CES 2017: Casio brings GPS to its rugged WSD-F20 Android Wear watch

By Nicole Batac

Las Vegas - Casio shows its taking its smartwatch segment seriously with the second iteration of its Android Wear-powered timepiece. Called the WSD-F20, this watch now falls under Casio’s Pro Trek Smart Series. It brings a much-needed feature: built-in GPS. What this introduces is compatibility with Glonass and Michibiki satellite systems to improve tracking further. Truly built for adventurers, it comes with coloured maps and you can download maps offline so you won’t get lost when data connection fails. Aside from that, the watch gets a new Location Memory feature. What this does is it reads your location and lets you lay down markers by hitting one of the physical buttons. You can also leave voice notes for spots you want to revisit.

This rugged smartwatch is built to military standards and is still water resistant up to 50 meters. It has a 1.32-inch dual layer LCD touchscreen (320 x 330 resolution) and has a battery life of up to a day if you have everything running and a month if you use it in normal watch mode. When you’re low on battery, it’ll go into monochrome mode. The watch also gets better activity tracking, especially for snow sports where it delivers additional data such as maximum speed for each run.

Click to read more ...

CES 2017: Sony Xperia Agent charms its robotic ways into our heart

By Nicole Batac

Las Vegas - The smart speaker/home assistant is being considered a growth market by a lot of brands. It’s not surprising that more and more of these smart home speakers are cropping up. While Sony doesn’t have a consumer-ready version for this segment, there is a prototype that’s been making the rounds at the big conferences since last year. You may or may not have heard of Sony Xperia Agent, a tiny adorable home assistant robot with artificial intelligence. You speak to it and it can do everything from fix your calendar, play songs on connected devices, throw photos or video files from phones into big screen TVs, etc.

We caught a demo of what the robot can do at CES and see how naturally it interacts with the person it’s talking. The ‘bot learns how you speak to it so it can react accordingly. And react it does, as the camera part moves around like a human head would. It tries to see who’s interacting with it. There are lights to it that make it look like the eyes of the device. It makes it seem like you’re actually talking to someone when speaking to the Xperia Agent. It even dances along when asked to play a song.

Click to read more ...

CES 2017: Samsung's Odyssey gaming notebook and Chromebook Pro devices not coming to Canada

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

Samsung's had another landmark year at the International CES 2017 with stunning new QOLED and Lifestyle TVs that bring simple yet remarkable mounting solutions to make TVs less like appliances and more like fine, functional objets d'art. The company has also made some compelling washer and dryer innovations. 

While there were no notable mobile or Galaxy announcements (seems they are saving that for Mobile World Congress in Barcelona), the company did make some huge announcements in the PC space. Most notably, Samsung's ready to square off with Alienware, Razer, ROG and other gaming hardware manufacturers with their newly announced Odyssey gaming notebooks.

Click to read more ...

CES 2017: Lenovo has VR headset, too

Las Vegas - Virtual reality being a big thing at CES 2017 is an understatement. One of the new entrants into the segment is a big name in the industry—Lenovo. But Lenovo’s take on VR is still a prototype without a name. It’s expected to come to the market sometime this year and we won’t be surprised if it catches a lot of attention. First off, it’ll be competitively priced at around US$400 (approx. CA$530). Its design makes more sense. The bulk of its 350g weight rests on your forehead instead of your nose, lessening the strain you’ll feel when you use it. Plus, to peek out into the real world, its hinge design allows you to lift it by the headset portion. You don’t need to take out the entire headset.

Click to read more ...