription.

In addition, cars will not only use the sensors to record other road users, but also the parking situation and report them to a server. The associated service called INRIX is due to start soon in Seattle, Vancouver, Amsterdam, San Francisco, Copenhagen and Cologne and will be available in 23 cities by the end of the year. BMW is at the start as a partner, with other manufacturers to follow.

There are always campaigns against texting at the wheel. It didn't help an American woman – and the bottom line was that it cost a cyclist's life. A judge not only sentenced the 23-year-old to a six-month prison term and two years' probation, but also gave her a two-year ban on cell phones, both in terms of possession and use. What do you say: is that maybe even more daunting than jail or probation?

And then there is a crazy hairstyle trend from Japan. This time dogs are affected that are shorn angularly. Whoever came up with that may have played too much MineCraft. It looks funny anyway.

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