Thursday, December 11, 2014

ASUS ZenWatch review: subtle and stylish, with a few shortcomings

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/12/11/asus-zenwatch-review/

ASUS ZenWatch review: subtle and stylish, with a few shortcomings

The war for your wrist isn't going to wind down any time soon: We've already seen the industry's biggest players take a stab (in some cases, multiple ones) at perfecting their wearables. ASUS isn't quite as prominent as other names on that list, but that just makes its $200 ZenWatch all the more interesting The Taiwanese company -- probably best known for its quirky phone-tablet hybrids -- has put together am inaugural smartwatch that's dripping with style. In fact, it's the first smartwatch I've worn that's ever attracted random compliments from passersby (in two countries, no less), not to mention the first one that didn't make me feel like a complete nerd while wearing it. Alas, it takes more than just a sweet face to make a smartwatch worth owning.

Hardware

A sense of style and personality is crucial for wearables; it's the difference between tossing something in the drawer after it's technically obsolete and wearing it anyway just because you like it. The ZenWatch falls squarely into that latter category, at least as far as I'm concerned. ASUS has put together a handsome, understated piece of kit that many people will feel proud wearing. So what's so nice about it? Well, for starters, the simple, curvy chassis is hewn from two layers of stainless steel sandwiching a rosy gold, steel midsection that helps to break up what otherwise would've been a monotonous, 75-gram silver slab. It might not be everyone's cup of tea, but I think the rounded "2.5D" body and two-tone trim were smart decisions -- they make the watch feel understated and classy in a market that all too easily forgets what those words mean. In that respect, the ZenWatch lands somewhere in between the first, utilitarian batch of Android Wear watches and newer, flashier models like the Moto 360 and LG G Watch R. Definitely not a bad niche to camp out in.

You might not agree with ASUS' design choices, but you can't blame the company for shooting for style when it has the same dual-core 1.2GHz Snapdragon 400 and 512 of RAM that've popped up in nearly every other Android Wear watch to date. There's also 4GB of flash storage under the hood in case you want to listen to music on the run without having to lug around a phone while you're at it, though that's hardly novel either.

My review unit came with a caramel-colored, stitched leather wristband that's both fetching and comfortable, a proposition that's tougher to nail than you might think. I'm no watch maven, but I've come across plenty of pretty leather straps that are too stiff and creaky until they're properly broken in. Not so here. The ZenWatch's band felt supple on my wrist from the get-go. And hey, you can swap out that stock leather band with any other 22mm strap you've got lying around. That's probably for the best too, especially if you're the sort to wear snug shirts: At its biggest, the metallic clasp that lashes one end of the band to the other is even thicker than the watch itself, making it sometimes troublesome to pull a sleeve over. On the plus side, the ZenWatch's body is water-resistant, so it'll survive bathroom splashes and other accidents (just try to keep the water away from all that leather).

Right, that's enough fawning -- let's get to the disappointing stuff. Sitting right up top is the square, 1.63-inch AMOLED screen swathed in a de rigueur panel of Corning's Gorilla Glass 3 to keep it from getting banged up. Unfortunately, there's quite a bit of bezel separating the ring of steel trim from the screen itself, and it's probably the most disappointing thing about the ZenWatch's looks. All that unused space makes the screen seem smaller than it actually is, and it doesn't help that the bezel has a slightly textured look as if it's just begging to be noticed. Some better button placement would've helped a lot, too. We'll dig into the software in a bit, but here's a quick spoiler: The folks at ASUS seem to be huge fans of the analog clock aesthetic, so a crown wouldn't look too out of place on the ZenWatch. Frankly, it'd make a much better power button than the one we actually got; it's a tiny little thing that sits flush with the rest of the body, so it's tough to find by feel alone.

Display

Let's just get this out of the way now: The ZenWatch's 1.63-inch AMOLED screen isn't eye-catchingly round like some others out there, but that's no reason to write it off. After all, didn't a wise bard note ages ago that it's hip to be square?

Painfully dated jokes aside, the screen's generally a pleasure to cast your eyes on, even if those peepers have been spoiled by the smartphone the watch is connected to. It runs at 320 x 320 (that's a pixel density of 278 ppi, if you're keeping count), making it marginally crisper than the G Watch R, though Sony's SmartWatch 3 still beats it by a hair. Your eyes almost certainly won't notice a few extra pixels per linear inch, though, so there's not much point in getting too worked up over pixel density -- the ZenWatch's display is more than crisp enough to please all but the most scrutinous screen snobs. Oh, and since you'll be glancing down at an AMOLED screen, the bold colors Google likes are lively and vibrant with deep, sumptuous blacks to match. We're still a ways off from the holy grail -- a digital watch face that's as crisp and substantial as a physical one -- but this generation of wearables hasn't exactly left us wanting either.

