Hasta La Gadget!

We’re seeing some amazing innovation in watches these days, big companies and small startups alike are working to create smartwatches that do much more than just tell time. Pebble is a well known example, the project was crowdfunded and now the smartwatch is available through Best Buy. Agent smartwatch is yet another prime example. They link up to a smartphone and are able to display feeds, notifications and what not, but none of them are able to make calls. Here’s where HOT Watch comes in, which connects to your smartphone via Bluetooth 4.0 and allows you to make or receive calls in completely privacy through the smartwatch itself.

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HOT Watch Allows You To Make Completely Private Calls From The Smartwatch Itself original content from Ubergizmo.

The cascade of smartwatch rumors—be they iWatch, Surface, or other—increases daily. By this point, smartwatches of every shape and stripe seem inevitable. But there are so, so many reasons why they shouldn’t happen. Not any time soon, at least.

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Not sure if you’re exactly a smartwatch kind of person? Check out Lifehacker’s nifty little guide to help you figure out if you should make the jump.

Read more…

Earlier this week, E Ink announced its Mobius flexible display, a 1.73-inch touch-enabled panel for smartwatches. Now, the new screen has made its way onto the Computex exhibition floor in Taipei. Sonostar, a local manufacturer, has integrated the 320 x 240 grayscale panel within its new wearable, which the company is demonstrating for show attendees. Simply called “Smartwatch,” the product is little more than a mockup at this point, but it is expected to hit production sometime in Q3 of this year.

The two samples on hand were non-functional, unfortunately, but they did each contain a working Mobius panel — one displayed a sample Facebook notification, while the second had the time and date with a small low-res picture of a dog, along with battery and Bluetooth indicators up top. The watch itself was very lightweight, and while glare was clearly an issue today, there’s plenty of time for engineers to tweak things before this ships later in the year. The Smartwatch, which can stay powered for up to a week with each charge, will come in both black and white, and should be compatible with both Android and iOS devices. Pricing is not yet set, but representatives did confirm that it’ll be coming to the US.

Filed under: Displays, Wearables, Mobile

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We’re back! After a long hiatus, we’ve started up the TechCrunch Gadgets Podcast, our weekly review of everything hardware. We’ll be talking about hardware startups, flagship gadgets, and the wild and wooly worlds of Apple, Samsung, HTC, and all the rest.

Featuring the TC Gadgets team, this weekly audio podcast will bring you the best we have to offer and comment on the news of the week.

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This week we talk smartwatches, Apple on the defensive, and the release of the Nook HD+. Enjoy!

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