The Internet was strapped to wrists at the Consumer Electronics Show on Wednesday in the form of Android-powered “smart watches” that serve up online content along with telling time.
Japanese consumer-electronics titan Sony and venture-backed Italian startup i’m Watch were each sporting spins on timepieces that use the Google software to connect wearers with e-mail, music, Web sites or other online content.
Sony’s SmartWatch was promised by the end of March, while i’m Watch was released at the show.
“This is the right period for the watch,” i’m Watch chief executive and co-founder Massimiliano Bertolini said at the company’s booth on the show floor.
“Everybody wants to have technology that is also fashion,” he said. “That is the Apple secret; making devices that people fall in love with.”
For some time now California-based Apple has been letting iPod Nano owners turn the small, square devices into Internet-connected watches complete with wrist straps.
I’m Watch ranges in price from US$350 for colorful models with silicon wrist bands and aluminum-cased touchscreens to US$15,000 for one made of pink gold and adorned with diamonds, according to company designer Gianluca Negrello.
Wearers are alerted to new Gmail messages or fresh posts at online communities Facebook or Twitter and can access digital photo albums or free Google Web-based services such as Calendar.
Messages can’t be sent from touch-screen i’m Watch, which can connect to their own online shop for applications or music. People can make phone calls using i’m Watch, which links wirelessly to smartphones.
Sony said at the show that by the end of March it would release a touch-display SmartWatch capable of connecting to mobile phones wirelessly using Bluetooth capabilities.
Applications are set to be tailored for SmartWatch, which is scheduled to be priced at US$149.
SmartWatch devices being sported by workers at the Sony booth were tethered wirelessly to Android-powered Xperia smartphone models the company unveiled at the show.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last