Then again, there's the matter of all that stuff around the screen. I've already mentioned the expanses of bezel surrounding the screen, and man -- I can't ever not notice it. Maybe it's because the rest of the watch is so clean, so elegant that the bezel just seems like filler. At the very least, it would've been nice if ASUS fitted an ambient light sensor tucked away in there, but no dice. You'll have to choose from one of five brightness levels manually, a process that takes a total of four to five swipes and taps to get where you'd need to go. My time with the ZenWatch has mostly been spent with screen brightness dialed up halfway and I never had trouble seeing who was furiously texting me, even under the light of the harsh winter sun. By default, you can smack your palm down on the screen to shut it off, though 99 percent of the time I just waited the few seconds for the screen to do it on its own.

In use

Go ahead, pick up any Android Wear watch and start poking around. I'll wait. It won't take you long to realize that beyond all the cosmetic niceties -- the chassis, the bands, the different watch faces -- they're all basically the same. The incessant flow of information in the form of Google Now cards and notifications? Mostly impeccable voice recognition for taking notes, issuing responses and launching apps? Tap-and-swipe-friendly navigation? All of the core bits are here on the ZenWatch and work just the way they always have, so forgive me for not dwelling on them much. It's a testament to Google's grip on the platform, but it puts the onus on smartwatch makers to turn something so uniform and consistent into something special.

In the case of the ZenWatch, most of those special bits lean on a separate Android app called ZenWatch Manager. From there, you can customize the colors of the seven included non-Googly watch faces, and fire up extra features like a proximity warning to alert you when you've wandered away from your phone and the option to mute your phone's ringer by clamping your hand over your watch. Useful, though not exactly thrilling. Just beware the occasionally spotty English that pops up now and again -- whenever I modify a watch face, a dialog box cheerfully confirms that my changes have been saved and says, "You could select the watch face on your watch to use it." I could, but should I?

ASUS also crafted a handful of apps for your phone that hook into the ZenWatch hardware, though you'll probably wonder why anyone thought they needed to exist. Consider Remote Camera for instance, an app that turns your watch into a combination viewfinder/remote shutter. It sounds nifty, but it's mostly silly in practice since you'll rarely find yourself in a situation when it isn't easier to just tap your phone's shutter button instead. Group selfies, maybe? You could feasibly use your phone as some sort of GoPro-esque action camera with the ZenWatch as a second screen, but you'd have to remain within Bluetooth range of the phone the entire time.

Since every wearable is concerned with your state of being, there's a heart rate monitor baked into the metal frame to help you keep tabs on your ticker. Unlike the heart sensors built into watches like the Moto 360, though, you'll have to place two fingers on that stretch of metal to get your reading. Problem is, the results are wildly inconsistent. While lounging in an uncomfortable airplane seat, the ZenWatch thought resting my heart rate leapt from 49 beats per minute to 65 to a whopping 172 within the span of about three minutes. If that was at all accurate, I should've asked a flight attendant to find a doctor on board stat, but I survived that flight just fine, thanks very much. An additional Wellness app for your connected phone keeps tabs on your movement and heart rate data (sketchy though the latter may be) and plots it all on a daily timeline for you to skim.

Curiously, the app also lets you view your heart rate in terms of relaxation in case you didn't know how stressed you were at any given moment. Yeah, really. I'd just as soon stick to the Jawbone Up app that comes preloaded on the watch. It's a worthy supplement to Google's own Fit heath-tracking platform. Over the years, I've burned through no less than three Jawbone Ups/Up24s thanks to seemingly shoddy quality control, a bummer considering Jawbone's mobile app is one of the more pleasant on-the-go fitness apps you'll find; it's heartening to be able to use it again with hardware that I'm not constantly fretting over.

If anything, it's the little disappointments that seem to sting the most. I'd occasionally miss a notification (or even worse, an alarm early in the morning) just because the vibration motor thrumming on my wrist was too weak to catch my attention. Oh, and the accelerometer very rarely had trouble keeping up when I brought the watch up to my face, so I occasionally had to crank my wrist like I was revving a motorcycle to bring up the full display.

