But what Google did this week with its new smartwatch operating system, Android Wear, was shrink the smartphone experience down to a tiny wrist-sized computer that constantly nags you with every single notification from the apps stored on your phone.
The Samsung smart watch can project an analogue face of sorts. Photo: Business Insider
I used one of the new Android Wear smartwatches, Samsung’s Gear Live, for several hours on Thursday, and my wrist hasn’t stopped buzzing since I synced the device with my phone.
New email? Buzz. New text? Buzz. The thing won’t shut up. I’m one of those guys who obsessively checks his phone, but this is too much for me. Plus Android Wear ties in with Google’s digital assistant service Google Now, which attempts to help you out by notifying you about stuff it thinks you want to know about like upcoming flights or package deliveries.
So there are even more things to look at.
This isn’t the answer. Instead of solving the problem of whipping my phone out several times a day, Android Wear makes me nervous and anxious from all this hyper-connectivity. If I’m to ever go all-in on a smartwatch, it needs to be simpler than this.
It’s why I love my FitBit fitness tracker, which does a few things like tracking my steps and sleeping habits, and does them very well. Android Wear, on the other hand, tries to do everything at once, which ends up being far too noisy and complex.
It’s also why I’m curious to see how Apple’s iWatch turns out when it launches in spring. If the reports and rumours are true, it sounds like it will be much more focused than the recent crop of smartwatches we have today thanks to its fitness tracking features.
That probably won’t look good on paper (“It can only do that?!” the Apple critics will surely howl), but as I learned after just a few hours with Android Wear, less is more.
Google highlighted the latest Android's facelift in a preview dubbed L that adds elevation values, real-time shadows, clean typographical layouts and an overall feel that gets inspiration from paper and ink.
Executives at Google I/O in San Francisco tag teamed to outline Android's new look, which aims to unify the Web, desktop, your phone and wearable devices. Google's bet is that a clean unified design---coupled with contextually aware notifications and other goodies---can connect multiple screens.
The linchpin of Android overhaul is "material design," which Google describes as a "unifying theory of rationalized space and a system of motion." Google goes on to say that "our material is grounded in tactile reality, inspired by our study of paper and ink, yet open to imagination and magic."
Google is trying to use material design to allow colors, iconography, hierarchy and spatial relationships be the glue between multiple screens. Objects and icons will be given depth and drop shadows. Developers will be able to give objects a depth value and they can slide above other icons.
According to Google, the material design will start rolling out across its applications and now developers will get in on the act ahead as the next generation of Android rolls out.
When finished Android will have a blend of what Apple has done and its familiar design. Here's a look:
A:The Mini Solar Roll stretches out to a full 18 inches when gathering solar energy. When it's time to break camp, it rolls up like sushi into a small pouch. The onboard lithium-ion battery is powerful enough to recharge your phone or camera when you need it, packing a lot of talk time into a very small package. Available late February 2013.
http://www.bushnell.com
USD$ 90.-
Weight: oz
3.1
Size: in
4.3" x 1.25"
Deployed Length: in
18.25"
Charge From Wall:
4 Hours
Charge From Solar:
10 Hours
USB Outlets:
1
Power Output:
5v, 1a
Battery Type:
Li Ion
AM115 Yu Solar Charger
Universal Solar Charger with silicon case and powerful solar panel.
The Yu solar charger has been manufactured of pure silicone and sports a 2,000 mAh battery. It is suitable for various mobile devices, like a Smartphone, GPS and E-book reader. The USB interface of the device ensures a plug and play compatibility with all USB-chargeable devices.
This new, trendy silicone solar charger has a powerful 1.5Watt Sunpower™ solar panel, so it is easily rechargeable by using the sun. Apart from using it in the sun, the Yu Charger can also be charged via regular USB or AC adapter[1]. The internal 2,000mAh battery stores the energy collected and can hand it out by connecting a USB device.
The unique silicone case makes the Yu charger dust, shock and splash-proof. The USB ports are covered with rubber pads for added protection.
