Peloton has launched two new products for its home smart gym lineup, the Bike+ ($2,495) and the Tread ($2,495). While both carry the same price tag, the new exercise bike joins as the premium version of Peloton’s original stationary cycle, which will remain on sale at $1,895, and the Tread is the new entry-level Peloton treadmill product, with the original becoming the Tread+ at $4,295. Both products were leaked by Bloomberg last week prior to their official unveiling on Tuesday.
Sennheiser just released a new on-camera, directional microphone. The compact MKE 200 ($99.95) puts a lot of convenience and performance into a small, portable package — one that’s great for go-anywhere vlogging once that’s a reasonable option again, and one that provides a fantastic, but affordable, upgrade for your at-home video conferencing setup in the meantime.
Nreal, one of the most-watched mixed reality startups in China, just secured million from a group of high-profile investors in a Series B round that could potentially bring more adoption to its portable augmented headsets.
Kuaishou, the archrival to TikTok’s Chinese version Douyin, led the round, marking yet another video platform to establish links with Nreal, following existing investor iQiyi, China’s own Netflix. Like other major video streaming sites around the world, Kuaishou and iQiyi have dabbled in making augmented reality content, and securing a hardware partner will no doubt be instrumental to their early experiments.
Other backers in the round with plentiful industry resources include GP Capital, which counts state-owned financial holding group Shanghai International Group and major Chinese movie studio Hengdian Group as investors; CCEIF Fund, set up by state-owned telecom equipment maker China Electronics Corporation and state-backed investment bank China International Capital Corporation; GL Ventures, the early-stage fund set up by prominent private equity firm Hillhouse Capital; and Sequoia Capital China.
In early 2019, Nreal brought onboard Xiaomi founder’s venture fund Shunwei Capital for its $15 million Series A funding. As I wrote at the time, AR, VR, MR, XR — whichever marketing coinage you prefer — will certainly be a key piece in Xiaomi’s Internet of Things empire. It’s not hard to see the phone titan sourcing smart glasses from Nreal down the road.
The other key partner of Nreal, a three-year-old company, is Qualcomm . The chipmaker has played an active part in China’s 5G rollout, powering major Chinese phone makers’ next-gen handsets. It supplies Nreal with its Snapdragon processors, allowing the startup’s lightweight mixed reality glasses to easily plug into an Android phone.
“Its closer partnership with Qualcomm will allow it to access Qualcomm’s network of customers, including telecoms companies,” Seewan Toong, an industry consultant on AR and VR, told TechCrunch.
Indeed, the mixed reality developer has already signed a deal with Japanese telco KDDI and in Korea, it’s working with LG’s cellular carrier LG Uplus Corp.
The latest round brings Nreal’s total raise to more than $70 million and will accelerate mass adoption of its mixed reality technology in the 5G era, the company said.
It remains to be seen how Nreal will live up to its promise, secure users at scale and move beyond being a mere poster child for tech giants’ mixed reality ambitions. So far its deals with big telcos are in a way reminiscent of that of Magic Leap, which has been in a legal spat with Nreal, though the Chinese company appears to burn through less cash so far. The troubled American company is currently pivoting to relying on enterprise customers after failing to crack the consumer market.
“Nreal is patient and not in a rush to show they can start selling high volume. It’s trying to prove that there’s a user scenario for its technology,” said Toong.
Peloton is reportedly getting ready to add to its product lineup with two new products at either end of its pricing spectrum, according to Bloomberg. The workout tech company is planning both a cheaper, entry-level smart treadmill, and a higher-end version of its stationary exercise bike, with an announcement set to take place as early as sometime next week, in time for its quarterly financial earnings.
The new products would come alongside a price drop for its existing exercise bike, to a price point under $1,900, according to the report. While the new “Bike+” will retail for more than the current price of the existing model, the price drop will help Peloton stoke the high demand for its products resulting from the closure of gyms and social distancing measures instituted in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Peloton’s new “Tread” treadmill will retail for less than $3,000, according to Bloomberg’s sources, which is a considerable discount versus the $4,295 asking price for the existing model. That one will remain on sale as a premium offering, and the new version will reportedly more closely resemble a traditional home treadmill in terms of materials and construction, allowing for the cheaper asking price.
The new, upscale Bike+ model will also reportedly feature a repositionable smart display, which will help it serve as the centerpiece of a more comprehensive home gym that includes strength training and other kinds of guided workouts. Peloton’s hardware products are what helped distinguish it in the exercise market, but it has built another strong business on subscription plans and app-guided workouts, which are available with or without its home gym equipment.
The new treadmill will likely go to market before the upgraded smart bike, in terms of availability, according to the report. Peloton’s main blocker for customer base expansion is probably its relatively high point of entry, in terms of its in-house hardware, so that makes a lot of sense if the company is looking to capitalize on general consumer appetite for at-home fitness solutions during the COVID-19 crisis.