Performance and battery life

The ZenWatch has the same innards as several other Android Wear devices, like the G Watch R, right down to the 4GB of internal storage for your tunes. Naturally, that means the ZenWatch performs just as well as the rest of its rivals: Swiping through app and notification cards is usually pretty snappy, though you might spot some slowdown when you're trying to dismiss loads of them one after the other. It's still a little tricky to quantify how well these things perform in the real world, but hey -- even at its slowest, the ZenWatch managed never to be outright irritating. Considering all the bits of code and silicon needed to keep a smartwatch running smoothly, that's still a notable feat.

Now we're getting to the part you're probably most interested in: battery life. I used the ZenWatch every day over the course of two weeks, and those days were spent triaging a pretty steady stream of Hangouts messages, emails and Google Now info blasts. Throw in plenty of wrist-talking and you've got a situation that skews more toward the power-user end of the spectrum. On those heavier days, the watch's 369mAh battery would keep ticking for about 13 or 14 straight hours before giving up the ghost. That's about on par with what people are getting out of a post-update Moto 360, and just a hair better than what we saw with Samsung's Gear Live. Here's the thing, though: Your mileage is almost definitely going to vary from mine, depending on how frenzied your average day is. With any luck, your wrist won't be blowing up constantly, so you can enjoy the simple pleasure of looking at the time for longer.

Speaking of, what happens when you just want to use it as a watch, no smarts involved? Well, with Airplane Mode and the always-on display enabled, the ZenWatch generally stuck around for closer to 20 hours or so before it needed a spin in the awkward, little charging dock that comes with it. Naturally, once you shut off the always-on feature, the watch lasts quite a bit longer; I could usually use the thing for nearly two whole working days.

The competition

The number of Android Wear watches out there is starting to swell, and that leaves us with one weighty question to ponder: How does the $200 ZenWatch compare to everything else on the market? Well, its looks and build quality alone are enough to warrant a purchase over the first-gen Samsung Gear Live and LG G Watch, especially considering the latter still somehow costs an extra $30 over the others. The remainder of the ZenWatch's rivals are a bit more style-conscious, and at that point it all comes down to which approach you prefer.

Both LG's G Watch R and the Moto 360 come with those handsome round displays, and they score points for having heart rate monitors that you don't need to mash your fingers onto. Those little advancements are going to cost you though: The new G Watch R will set you back a cool $299 (honestly a little ludicrous for an Android Wear device), while the Moto 360 is a bit easier on your wallet, at $250. To be honest, I swooned hard when the 360 was first unveiled -- and so did many of our readers -- so it just might be worth the $50 premium. Oh, and if you don't mind its purely utilitarian looks and need something that doubles as a workout partner, Sony's $250 SmartWatch 3 might also be a good fit. We're still waiting to officially put that guy through its paces, though early reviews seem plenty promising.

Wrap-up

There's still no such thing as a perfect Android Wear watch, but ASUS' first offering sadly doesn't do much to stand above the crowd. The ZenWatch's design is the biggest reason to own one -- it's subtly stylish and comfortable in a way that other players' efforts just aren't. All things considered, ASUS has a solid grasp on the smartwatch basics, but I spent my weeks with the thing hoping to be pleasantly surprised by more than how good it looks. Performance is on par with the rest of the pack. Battery life is better than middle of the road, but only just. Needless to say, that pleasant surprise never came.

Thing is, it's not entirely the company's fault: We're still watching Android Wear take its baby steps, and not a single company totally understands what features need to be added to the mix. On the flip side, the ZenWatch will only set you back $200 -- a fair bit less than what you'd pay for the Moto 360 or G Watch R. If you absolutely have to own an Android Wear device, then, you could do a lot worse than this, especially if you're tired of smartwatches that look super-masculine or like sports accoutrements. Sadly, months after Android Wear's launch, that'll still be a big "if" for most of you.

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Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Artificial evolution is now possible in chemicals, but life remains elusive

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/12/09/artificial-chemical-evolution/

Molecules

We're still a very long way from creating an evolving lifeform from scratch in a lab. However, the University of Glasgow has managed to foster artificial evolution in chemicals. Their technique uses a 3D printing robot to both create oil droplets and choose the next generation based on desirable properties, like stability. No, the chemicals aren't evolving on their own, but the process works much like natural selection -- after 20 generations, the droplets were noticeably more stable. In the long run, the scientists hope to use this discovery both to study the beginnings of life and maybe, just maybe, create it.

