IFA 2017: The biggest announcements from Berlin’s tech show
Samsung's Gear Icon X earbuds are truly wireless, with built-in heart rate monitoring -- and now, perhaps, an acceptable amount of battery life too.
Samsung promises five hours of streaming audio, and five more from the case, which charges the 'buds when they're inside. Plus, you can tap the 'bud to access Samsung's Bixby voice assistant if you've got a paired Galaxy phone.
Acer Holo360
Remember the Flip Cam, the ubersimple all-in one portable video camera? Acer wants to do that for 360-degree video too. That's what the Holo360 is all about, with its built-in touchscreen and LTE data so you can set up a 360-degree livestream anywhere or share on the go.
$429 (approximately £330 or AU$540) this November.
Google Assistant expands to third-party speakers
Soon, you won't need a Google Home to use the Google Assistant voice helper in your house. You'll be able to buy an Assistant-enabled speaker from another company, like this boring-looking -- or should I say, utilitarian -- Panasonic GA-10 you see right now. At IFA, three speaker manufacturers announced such products.
Ricoh Theta V
The Theta S's low-resolution, low-bit-rate video has been replaced with 3,840x1,920/30p video that records with a bit rate of 56Mbps, and it's now powerful enough to stitch your video together in real time. Plus, the camera's four omnidirectional mics can capture 360-degree audio.
The Ricoh Theta V is available now to order for $430 along with the TA-1 3D microphone for $270. That converts to about £330 and AU$545 for the camera and £210 and AU$340 for the mic. The TW-1 Underwater Case arrives in October for $200, which is about £155 and AU$250.
LG V30
The V30 follow-up to the V20 phone looks gorgeous, sloughs away unnecessary features and amps up all its best features. It gets a better (OLED) screen, wireless charging and advanced video features you don't see on a typical phone. They include real-time filters, the ability to zoom to a specific point in the camera app and improved audio recording -- 32-bit sound and four different sound profiles (such as live and bass) plus digital filters to tweak a sound's characteristic, like making it sharper or slower.
It will be available first in South Korea on Sept. 21. North America, Asia, Europe, Africa and the Middle East will follow. So far, US carrier AT&T confirmed it will carry the V30, but gave no exact sale date.
As for pricing, nothing is official yet. But LG did say it will cost around the same price as the G6 and the V20, so expect it in the ballpark of $600 to $800, or about £650 in the UK and AU$760 to AU$1,010 in Australia.
Sphero R2-D2
Sphero rolled out (pardon the pun) a couple of Star Wars app-controlled robots. The BB-9E is nice, but the R2-D2 excels. It rolls around on treads, or sprouts its third leg and leans back for movement on tougher surfaces like carpets. It can wobble with its feet, too. R2's head turns and lights up, and it makes all of R2's beeps and noises with its own speaker, something BB-8couldn't do. It also works with Apple's Swift Playgrounds programming environment for kids.
R2-D2 costs $180 (£179 in the UK, or $AU300), which is less than Lightning McQueen, but more than BB-8 and BB-9E.
See the full story here: https://www.cnet.com/au/pictures/ifa-2017-biggest-gadgets-news/