Microsoft boasts 10 million Xbox One shipments

Microsoft shared that Xbox One sales have reached 10 million following the console’s recent price cut. Sony reached this milestone three months ago with its PlayStation 4.

Nevertheless, the Xbox One is enjoying a surge in sales and in the previous week its sales in the US have tripled. In fact, Microsoft’s devices and studios chief Yusuf Mehdi says the Xbox One is leading the PlayStation 4 in sales for the last two weeks.

With the recent launch of new Xbox One game titles, Microsoft is launching new console bundles. Assassin’s Creed Unity, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, and Sunset Overdrive will be $50 off if you combine them with an Xbox One variation of your choice. Bundle prices will start at $349 in the US, which MIcrosoft says is the consoles lowest price so far, just in time for the holidays.

It’ll be interesting to see if Microsoft can catch up Sony for the busy holiday season and end the year neck and neck.

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Second-gen Samsung Simband health tracker unveiled, developers can pre-order

Six months after unveiling the Simband and SAMI – a wearable with a rich biometric sensor array and its supporting cloud platform – Samsung has unveiled the second generation of Simband. It’s based on the Gear S but will not be sold commercially – instead it’s a development platform that developers can pre-order today.

They can reconfigure the sensor array as needed and even develop their own sensors and algorithms to plug into the system. Samsung has made the Simband and SAMI an open platform to draw in partners and developers.

The current generation of Simband has six sensors – step counter, heart rate (ECG), blood pressure, skin temperature and galvanic skin response (how much you’re sweating, a measurement of stress).

The health tracker has three main functions. The first is Spot, a quick check of your heart rate and blood pressure, then the more comprehensive Monitor, a real-time display of the sensor’s readings, and finally Trends, which shows all the data collected over time. Data is synced over Wi-Fi (the Simband doesn’t seem to have its own SIM slot like the Gear S).

One of Samsung’s partners, Babolat, demoed a tennis racket that has sensors built into it, which connects to the SAMI platform. You can find more info on both SAMI and Simband at VoiceOfTheBody.io.

The Simband announcement was part of the Samsung Developer Conference which also brought us Flowand US pricing info on the Gear VR headset.

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YouTube updates its iOS and Android apps with Music homepage

The YouTube app for iOS and Android has been updated with a new music homepage, which feeds you an endless YouTube Mix based on your favorite music videos. The new section also contains recommended music playlists based on what you’re into and playlists of trending music across YouTube.

YouTube Music will also contain full albums, even artists’ whole discographies. If you want to enjoy the music without ads then YouTube Music Key (beta) is for you – its promo price is $7.99/month with the regular being $2 more.

The service also features background and offline play. Moreover, it will include a subscription to Google Play Music, giving you additional access to over 30 million songs.

Also, if you score an invite to try YouTube Music Key, it will be free for the first six months.

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Lollipop for Android Wear will bring many new features, leak shows

Android Wear has gotten an update or two so far since its official unveiling a few months back, but those only brought with them minor new features. That said, it looks like the Lollipop update for Google’s wearable platform will come with many new things, and they’ve all been detailed in a comprehensive leak.

Now that Android 5.0 Lollipop for phones and tablets is ready to start appearing in over-the-air updates near you, we assume Android Wear will be the next focus for Google – namely, getting it updated to Lollipop.

And when that does happen, you’ll see a new Watch Battery section in the Android Wear app for mobile devices. This will act just like the Battery part of the Android Settings menu, showing you graphs and which apps ate the most of your battery capacity. Again similarly to what you can see in Android for phones and tablets, you’ll also get a Storage section, which will detail how much of your watch’s internal memory is occupied and how much is free, as well as which apps take up the most space.

Next up, watch faces will become even more customizable. You’ll change them from the Android Wear companion app, and an official watch face API will surface with the Lollipop release. This will allow for weather notifications to be displayed directly onto the watch face. Further, you’ll be able to recover dismissed cards on your smartwatch with a swipe up.

Theater mode and Sunlight mode will be new to the 5.0 Lollipop release for Android Wear. The former makes the wearable’s screen stay off until you double tap it or press the hardware button – even if you get notifications. It’s obviously meant for use in cinemas, and other such spaces where your watch lighting up all of a sudden would annoy the people around you. Sunlight mode, we assume, will instantly crank your watch’s brightness all the way up, so it becomes visible in broad daylight conditions. Until all smartwatches get ambient light sensors, this will prove to be a very useful feature undoubtedly.

The new version of Android Wear will also bring with it some improvements for the visually impaired, including large text, color inversion, and magnification gestures. Lollipop for Android Wear may become available sometime in early December.

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Google updates its search and keyboard apps for Android

Google has updated two more apps for Android. This time we’re talking about the search app which is simply called Google, as well as Google Keyboard.

