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Samsung Gear Fit Is the Fitness Tracker You Didn’t Know You Needed
New Gmail Feature Aids in Keeping Your Inbox Squeaky Clean
Sony Releases Grounded: A ‘The Last Of Us’ Documentary
Mozilla Exhibits $25 Smartphone for Developing Countries
iPads Might Finally Get Microsoft Office Support

Samsung Gear Fit Is the Fitness Tracker You Didn’t Know You Needed

Posted: 25 Feb 2014 07:00 AM PST

Sure, Samsung launched its new flagship Galaxy S5 and two new smartwatches running Tizen, but it’s the Gear Fit fitness tracker that sparked the most interest among MWC attendants.

Some could say that Samsung is late in the game of making smartwatches, fitness trackers and wearables, in general, but in my opinion, no one is late as long as they launch their products before Apple. Gear Fit also acts as a smartwatch, but it’s the fitness tracking aspect that interests people the most in this device, mainly because it comes with features that were never seen before in such a device.

The heartbeat sensor featured by Gear Fit is a unique feature among fitness trackers. The battery is also better than of the Gear smartwatches, as it’s supposed to keep the device alive for up to 4 days.

As smartphones with curved screens didn’t really catch up, the company decided to use the technology in other devices, as this fitness tracker is a prime example of that. It comes with a 1.84-inch 432×138 curved Super AMOLED touchscreen display that’s a beauty to look at. Due to how text, notifications and even the apps are displayed, it may take a while until you’re getting used to it, but in the end, getting a Gear Fit is worth it, supposing that it will have a decent price. Measuring 23.4 x 57.4 x 11.95 mm and weighing only 27 grams, the Gear Fit is something that people might actually forget that they are wearing. Still, this is how wearables should truly be designed: to be barely felt around the wrist, but ready whenever you need them.

Since Gear Fit isn’t a member of the Galaxy line, you could assume that it’s not running Android, and you would be right. Unlike Samsung Gear and Gear Neo, which run the South Korean company’s Tizen operating system, this fitness tracker is actually based on a proprietary operating system called RTOS (real time OS). Because of that, the device is only compatible with a limited number of smartphones, namely the ones from the Galaxy family.

Gear Fit has a replaceable strap, and this is yet another detail that differentiates it from the other fitness trackers. Judging by the youthful colors and patterns featured by the replacement straps, I’d say that Samsung has defined a precise target audience for this product: teenagers and young adults. To be frank, I can’t imagine someone above 40 getting away with any of the above straps.

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New Gmail Feature Aids in Keeping Your Inbox Squeaky Clean

Posted: 25 Feb 2014 06:00 AM PST

Thanks to inbox filters and spam control, Gmail has long kept some of the cleaner inboxes, but no solution works 100% and inbox zero is still a dream for many.

For a long time, my personal solution to keeping my inbox clean has been to periodically search "unsubscribe" in the Gmail search box to bring up all the mail I have containing that search term. After that, it's just a matter of sorting through each message to jump through the hoops of each company to verify that you don't want their weekly, daily, or hourly updates mucking up your inbox.

A new Gmail feature is going to use a similar concept, but make it much simpler and more accessible. Google is starting to roll out a feature that will automatically search an email for the word "unsubscribe" when the email is received. If the link is hidden in the fine print at the bottom (or anywhere else in the email) it will place a shortcut in the email header for easy access.

It's not difficult to get down to inbox zero on occasion, but maintenance can be hard and eventually many find themselves riding on dozens, hundreds, or thousands of unread messages due to email marketing, social media alerts, or other automated messages. This new addition from Google makes it easier to maintain a clean inbox once you've managed to sort through and remove all unwanted email.

Google's Vijay Eranti was quoted as saying “One of the biggest problems with the Gmail spam filter is identifying unwanted mail or soft spam." When unsubscribing from legitimate marketing emails—or any other services that the user themselves signed up for—is difficult, many messages get market as spam, which makes it harder for Google's filter bots to differentiate between legitimate email and malicious spam.

Providing users with this tool not only gives Gmail users the tools they need to keep their own inboxes clean, but also goes a long way to helping Google's filtering services properly identify potentially malicious messages, ensuring that when actual spam comes along, they are better able to identify and neutralize it for every customer.

Source: CNET

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Sony Releases Grounded: A ‘The Last Of Us’ Documentary

Posted: 25 Feb 2014 05:00 AM PST

Sony have released on their PlayStation youtube channel a documentary showing the making of of the 2013′ mega-hit, The Last of Us called ‘Grounded’. Watch it for free, and learn more about the industry, the game design process, and what goes on behind the scenes at Naughty Dog.