The Yu comes fully supplied with a carbine hook for easy carriage or to attach it to your bike, backpack or tent. The Yu charger is ideal for holidays, hiking, biking or other outdoor activities.
http://www.xtorm.eu
€ 49,00
Features
Universal solar charger
Dust, shock and splash proof
Easy to attach to your bag, tent or bike with included the carabine hook
Specifications
Solar panel:1.5Watt
Capacity: 2000mAh Li-polymer
Dimensions: 16x10x1.8cm
Weight: 153 grams
Output: 5V/ 1A
Input: 5V/ 1A
Supplied: USB charging cable, carabiner hook and manual
High Quality Portable Backup Battery DBK S72 7200mAh Portable Power Bank for Mobile Devices Solar Power coupon code 2014
Buy anything with coupon code 2014 you can get
High Quality Portable Backup Battery DBK S72 7200mAh Portable Power Bank for Mobile Devices Solar Power cheapest price will help you save much money. Proves to be the best solution for smart online shoppers as it allows them to save money through these coupon codes. Click image below to active
This little device might look familiar to those of you who are active members of the Kickstarter community– WakaWaka Power originated in that forum, scoring over 800% of the project’s original funding request. So what is this little Droid-y looking thing exactly? This is WakaWaka Power, a portable, personal solar charging station and lamp light.
I can’t say the name without thinking of Fozzie from The Muppets, but WakaWaka is Swahili and is translated roughly to “Shine Bright”. It’s an apt meaning, referencing not only the literal “shine” aspect of the gadget but also the humanitarian efforts of Off-Grid Solutions, the company behind WakaWaka Power. OGS’s mission is to assist those living in both poverty and energy poverty. With the latter, they’ve created devices that provide powerful solar-based light and end reliance upon dangerous kerosene. As for the former, $10 of the sale of each WakaWaka Power is donated to provide micro-loans and other assistance to those in need as a hand-up model for communities to build their own economic futures. Additionally OGS hosts “buy one, give one promotions” for the WakaWaka Power and has pledged to the Clinton Global Initiative to distribute 1 million WakaWaka’s in the next few years. There is a wealth of further information about these programs onWakaWaka’s website, but without further ado, how about the product itself?
WakaWaka Power in the “Closed” position
In the box we have the WakaWaka Power and instructions poster – and that’s all. The company is all about conservation, and while I have far too many USB cables for my various electronic devices, I was still a little surprised by the lack of corresponding WakaWaka USB cable.
Each side of WakaWaka Power has a USB input. One side is a microUSB, while the reverse side is the full-size USB. Both inputs are protected from debris by the Power’s stand; they are only accessable when the device is “open”. This also means that the WakaWaka cannot be charged via USB or charge other devices without “sitting” open.
MicroUSB
USB input
It’s funny, the moment I received my WakaWaka Power for review, it seemed like I was plagued with day after day of overcast, miserable weather. For the first two weeks I was barely able to pull in half a charge to it on any given day, but to its credit, it was still able to bring my phone up to a half charge.
The specs are roughly 8 hours of direct sunlight fully charge the internal battery of WakaWaka Power, which can then be used to fully charge a smartphone in 2 hours and still have enough juice for an additional ten hours of bright light. Even when I fully depleted the battery of my WakaWaka Power, I was still able to eke out an additional hour of reader-level light.
WakaWaka Power in the Open position with Light on
The little “eyes” on the front face can illuminate at three intensity levels–Bright, ideal for flashlight use and brighter lighting needs; Reader, which is 50% of bright mode and ideal for reading; and Saver, which is a 25% as intense as bright mode and provides a glow of ambient light. On a full charge, the WakaWaka Power can provide 20-80+ hours of light, depending on the light intensity selected. In addition, there’s also an S.O.S. flashing beacon mode that repeatedly flashes, you guessed it, S-O-S in Morse code.
The giant black power button on the front controls all of the WakaWaka Power features, other than self-charging. Pressing it once acts as both a battery status check for the WakaWaka Power (4 green lights = 100% battery; 1 green light = 25% battery) and also initiates the charging of the plugged-in phone. Pressing the power button 2+ times will cycle through all of the lighting modes. The distress beacon is activated by holding the power button for 2 seconds.
