The new HTC Gallery app may have given us a heads-up earlier today, but the Taiwanese smartphone maker today confirmed that its new One (M8) Android handset will be available as a Google Play Edition too.
The handset will feature the stock Android experience, similar to the Nexus range and the HTC One Google Play Edition released last year. The company said it will be up for pre-order later today and then available from the Google Play store “in the coming weeks.”
While HTC has made great strides to improve the Sense UI, BlinkFeed and its set of exclusive apps, there will always be a group of Android enthusiasts that prefer the unaltered version of Google’s mobile OS. Aside from its competitive price point, it’s part of the reason why the Nexus line receives such high praise.
At the time of writing, the HTC One (M8) Google Play Edition hasn’t appeared online. It’ll be interesting to see where it’s immediately available – the Samsung Galaxy S4 Google Play Edition and original stock Android HTC One were only ever sold in the US, much to the annoyance of some people.
Engadget reports it’ll cost $699, or $650 as a Developer Edition from HTC’s own site, although we’re yet to have that either of those figures confirmed.
Read Next: HTC One (M8) hands-on: Will a bump in specs and better camera performance really be enough?
First look at the Wink Hub, tech’s latest dummy-proof home automation center
Another day, another product is added to the ever-growing “smart home” industry. Just last week, GE announced a $15 smart LED bulb along with a slew of other “connected” devices from its partnership with invention company Quirky.
Still, ask an average person if they’ve heard of Quirky and you might find yourself explaining the concept. Ask the same person if they’ve heard of Home Depot and the reaction would be the complete opposite.
To make smart home products more accessible and less confusing for the mass market, Home Depot has teamed up with Quirky-owned Wink to create a line of connected devices that are centralized into one place: The Wink Hub.
This $49 hub contains all the techy goodness that puts your “dumb” products on the Web with popular connection protocols: ZigBee, Z-Wave, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, to name a few. All the user has to do is set up the hub, purchase a Wink-certified product and scan the barcode of the item to connect it to your home network.
The current Home Depot-Wink line works with a ton of popular home improvement brands, such as Chamberlain (garage door openers), Honeywell (thermostat), Rheem (water heater) and GE (lighting and kitchen appliances).
Once connected, all the devices are controllable from within the Wink app. Users can set up timers, alerts, proximity settings and shortcuts. The app is available in both iOS and Android, with added compatibility for Android Wear .
The Wink Hub connects to your home network without requiring Ethernet, so you can place it anywhere around the house.
We stopped by the companies’ “Wink House” set up today and the app worked as advertised. The option to set up a one-click shortcut for various settings (such as Sleep to turn all the blinds and lights off and lock doors) is useful truly automating your home from a touch of a finger. It only takes about a second for the command to register from the app to seeing things in action, such as the lights changing colors or the garage door closing.
The Wink initiative is similar to Apple’s recently announced HomeKit , except Home Depot and Wink will also provide a 24/7 help line with a human representative to troubleshoot possible issues.
For the tech-savvy, the Wink hub and its line of connected products may not be the most exciting thing out there, but for the average consumer looking to get into home automation, it’s a simple solution that comes with familiar, well-trusted names.
The $49 (initial reports named the price at $79) Wink Hub, and all additional the connected products, will be available on July 7 in Home Depot stores, online and at Amazonom. If purchased with a Wink-compatible product, the Hub will cost $24.99; if purchased with two or more products, the Wink Hub goes for 99 cents.
➤ Wink for iOS and Android
MindRDR for Google Glass lets you take photos just by thinking, but there’s a drawback
With Glass becoming available to a wider audience and a general buzz around anything wearable in tech, the number of apps set to become available for the specs can only continue to increase. But the promise of one that lets you navigate Glass’s UI and carry out actions simply by thinking about it has got to be one of the most exciting possibilities on the horizon. There is, however, one problem.
The first version of MindRDR ‘s app from design studio This Place will live up to that promise – you can take a photo using Glass and share it on Facebook or Twitter just by thinking about it. It’s available to download now if you’ve already shelled out $1,500/£1,000 for a Google Glass unit but in order to use the free app , you’ll also need a Neurosky MindWave EEG headset , which costs €89.
It’s early days, so functionality is understandably a bit limited – the EEG headset measures four senses of a possible 18 in the brain, for example – but in future, it promises to let you interact with a whole lot more digital content and services simply by measuring your brainwaves and interpreting them into an action.
This all sounds pretty exciting, but there’s a downside as things stand today, you’ll look like this out in public:
Of course, if you’re happy to wander around with multiple devices strapped to your head in order to take a photo, there’s no problem at all.
Slight facetiousness aside, the hardware will undoubtedly continue to be refined and shrunk and the possible uses are endless, but the reality right now is that if you want to experience the cutting-edge of tech, you have to be willing to stand out from the crowd, for better or worse. And for most people, that will probably prove too much of a hurdle to get over for something like taking a picture.
➤ This Place | MindRDR [Github]