Amazon wants to bring Alexa to property managers. The company this morning launched a new service, Alexa for Residential, that aims to make it easier for property managers to set up and maintain Alexa-powered smart home experiences in their buildings, like condos or apartment complexes. At launch, IOTAS, STRATIS and Sentient Property Services will be among the first smart home integrators to use the Alexa for Residential service.
It has always been considered a matter of if, and not when, Nintendo would begin capitalizing in earnest on content from beyond the SNES generation. The company is finally showing its intent to do so today — but with an uneven approach that leaves some fans worried about its intentions for other all-time gaming classics from the 64-bit era and beyond.
Research papers come out at far too rapid a rate for anyone to read them all, especially in the field of machine learning, which now affects (and produces papers in) practically every industry and company. This column aims to collect the most relevant recent discoveries and papers, particularly in but not limited to artificial intelligence, and explain why they matter.
It can be easy to mock the very concept of a “smart toothbrush” — what other device in our lives do we use daily that seems least in need of a connected upgrade? But Oral-B has been upgrading its powered toothbrush lineup with Bluetooth and app-based intelligence for quite a while now, and its latest new smart brush, the iO Series, is actually a very clever and capable update that should help you keep your teeth better-brushed and in healthier shape.
Dell has long garnered high esteem for the quality of its displays, and that hasn’t changed with its more recent models. What has changed is that more and more, people are looking for external monitors to complement their work laptops as they shift to more remote work — and settle in for more permanent home office configuration options. Dell’s 32-inch, 4K resolution UltraSharp U3219Q monitor is perhaps the best blend of quality, screen real estate and connection flexibility you can get, provided your budget is in the mid- to high range.
The U3219Q has a 31.5-inch diagonal screen, with an IPS display and a matte finish that’s excellent for avoiding glare. Its max resolution is 3840 x 2160, with a 16:9 aspect ratio, and it can run at up to 60Hz refresh rate. It’s a very large display, but it feels a lot less large than it is, in part because of the extremely thin bezels that surround the screen, and a relatively shallow depth. The display weighs just 12.8 lbs, which is extremely light when you consider just how much screen space it provides.
It comes with a stand that allows it to be adjusted across a range of around six inches up or down, and it’s able to be tilted up to 21 degrees, or swiveled 30 degrees in either direction. You also can rotate it from landscape to portrait, which is a handy feature for coding or document review, and it’ll still clear your desk with the integrated stand. The stand is also easy to remove, and it includes a standard 200×200 VESA mounting point for attaching it to monitor arms and wall mounts.
Image Credits: Darrell Etherington
For display connections, the U3219Q has 1 DisplayPort 1.4 and 1 HDMI 2.0 (both of which support HDCP 2.2 for playing back copyright protected content). There’s also a USB Type-C port which can provide DisplayPort 1.4 connectivity, as well as Power Delivery and USB 2.0 data connectivity, with a DP cable and a C-to-C cable included in the box. The monitor also features a USB 3.0 cable and port for connecting it to your computer to act as a hub, providing 2 USB 3.0 ports for accessories, as well as 2 USB 3.0 ports at the side of the display, and two of those also include charging power. While there are no built-in speakers, there is a 3.5mm audio output port for connecting headphones or an external speaker.
Dell touts the accuracy and quality of the panel, which boasts support for DisplayHDR content playback, and a factory color calibration that means it’s set to deliver 99% sRGB color accuracy out of the box, as well as 95% DCI-P3 and 99% Rec. 709 color for video. The display also features 400 nits of brightness, and 1.07 billion color depth along with impressive contrast. In short, it’s more than capable of handling even demanding video and photo editing tasks.
The Dell U3219Q lives up to its promises in terms of video and image quality. Out of the box, it looked fantastic when plugged into both a MacBook and a Mac mini, delivering excellent color rendering, contrast, brightness and blacks without any tuning. This is definitely a screen that has brightness to spare, which is useful if you’re working in a bright room with lots of natural sunlight, or if you need to crank up the brightness for specific tasks when editing photos or videos.
While the image quality is definitely a big advantage if you’re any kind of multimedia pro, that’s not the limit of who this screen should appeal to. The large size, and relatively small footprint, along with that 4K resolution, mean you can tune it to provide you with ample screen real estate depending on what resolution you choose. It’s easily able to handle multiple browser windows and applications arrayed next to one another in a variety of configurations, all while keeping text reasonably sized so that you don’t have to strain to read anything like you would running the same resolution on a smaller, but still 4K, screen.
Image Credits: Darrell Etherington
And 60Hz means that you’ve got a plenty fast enough display for smooth desktop computing and editing even 60fps video, but it’s not quite up to the high-speed standards that gamers are looking for today. Unless you’re very resinous about that, however, it’s a perfectly fine refresh rate for just about every other use.
