News
Qualcomm launches Snapdragon Wear 3100 for wearables
What you should know about Qualcomm’s latest chip for wearables
After two years, Qualcomm has finally unveiled a new chip for wearables and it’s looking like the future.
Snapdragon Wear 3100, announced earlier today in San Francisco, is “designed to allow consumers to enjoy the beauty of a fashion watch with the power of a smartwatch, the battery life of a sports watch with the richness of a smartwatch, and the utility of an analog watch with the flexibility of a smartwatch.” Just how does it attempt to do all that? Well…
It’s built for smartwatches
Snapdragon Wear 3100 features new architecture that boasts high-performance quad-core A7 processors. In so many words, expect this chip to be highly efficient for your next smartwatch experience. Which brings me to the next point:
It will stretch your battery power
Designed specifically for wearables, Wear 3100 adds four to twelve hours of active use (compared to the previous Wear 2100) and can bring you a total of 1.5 to 2.5 days of battery time.
There are new smartwatch modes
For those who like stylish but capable smartwatches, Wear 3100 offers a new Enhanced Ambient Mode with smooth second-hand movement and brighter colors. This new chip allows for 20 times less power when animating that second hand, something most watch faces have omitted because it drains battery power. There’s also a Dedicated Sports Experiences mode for the adrenaline junkies which promises 15 hours of continuous GPS and heart rate monitoring, and a Traditional Watch Mode with a week-long battery capability.
More Wear 3100 smartwatches are coming!
Montblanc has announced that the Summit 2, coming out in October, will be powered by this new chip. According to Qualcomm, this luxury watch brand together with Fossil Group and Louis Vuitton are the first Wear 3100 customers, so expect smarter smartwatches from those brands soon.
Because different manufacturers will have different smartwatch implementations when it comes to Wear 3100 devices, it’s a little too early to tell which watches to look out for. One thing’s for sure, though: Qualcomm stepped up the wearables game and now the ball has left their court.
Apps
Canva teams up with SB19 to turn A’TIN’s passion into creativity
Campaign lets fans access assets, editable templates, more
Canva Philippines has joined forces with SB19 and Sony Music Entertainment to launch the “Kaya sa Canva” campaign.
This first-of-its-kind initiative is aimed at transforming the popular Filipino boy band’s fanbase into creators by giving them access to official design assets, exclusive templates, and powerful creative tools.
That’s of course as fans have a way of creating artwork, banners, and more outputs to honor their idols.
As such, the partnership enables the A’TIN (SB19’s fanbase) to access the Canva-exclusive SB19’s Creative Hub.
This dedicated space lets fans access assets, including SB19-inspired sticker packs, custom typography, and editable templates inspired by the group.
Fans around the world will initially have access to templates for photo-booth strips, wallpapers, posters, and videos.
The campaign will then expand with Canva-exclusive assets celebrating the group’s New Era, as well as their latest single, “Lawless”.
Meanwhile, the original song “KAYA” is accompanied with an upbeat music video, doubling as a love letter to A’TIN and a masterclass in Canva’s tools.
Every visual and animation is fan-inspired, a celebration of the creativity, passion, and dedication that’s defined in the community from day one.
News
The iPhone 18 might sell out for an unexpected reason
The ongoing shortage might play a part in the phone selling out earlier than expected.
An iPhone selling out is not news. Because of how popular the phones are, it’s within the realm of probability that Apple runs out of stock at some point. According to a new report, this year won’t be any different… but it’s for an entirely different reason.
First reported by analyst Tim Culpan, Apple is reportedly struggling to meet its demand for semiconductors for the iPhone 18 and the foldable iPhone. The ongoing memory shortage is cutting off Apple’s ability to deliver the required supply of smartphones in a timely fashion. The report even claims that TSMC, which helps produce the iPhone, is sitting on a shipment of processors, worth US$ 1 billion, that don’t have memory chips.
Now, Apple is still confident that it can weather the launch. However, if the shortage persists, the iPhone 18 generation will likely sell out much more quickly than expected.
It’s an interesting time for Apple to experience such a shortage. It’s been heavily rumored that the company will launch its very first foldable phone next month, creating a new market for the brand. Apple definitely wants this attempt to succeed after the tepid response to its last new product, the Vision Pro.
SEE ALSO: Did Tim Cook just confirm that iPhone prices are going up?
News
These “smart” glasses just sold out in under a week
DuckDuckGo touts that these glasses have zero AI, zero cameras, and an infinite battery life.
Smart glasses are in a weird place right now. While a chunk of the population views them as cool and innovative, another significant chunk sees them as a privacy nightmare. If you’re in the latter group but want to see what life is like on the former, DuckDuckGo has a new product: a pair of anti-surveillance glasses with no camera or AI, otherwise known as just normal sunglasses.
If it’s not obvious, yes, it’s a troll product. DuckDuckGo is a search engine famously known for pushing privacy as a priority, opposing Google’s penchant for advertising and AI. Now, the search engine is taking on the smart glasses market.
Partnering with Knockaround, DuckDuckGo released the Paso Robles, a pair of sunglasses touted as having zero cameras, an always-offline mode, and a battery life of infinity.
It’s a statement piece. The rims have a logo mark, similar to the Meta’s glasses. The packaging also states that the glasses are “designed to block the sun, not send data to the cloud.”
Now, if you want a pair, they cost only US$ 35, as opposed to Meta’s US$ 299 price tag, but they are already sold out.
Which says quite a bit about today’s sentiment against AI and for privacy. Of course, to be fair, DuckDuckGo’s supply is certainly less than Meta’s stock for their smart glasses. It does, however, prove that the sentiment is there.
As of now, the world is slowly realizing that unimpeded smart glasses aren’t such a good idea, leading to people concerned about their privacy. In fact, some states have already started banning the technology in certain public spaces.
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