Charge indicator lights–at 50% charge level
The leftmost single light is the solar charging indicator. Once the panels are exposed to light, that red light begins flashing to indicate charging. The only caveat here is there it cannot both charge a phone and charge itself. Once the WakaWaka Power battery is drained, it switches itself from charging device mode to charging itself (if left in sunlight). It will not charge the phone again until the black power button is pressed to activate charge mode.
And how about those solar panels? WakaWaka Power has a propriety solar panel system making it 200% more efficient than its competitors. The panels are on the reverse side of the LED “eyes.” Solar charging can happen either in the open position or closed with the WakaWaka Power face down and solar panel exposed.
I did finally get a few sunny days during my testing and quickly found how lacking my house is in lighting and in relation to the position of the sun. I sat WakaWaka Power open in a window for a full day and was only able to soak in a 75% charge. Once I moved outside to the deck and sat it in full view of the sun, I was able to get that full solar charge – but it was a clear, sunny day. On light but overcast days, I averaged between 50-75% full charge, usually enough to mostly charge my phone from 0% battery.
I had no problems using WakaWaka Power to charge my phone. Most of my USB cables are quite long, so we get this sort of messy tentacle-esque look when everything is hooked up. Not particularly clean, but it works. With a little careful balancing and positioning, you could “cradle” your phone against the WakaWaka Power.
I had a few reservations about WakaWaka Power, mostly on the portable charging front. I have at least 3 other portable battery-type chargers, one of which I just received for Christmas and have yet to take out of the package. While they’re a great idea in theory, I just never think to keep them charged or lug them around with me. It might sound a little hokey, but I really love having the WakaWaka Power and have thrown it in my backpack without even thinking on the last few weekend vacations. Some of this might be due to design – the little guy is cute as anything – but it’s also incredibly convenient. I can put him (I’ve decided it’s a “he”) in the window in the morning, and by evening, he’s ready to charge my depleted phone. Heck, I even found the light incredibly handy in an emergency where we had to check my dog’s eyes for a possible concussion. (Don’t worry, she’s fine.)
The other night during a thunderstorm, I had it next to me just as a safety net in the event of a power loss. After hurricanes Sandy and Irene, I have a huge appreciation for the availability of both light and power – and now WakaWaka Power provides me with both.
WakaWaka Power is lightweight, only about 7 ounces, and around the same size as a cell phone, just a little thicker. It can stand up to basic scuffs and splashes, making it ideal for camping, backpacking, etc. The only con I ran into is that if ONLY using it as a solar charger, it really does need to be exposed to full direct sunlight in order to fully charge. But the AC charging fallback ability almost completely overshadows the drawback, for me.
WakaWaka Power can be purchased directly from Off-Grid Solutions for $79 in either black or yellow.
Mozilla’s Firefox OS is based on Gecko — the same core rendering engine that its desktop and mobile Firefox web browsers use. This unified framework goes to the essence of what Firefox and Mozilla are about. Mozilla sees the future ofapps and browsing as two sides of the same coin. To push its vision for “Open Web Apps,” Mozilla has rolled out v29 of Firefox for Android, which enables you to download and install Firefox OS marketplace apps on your Android device with no additional configuration.
When developers create apps for Android or iOS, they need to build them using Java or objective C, respectively. This has traditionally allowed for a more robust set of APIs and vastly improved performance compared to web-only technologies, but things are slowly changing. Firefox OS apps are built using HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript. The upshot of this is that they can run on any platform with the proper rendering engine, in this case Gecko.
Mozilla isn’t the first company to push web apps on mobile devices as an alternative to native ones. That distinction goes to Palm, which used a similar approach to the appecosystem on webOS. That didn’t go so well, but the capabilities of browsers have advanced considerably in the last four or five years. Mozilla’s WebAPI documentation provides methods for accessing hardware (camera, battery stats, sensors, etc.) as well as a variety of data management and communication features. The gap between native apps and web apps is more technologically narrow than it once was.