Dell adding single cable USB-C connectivity makes it an ideal companion for modern Mac notebooks, allowing you to move from your couch to the desk with ease. Three total inputs across HDMI/USB-C and DisplayPort also mean you can have it connected to multiple devices at once, which can come in handy for some desktop console gaming breaks during your lunch break.
Video also looks fantastic on this display, either for editing or just for watching Netflix. And at 32-inches, it’s plenty capable of doing double duty in a home office/guest room where you want to also have a TV, but don’t want to invest in a second device. You would have to figure out an audio solution in that case, but Dell makes a monitor soundbar that you can add for $69 which mounts to the screen’s stand.
Image Credits: Darrell Etherington
Office upgrades are almost a must depending on where you work, and what their evolving policy is on work-from-home versus cautious office re-opening. The Dell U3219Q is normally $1,049, but is on sale at $839.99 via Dell direct right now, which is a lot to spend on a screen — but it’s also a device you use every day, and one that you want to provide the most bang for your buck and potential longevity. I actually currently use two Dell P2715Q monitors with my work setup, and both of these early generation 4K monitors are still going strong half-a-decade after I initially bought and began using them.
Dell’s also just launched a 32-inch curved 4K monitor (S3221QS) and a 27-inch 4K (S2721QS) that pack many similarly features but at lower price points depending on your budget. The company’s reputation for high-quality displays is well-earned regardless, however, and will serve any home office well, now and into the future.
Amazon today introduced an entirely new membership program called Halo that aims to provide comprehensive personal health and wellness monitoring and advice. The Halo service, which is opening to early access by special request today, includes both the service and a new Amazon Halo Band wrist-worn activity tracker for $64.99 for a six-month membership. Amazon says the standard public price of the same will be $99.99 once it’s more generally available.
Halo looks to offer more than your standard health tracking gadget/app combo, by taking a comprehensive look at various measures of health, including body fat percentage, as measured at home with just your smartphone’s own camera and the Amazon Halo app. The company says that it was able to make this possible using its own advances in computer vision and machine learning. Amazon employs deep neural network-based processing of your uploaded photos to separate your body from its surroundings, analyze so-called body fat “hot spots” where it’s easier to measure body fat percentage, and then generates a 3D model of your body. You can then use a slider to adjust your body fat percentage up or down to see what kind of impact gaining or losing body fat would actually have on your physique.
Image Credits: Amazon
Amazon claims that its technology is able to provide accuracy up to the standards of what a doctor would be able to determine in a clinical setting — and as much as twice as accurate as is currently possible using other at-home methods, including smart scales.
Meanwhile, the Amazon Halo Band is a small, sleek wrist-worn device that can capture other measures of health, including activity, skin temperature and sleep states (including REM, light and deep sleep). It has an accelerometer, a heart rate monitor, two microphones and it’s water resistant. The built-in battery can last up to a full week on a 90-minute charge, and it’s compatible with a range of different band accessories for switching style.
Another unique vector that Amazon is measuring on top of activity, sleep and body fat percentage is what it’s calling “Tone” — that’s why there are microphones on board the Halo Band. That monitors your voice, and applies machine learning to determine factors, including “energy and positivity.” Amazon says this will allow them to provide unique insights like whether “a difficult work call leads to less positivity in communication with a customer’s family,” for instance.
Image Credits: Amazon
The blatant, obvious concern here is that Amazon Halo seeks unprecedented access to a person’s personal data in order to derive its insights. Amazon is looking to collect information about the time, length and quality of your sleep; biometric data, including your heart rate and body temperature; information about when you exercise and where; and even highly accurate and detailed info about your body’s physical makeup — not to mention how your voice sounds and what that might indicate about your mental state.
Amazon says in a release about Halo that both Halo and Band were built with “privacy in mind,” and that body scans are automatically deleted from any servers where they’re stored after they’re processed. They’re then stored only locally on your phone, and Amazon says this means “no one but you ever sees them” unless you opt to share them. Further, it says all health data “is encrypted in transit and in the cloud,” with customers able to delete their data at any time. As for voice and speech data, Amazon says that these are analyzed locally on the phone itself and then immediately deleted after processing, so no one ever hears them — including the customer themselves.
Image Credits: Amazon
Even so, this is handing a lot of trust and information to Amazon, and while the raw data may be protected, the insights gathered, even if anonymized, obviously stand to offer Amazon a lot more value in terms of its ability to tune its overall product offerings and create additional opportunities for things like its burgeoning healthcare business. That said, Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant and ecosystem hasn’t seemed to deter customers, so it’ll be interesting to see how many are open to sharing even more info with Amazon in exchange for guided health and wellness advice.