GTA5 might have been the fastest selling game ever, but it’s The Last of Us the one that stole our hearts last year, and the one we cannot stop talking about. The game has been called a masterpiece by fans and critics alike, and it has been such a smashing hit that now Sony is willing to quench the fans’ curiosity with a full-length, 85 minute documentary that explains a bit about what the process to create a game is like, and just what is it that makes The Last of Us so special. You can watch the documentary for free at Sony’s PlayStation channel, or right below these very lines… for free!

Be warned! There are some spoilers and story details below, so it would be in your best interests to beat the game before watching. Don’t say we didn’t warn you!

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Mozilla Exhibits $25 Smartphone for Developing Countries

Posted: 25 Feb 2014 04:30 AM PST

It was about time someone made an affordable, yet functional smartphone for countries where technology is still in the early stages.

Geeksphone Peak+ (pictured below) is one of the Firefox OS developer preview devices that I wrote about last year. Even more recently, the same Spanish manufacturer made Revolution, a smartphone that can boot either in Android or Boot2Gecko, a renamed version of Mozilla’s mobile OS. While the latter will surely be expensive, Peak+ and the other Firefox OS smartphones launched last year had a very attractive price, partly explained by its low-end specs. These days at MWC, Mozilla took things even further, showing off one of the most affordable smartphones ever, destined to be used in developing countries.

Jay Sullivan, COO of Mozilla, pointed out that “People in Latin America and Eastern Europe have eagerly upgraded from their feature phones to Firefox OS smartphones and now have rich access to the web and apps. Sales have far exceeded our targets. But 2013 was just the beginning.” I wish Mr. Sullivan was more specific as to what countries have just made the transition from feature phones to smartphones, as I happen to be from Romania, an Eastern European country where flagships such as Nexus 5, SGS4 and iPhone 5S are not exactly a rarity.

Sullivan explained that “In 2014, we are differentiating our user experience and our partners are growing the portfolio of devices. We are also enabling a whole new category of smartphone, priced around $25, that will bring even more people around the world online.”

John Jackson, IDC’s VP of mobility research, stated that “In six short months, Firefox OS has more than established itself in the very markets it aimed to address. IDC expects year-on-year Firefox OS volumes will grow by a factor of six times in the smartphone category alone.”

Mozilla’s mobile operating system won’t become a threat to iOS or Android anytime soon, as the company focuses on low-end devices made for emerging markets. However, it’s great to see a bit of diversity, and hopefully, more manufacturers will embrace this OS, regardless if they’re big names or smaller tech companies. It definitely looks like it’s no longer exclusively Nokia’s duty to connect people, as plenty of companies – especially Chinese ones – offer affordable smartphones.

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iPads Might Finally Get Microsoft Office Support

Posted: 25 Feb 2014 04:00 AM PST

After years of rumors, Microsoft may finally be blessing iPads with a Microsoft office suite.

The iPad has been cursed to a functionality middle ground for a few years now. It has the same capabilities as an iPhone, but lacks the portability, while it has better portability than a laptop, but lacks the features. While it does accomplish around 90% of the tasks most people need, it continues to be a secondary device, since it is unable to fully replace a laptop.

A Microsoft Office suite goes a long way to helping the iPad challenge normal laptops. While there have been office substitutes for the iPad, none were official Microsoft products and full touch optimization is still lacking in available apps, making them more of a workaround than a solution.

With the proliferation of iPads, Microsoft could stand to profit highly from such a move, but it could also eat into the sale of Microsoft's own tablet, the Surface. More than likely, they are hoping to avoid any legal issues that could arise from a prolonged delay of a touch optimized office suite for the iPad since Office could be considered an “essential service.”

Microsoft did release a limited Office application for the iPhone last year and that version did require a subscription to Office 365, so it's reasonable to expect the same Office 365 and/or One Drive subscription for the tablet counterpart.

The application is expected to launch by July—several months ahead of Microsoft's own touch-optimized Office suite. It's likely this will have a much bigger impact on iPad sales than it will on Microsoft Surface sales, since the Surface Pro—but not surface RT—is already able to run a full version of Office. This could affect Surface RT sales, but reception for the RT has been lukewarm at best, and Microsoft Office support isn't likely to change that.

There will still be areas where iPads can't fully substitute for a regular laptop, but the addition of touch supported Microsoft Office will close the gap from about 90% of necessary functionality to 95% functionality and before long, it might not be possible to tell the difference between a laptop and a tablet.

Source: NDTV Gadgets

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