Pebble

Left: Pebble Steel. right: original plastic Pebble

If you like the functionality of the Pebble smartwatch but are less keen on the plastic finish, it looks like you won’t have long to wait for a metal version. We’ve seen a couple of leaks of the Pebble Steel, seemingly the exact same innards as the existing Pebble watch but with a stainless steel casing and Gorilla Glass.

There are said to be two versions, one in brushed stainless steel (shown alongside the original plastic version above) and a matte black one (shown below the fold) … 
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(via Archos)

As the clock ticks away to 2014 and with just a few days separating us from the start of CES, a new competitor is throwing its hat into the smartwatch category. Archos, a company that doesn’t quite elicit the same name response as Samsung or Apple will be “unveiling a selection of smartwatches starting at under £50 or $82 US dollars.”

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There was little question at some point, somewhere in their roadmap Pebble’s smartwatch was going to get a dedicated appstore. That day has arrived as a new company blog post indicates the new developer portal is now open. The app store will launch to the public in 2014 and be the “first-of-its-kind wearable application directory.”

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Look, don’t get me wrong as I’m totally on board with wearables and smartwatches as a new part of the industry. However, I’m still having trouble swallowing Qualcomm’s $349 price tag even if they promise a significantly better display…

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As Samsung beats back rumors of poor Galaxy Gear sales, it made me wonder what buyers really want to see in their ideal smartwatch? The world may be waiting to see what Apple unveils in the wearables category, but that hasn’t stopped companies like Sony, Qualcomm, and Pebble from trying to capture just a small sliver of this up and coming market.

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The Ubuntu Edge, a handset developed by Linux enthusiasts to run both the Linux-based Ubuntu OS and Android, has beaten Pebble to set a new crowdfunding record of $10.3M, reports TNW.

The Indiegogo page has now accrued over $10.3 million in pledges, toppling the Pebble smartwatch as the highest every fixed crowdfunding campaign. The United States is the highest contributing nation, followed by the United Kingdom – where Canonical also has offices – and Germany … 
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=PiYolKRuY7Q

There’s been a lot of interest surrounding the wearable computing market recently, with Apple going on an iWatch trademarking binge and the Pebble being released to Best Buy locations around the country. Samsung, who you have to figure is interested in the wearable market, showed off its vision for the future of wearables at the MobileBeat conference in San Francisco (via AllThingsD).

Samsung chief strategy officer Young Sohn showed a video full of concepts for wearable devices. Specifically, the video focused on the health benefits of wearable computing. It shows a women using her device to quickly send health test results to her doctor. “We think the health area is a really key area of innovation,” Sohn later said. Samsung things that, though the market for wearable devices is small at the moment, it will rise quickly when the technology is further integrated into watches, glasses, and more. The video also shows Samsung’s vision for  displays and how you could be able to easily expand and compress your device to get a larger or smaller form factor.

We haven’t heard too much about a Samsung wearable device, but we have to imagine that it is in the forecast, as both Google and Apple are reportedly eying the market.
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https://vimeo.com/69352543

Yesterday we noted that Best Buy retail sources indicated the popular ‘Pebble’ Bluetooth smart watch would be landing on at least some of the retailer’s store shelves this weekend. Today Pebble and Best Buy have finally made things official by announcing the partnership that will bring the most successful Kickstarter-backed device of all time to both Best Buy online and across all its U.S. brick and mortar locations.

It’s definitely big news for the company ahead of Apple’s rumored smart watch, as well as Sony and others getting deeper into the space. The exclusive retail partnership with Best Buy also marks Pebble’s first retail launch of the device after raising over $10.2 million from around 68,000 backers on Kickstarter.
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At first glance, the alleged Samsung Galaxy Altius looks like something pushed out by Microsoft. However, this Windows Phone-esque device is said to be one of a kind. The Galaxy Altius is a rumored smart watch from Samsung and presumed to be a direct competitor to the rumored Apple iWatch and other speculative future wrist devices. Leaked screenshots today posted on Slashgear show different tasks running on the device, such as a clock app, the boot-up screen and alleged home screen, which show live tiles very similar to the ones seen in Windows Phone devices. The leaked shots are said to come from a Korean message board website. Slashgear said that because of the “SKT and SKTelecom” words found on some of the leaked screenshots, it’s implied that the watch will be tied to a carrier. It’s also said the OS on the device is not Android but rather a new operating system titled “AltiusOS”. This could imply it’s running a specialized operating system designed for future Samsung watches or an unannounced OS entirely.

Making do with what it has, Slashgear stated that judging by the screenshots the device would feature a 500-by-500-pixel display. And, since the home screen is in a slider like format, it’s presumed the device will in fact be touchscreen (unlike the other smart watch on the market, Pebble).

Alongside the introduction of its new Samsung Galaxy S III, the company briefly talked about a music player accessory/companion product called the “S-Pebble.” The device is a refresh of Samsung’s old pebble MP3 player line, and it apparently has a 17-hour battery life and 4GB of built-in memory. However, it is not really an accessory for the Galaxy other than its pebble-blue and marble-white hyper glaze color schemes.

The S-Pebble will go nicely with Samsung’s new Scan and Match feature baked into its Music Hub service offering over 17 million songs. We do not have all the details on the feature, but it certainly sounds a lot like Apple’s iTunes Match service that matches your personal library of songs with songs stored in the cloud. The feature appears to be included in the cost of Samsung’s $10 per month fee for access to the Music Hub streaming service.

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