Both apps are infused with Material Design, sporting fresher, more colorful looks, and smooth animations.

The search app now lets you say “OK, Google” to ask a question even if your screen is off and your phone or tablet is off the charger, though this only works for the Nexus 6, Nexus 9, and Samsung Galaxy Note 4. Google will also go through your Gmail inbox, and if it finds stuff you’ve forgotten to follow up on, will prompt you to add plans to your calendar. This will show up as a new card in Google Now. Other Now cards help you keep track of your trips and to-do lists, and even tell you where you parked your car.

You’ll be able to use the Google search app to search in other apps. When you speak your query, you can simply mention which app you want it to search, and it will. And you can now ask Google Now to flip a coin if you can’t make up your mind about stuff.

The Google Keyboard app’s update is all about the looks – specifically, Material Design. It comes with two new themes, one light and one dark, which sport that fresh new look (as you can see above). To enable either one, after getting hold of the latest version of the keyboard app (and keep in mind that Google loves staged rollouts for such updates, so it might be a while until you’ll have it), go to Keyboard Settings and pick either Material Light or Material Dark.

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YouTube Music Key subscription service lets you get rid of ads, listen in the background

YouTube’s much anticipated subscription service has been officially announced today. It’s called YouTube Music Key, and it will be in beta for an unspecified amount of time.

It brings you an ad-free YouTube experience, along with support for background playback on mobile, and offline viewing too.

All of these perks will cost you $7.99 (for a limited time, the normal price being $9.99) per month. But the nice thing is that if you pay for Music Key, you’ll also get a Google Play Music subscription, which gives you access to more than 30 million songs and expert-curated playlists. That in itself costs $9.99 per month, so you’re essentially getting two services for the price of one here.

Music videos will soon show up in the Play Music app, and the YouTube apps and the website will get a new Music tab, housing your favorite music videos, recommended playlists, as well as playlists of trending music across YouTube. Also new to YouTube will be the ability to see an artist’s discography, and play a full ‘album’ of official music videos.

YouTube Music Key is currently an invite-only thing, but if you receive an invite you do get a long six-month trial period for the service. YouTube’s “biggest music fans” will apparently get access first, though it’s unclear how the company chooses who those people are.

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Beats Solo2 Wireless headphones go official

Apple and Beats Electronics took the wraps off the Solo2 Wireless headphones. As its name suggests, the headset is a version of the company’s popular on-ear model without the wires.

The Beats Solo2 Wireless headset feature the same design as its wired sibling. The newcomer’s Bluetooth connectivity gives it 30 feet of wireless range. Users can control calls and music playback via the “b” button on the side of the headset. Volume buttons are placed on its side.

Battery life is said to be good for up to 12 hours of continuous playback. A bundled cable ensures that users can continue using the headphones even when there’s no juice left.

Beats Solo2 Wireless will be available later this month in plethora of colors, priced at the eye-watering $299.99. That’s $100 premium than the already pricey wired model.

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US pricing and availability of Samsung Gear VR is officially confirmed

Samsung Gear VR will be available in the United States in the beginning of next month. A special Innovator Edition of the virtual reality gadget will be priced at $199 – in line with past reports. Another $50 will get you a bundled Bluetooth gamepad.

Samsung Gear VR Innovator Edition is geared towards developers and enthusiasts. It is not intended for regular consumers.

Oculus will launch a Mobile SDK for the Samsung Gear VR. Samsung and Oculus are working with a number of partners to bring quality content to the platform.

When paired with Samsung Galaxy Note 4, the VR headset will prompt the phablet to download a several proprietary apps. They include a home screen, a content storefront, and a 360-degree viewing software.

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Samsung Flow is like Apple Continuity, but for Samsung devices

Samsung has announced a new technology called Flow. Well, new would be a bit misleading since it is similar to Continuity that Apple launched with iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite.

Flow has three basic features. The Transfer feature lets you push content between your Samsung devices. You can send a document or a web page from your phone to your tablet, start navigating on your phone and then push it to your Gear S, start watching a movie on a tablet and then push it to your Samsung television, etc. You can also start a video call on one device and then continue it on another.

The other feature is Defer. Defer lets you save tasks on one device so you can access them later on another. You can save a link or a document on your phone and then when you get back to your PC you can continue from where you left off.

The last feature is Notify. Notify syncs notifications between your Samsung devices, so if you get a call or a message on your phone, you will see a notification on all your connected Samsung devices, including your watch, tablet, computer, and even you television.

It’s not clear yet what operating systems will be supported for syncing with your computer, whether it will work with Windows or Chrome OS (or OS X, maybe?) and also how it will work with Samsung televisions.

It’s still seemingly a work in progress but you can expect to find it on Samsung devices in the near future.

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