With the new support for Android, all you need to do is install the updated Firefox browser from Google Play — attempting to grab anything from the FF marketplace with Chrome results in an error. The apps will go through the standard Android installation dialog (packaged as an APK), and even show up in the app drawer. They open like normal apps, but all the rendering is done through Firefox’s Gecko engine. As for usability and performance, web-based apps like this have definitely come a long way over the years. They work, but the design language is much less refined.
Mozilla hopes that its Open Web App initiative will spur more development of apps based on web technologies. Developers could potentially save themselves a lot of headaches by building apps once with web languages instead of doing the same thing multiple ways for different mobile operating systems. However, cross-platform compatibility is currently limited to Android. Apple doesn’t allow third-party browser engines on iOS (even Chrome for iOS uses the stock WebKit engine), so there’s no way to render Open Web Apps.
Expanding web apps to Android isn’t Mozilla’s only mobile play. Firefox OS itself is still under development and there are new entry-level smartphones running the software set for release in India (and a few other markets) for as little as $25. Even the super-cheap Moto E can’t compete with that. With Microsoft still faltering, Mozilla’s open approach and entry into big developing markets could potentially earn it a comfortable (but distant) third place slot in the mobile device ecosystem.
Mozilla’s Firefox OS is based on Gecko — the same core rendering engine that its desktop and mobile Firefox web browsers use. This unified framework goes to the essence of what Firefox and Mozilla are about. Mozilla sees the future ofapps and browsing as two sides of the same coin. To push its vision for “Open Web Apps,” Mozilla has rolled out v29 of Firefox for Android, which enables you to download and install Firefox OS marketplace apps on your Android device with no additional configuration.
When developers create apps for Android or iOS, they need to build them using Java or objective C, respectively. This has traditionally allowed for a more robust set of APIs and vastly improved performance compared to web-only technologies, but things are slowly changing. Firefox OS apps are built using HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript. The upshot of this is that they can run on any platform with the proper rendering engine, in this case Gecko.
Mozilla isn’t the first company to push web apps on mobile devices as an alternative to native ones. That distinction goes to Palm, which used a similar approach to the appecosystem on webOS. That didn’t go so well, but the capabilities of browsers have advanced considerably in the last four or five years. Mozilla’s WebAPI documentation provides methods for accessing hardware (camera, battery stats, sensors, etc.) as well as a variety of data management and communication features. The gap between native apps and web apps is more technologically narrow than it once was.
With the new support for Android, all you need to do is install the updated Firefox browser from Google Play — attempting to grab anything from the FF marketplace with Chrome results in an error. The apps will go through the standard Android installation dialog (packaged as an APK), and even show up in the app drawer. They open like normal apps, but all the rendering is done through Firefox’s Gecko engine. As for usability and performance, web-based apps like this have definitely come a long way over the years. They work, but the design language is much less refined.
Mozilla hopes that its Open Web App initiative will spur more development of apps based on web technologies. Developers could potentially save themselves a lot of headaches by building apps once with web languages instead of doing the same thing multiple ways for different mobile operating systems. However, cross-platform compatibility is currently limited to Android. Apple doesn’t allow third-party browser engines on iOS (even Chrome for iOS uses the stock WebKit engine), so there’s no way to render Open Web Apps.
Expanding web apps to Android isn’t Mozilla’s only mobile play. Firefox OS itself is still under development and there are new entry-level smartphones running the software set for release in India (and a few other markets) for as little as $25. Even the super-cheap Moto E can’t compete with that. With Microsoft still faltering, Mozilla’s open approach and entry into big developing markets could potentially earn it a comfortable (but distant) third place slot in the mobile device ecosystem.
and browsing as two sides of the same coin. To push its vision for “Open Web Apps,” Mozilla has rolled out v29 of Firefox for Android, which enables you to download and install Firefox OS marketplace apps on your Android device with no additional configuration.
Mozilla isn’t the first company to push web apps on mobile devices as an alternative to native ones. That distinction goes to Palm, which used a similar approach to the app