Sony has unveiled a new clip-on display unit that will attach to the frame of any eyewear and transform it into a pair of smart glasses in the mode of Google Glass .
The accessory incorporates a control board with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi along with a compass, accelerometer and touch sensors. It’s powered by an ARM Cortex-A7 processor and shows information via a 640×400 OLED micro-display.
As with Google Glass, the display hovers in front of your eye. Sony says it’ll offer a field of view equivalent to a 16 inch display placed 2 meters in front of you.
The whole package weighs in at under 2 ounces. Sony’s pitching it as useful for sports, work and entertainment and says it will offer an SDK for third-party app developers.
Sony’s showing off the device at CES in the form of a concept model with the slightly silly name “SmartEyeglass Attach!”. Sony’s aiming to put the unit into mass production later in the year so it should be on sale by 2016.
Being able to easily remove the device and add it to any eyewear you fancy could give Sony’s set up an advantage over Google Glass, but it’ll still have to overcome the creepy factor and other people’s wariness about folks in smart glasses.
We should see the new version of Google Glass next year too, reportedly in collaboration with Intel.
➤ Sony Announces the Development of a Compact, Lightweight Single-Lens Display Module with OLED Technology That Enables Superior Image Quality [Sony]
Xiaomi to unveil its first drone on May 25
Chinese manufacturer Xiaomi is unsurprisingly getting into the drone business (who isn’t?) – and a new teaser in its own forums indicate we’ll hear more details on May 25.
The posters are in Chinese, but this much we can make out: there’s going to be an announcement at 7 PM local time on May 25 about a quadcopter. There’s also an additional flyer (pun totally intended) showcasing a toy propeller.
“The surprise doesn’t just end here. Something wonderful and cool is flying to us very soon,” the moderator who posted the teasers wrote on the Xiaomi forum .
Previous leaks suggest that the drone may be controllable via a wearable device, and will offer 4K video recording. Rumors anticipate it to be a high-end device as well, so don’t expect a budget drone out of Xiaomi at this time.
Microsoft launches Office for iPad: Includes Word, Excel, and PowerPoint but requires subscription for editing
At an event in San Francisco today, Microsoft Office General Manager Julia White unveiled Office for iPad, featuring Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. The new apps, which supports viewing but not editing for free, will go live in Apple’s App Store at 11:00AM PDT (2:00PM EST).
Update : You can download them now right here: Word , Excel , and PowerPoint . Also, today wasn’t just about the iPad: Office for iPhone and Android phones is now completely free, Android tablet version coming ‘in the future’ .
Word, Excel, and PowerPoint all have a ribbon interface just like the one in Office for Windows and OS X. The trio of apps are much more powerful on the tablet than the smartphone, but naturally don’t compare to the desktop versions.
The apps lets you store documents on the iPad itself, but you can also save them to OneDrive. This means you can retrieve your files across all devices where Microsoft Office is available.
The highly-anticipated suite has been a long-time coming. While Microsoft offers OneNote for iPad , all other apps in its productivity suite have yet to grace Apple’s tablets, until now.
Microsoft also offers Office Mobile for iOS, but that requires a subscription (Update: not anymore ) and is only available for the iPhone. The company launched the app in June 2013 , but wouldn’t discuss when an iPad version would be available.
The iPad version of these apps is free to download and view documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. Once you want to edit documents, however, a paid subscription to Office 365 is required.
In fact, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella promised that the company will be pushing Office 365 across all platforms. “Our commitment going forward is to make sure that we drive Office 365 everywhere,” he said. “So that means across the Web, across all phones, across all tablets, across PCs. That’s our real commitment to Office 365 everywhere.”
The Office 365 Home Premium subscription costs $99 per year, or $10 per month. A cheaper subscription ( Office 365 Personal ) has been announced, but it’s not available just yet.
See also – Microsoft’s Office 365 Personal is limited to two devices, coming this spring for $69.99/year or $6.99/month and Following Windows Phone release, Microsoft launches Office 365 Admin for Android and iOS
Top Image Credit: Robert Scoble