That last part may be particularly daunting. If you need proof, you need only look at another study published this week. Czech researchers say they've created the chemical ingredients for RNA (a simpler cousin to DNA) by blasting clay and a chemical mixture with a laser, recreating the conditions from an asteroid impact and thus the circumstances that might have produced Earth's first organisms. While the findings support beliefs that it's possible to create life through bursts of energy, whether from asteroids or laser beams, it didn't actually generate the RNA itself -- and there weren't many chemicals, either. The basic concept isn't necessarily wrong, but there's clearly more involved than what we've seen so far.

[Image credit: Alamy]

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Source: University of Glasgow

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Intel shows off its own 'Internet of Things' platform

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/12/09/intel-iot-platform/

It wouldn't be a stretch to say that Intel is a bit obsessed with the Internet of Things (IoT). Connected gadgets were all over Intel's booth at the last CES, and it's one of the fastest growing portions of the company's business. The chip giant also kicked off an IoT consortium together with Samsung, Dell, and others earlier this year. Now, Intel is taking another major step in this arena with the launch of its IoT Platform, which it says will help companies to more easily test, deploy, and secure smart devices. Everything the company is doing is a direct response to Qualcomm, which stole the mobile chip market from Intel and is already well-poised to take on IoT with the AllSeen Alliance and AllJoyn standard, both of which aim to unify the fractured IoT market. But it seems Intel has learned the dangers of being late to a potentially lucrative new market (even if it did so the hard way).

It's already partnered with Dell, Accenture, and others around this new platform, and you can bet that it's going to work hard to score more deals. The company also debuted a few new IoT software and hardware offerings that should make life simpler for its partners. Yes, Intel's approach will butt heads with Qualcomm, but hopefully their competition will lead to some truly useful connected devices. A smart baby onesie isn't going to cut it anymore.

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Source: Intel

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Tuesday, December 09, 2014

Forget Encryption, Encode Secret Messages in Fake Spam

Source: http://gizmodo.com/forget-encryption-you-can-encode-secret-messages-in-fa-1668660264

Forget Encryption, Encode Secret Messages in Fake Spam

Send an encrypted email, and whoever sees it whistle past their eyes knows you're trying to hide something. So why not hide your most secret messages in plain sight, hidden in otherwise innocuous looking spam?

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Meet Pixelmator, Apple's Pick For Best iPad App Of The Year

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/best-ipad-app-of-the-year-pixelmator-2014-12

Apple recently announced its best apps of the year, and the winner for best iPad app is Pixelmator, a powerful new image editor.

Pixelmator got a lot of buzz after its team was invited to demo the app onstage at Apple's big iPad event in October, and after watching a photo get touched up and transformed in real-time, it's easy to see why.

Pixelmator is both incredibly powerful and user friendly, a rare combination that will appeal to veteran photo editors, digital artists, and even the casual person who takes some pictures on their iPhone and wants to make them look special.

While Pixelmator also exists for Mac, the app feels truly at home on the iPad's interface. The touch controls feel intuitive rather than tacked on, which is nice for those looking to sink some serious time into image editing.

If you're looking to work with photos, Pixelmator offers a full suite of photo editing tools that will let you choose a template, adjust colors, add effects, retouch, resize and crop, and insert text and shapes.

Pixelmator color adjustments

Pixelmator hue and saturation

Pixelmator editing tools

Pixelmator text

You can even remove undesirable objects from a photo quickly with Pixelmator's Repair tool.

Pixelmator

For those looking to give their photos an artistic look, Pixelmator offers some gorgeous filters such as Light Leak, Vintage, Black and White, and even a fun Miniaturize effect that makes your photo look like a toy model.

Pixelmator Light leak filter

Pixelmator miniturize effect 

And that's just what Pixelmator can do for photo editing.

Pixelmator is also a fully featured painting app for digital artists or those simply looking to add some paint to their photos.

You can start a painting from scratch, choosing one of Pixelmator's 70 realistic or stylized brushes, or paint over an existing image. There's tools for adjusting the style and size of the brush stroke, and there's even full stylus support, allowing you to paint with a Wacom stylus if you prefer.

Pixelmator painting

Pixelmator brush

Pixelmator painting

For those that work closely with Adobe Photoshop, you'll be pleased to know that Pixelmator calls itself "Photoshop friendly," meaning you can save your work as a Photoshop file, and many of the most popular Photoshop features are supported as well.

Pixelmator is exactly what you want from an iPad image editor. It's easy to use for the novice, contains enough tools to keep the expert interested, and is bot! h flexib le and powerful enough to make a compelling case as a primary editing application for photographers in the field.

You can download Pixelmator for $9.99 over at the App Store, or you can see a video of the app in action below.

SEE ALSO: Meet Elevate, Apple's Pick For Best iPhone App Of The Year

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