Droid Turbo 2 announced with shatterproof display, 48-hour battery

The Droid Turbo 2 is here, and by far the most impressive thing about it is the phone's "shatterproof" display. We've dropped it plenty of times, and the Turbo 2 has come out unscathed every time. So it seems Motorola's ShatterShield is tougher than your average flagship.

From a design standpoint this is one of the better-looking Droids we've seen yet and remains super comfortable to hold. Droid emblem aside, it looks like a Moto X from every angle, but a more powerful one. The Droid Turbo 2 has a Snapdragon 810 processor (versus the Moto X Pure Edition's Snapdragon 808 chipset) and a far larger battery that Motorola claims will last 48 hours We've heard that number before only to be let down, so we're not ready to crown the Turbo 2 as any kind of battery champion just yet.

Software support is also a big unknown. Verizon took a long time to get Lollipop on the first Droid Turbo, so there's no telling when the Turbo 2 will receive Android 6.0 Marshmallow. But if durability, longevity, and deep customization options are what you're after — and you're a Verizon customer — the Droid Turbo 2's looking pretty good in that regard. It's launching just two days from now on October 29th for $26 per month (32GB) or $30 per month (64GB) on 24-month installment plans.

Daniel Kaufman, Pres. & CEO, Reagan Wireless Corp.

www.reaganwireless.com

Samsung releases new pink Note 5 to combat iPhone 6S in South Korea.

The South Korean electronics giant is bringing two new colours of the Galaxy Note 5 to its home country -- just in time for the iPhone 6S' October 23 launch.

The premium smartphone battleground hit a new level of intensity last month when Apple began its ongoing worldwide rollout of the iPhone 6S, which on October 23 will finally hit South Korea. Local giant Samsung, however, is looking to make its Californian rival fight for every inch of marketshare.
On Thursday, the South Korean company announced it will be releasing the Galaxy Note 5 in two new colours, titanium silver and pink gold. Particularly noteworthy is the pink gold variant, which seems to be a direct response to Apple's rose gold iPhone 6S.
Though the announcement only pertained to South Korea, a Samsung spokesperson told CNET that "the introduction of new colour variations for the Galaxy Note 5 will gradually be expanded to other Asian countries but release details are still being worked out."

The smartphone, which has been praised for its strong build quality and camera, now comes in five colours: the new two options, as well as the original gold platinum, black sapphire and white pearl.

Samsung certainly has reason to boost its lineup ahead of Apple's new offering. 13 million iPhone 6S units were sold during the device's first weekend of availability globally. Meanwhile, market analysts at TrendForce expect that Samsung's global smartphone shipments in 2015 will see a 1 percent decline from 2014, following seven straight quarters of falling profits for the company, which is still the industry marketshare leader.
This move also isn't the only market-specific release from the company. On Wednesday the company unveiled the Z3, a 5-inch smartphone that runs on Samsung's own Tizen operating system aimed at India's budget phone market, with a selling price of 8,490 rupees ($130, AU$180 or £85).

Daniel Kaufman, Pres. & CEO, Reagan Wireless Corp.
www.reaganwireless.com

Powered single-wheel skateboard will zip you around in futuristic style.

Ever since Marty McFly zipped around the silver screen on a hoverboard in 1989's “Back to the Future II,” people have been fascinated by the idea of riding on a plank that levitates its user a few inches off the ground. Earlier this summer, carmaker Lexus announced that it had invented a hoverboard, and indeed it had. The only catch is that it can be used only in a magnet-filled custom skate park in Barcelona, Spain.

Now, a new “Hoverboard” is being announced, and this one you can ride anywhere. The catch is, even though the device claims the name of a levitating ride, it doesn’t actually float. It does, however, have only one wheel, and it looks like you’d have the sensation of floating while riding it. It seems kind of like a Segway without any handles.

The Hoverboard begins its fundraising campaign on Kickstarter Thursday, with the effort running until October 21 — the day McFly headed into the future and found his now iconic hoverboard.

In the middle of the Hoverboard is a 10-inch-diameter wheel (25 centimeters) turned by an electric motor that can crank out up to 5,000 watts of power. The board will keep riders balanced front to back, but they have to learn to keep their balance side to side. Leaning forward makes the board start rolling and accelerating, while leaning back causes it to slow down and, eventually, go in reverse.

The device’s inventor said he came up with the board less as a skateboard substitute than a nod to another sport. “I dreamt of a personal electric vehicle that would produce the sensation of surfing on land,” Robert Bigler said in a press release.

The gizmo, which will weigh 25 pounds (11 kilograms), has onboard lights and speakers and “ground-detecting sonar to keep the Hoverboard parallel to the changing ground,” according to the release. It can travel 12 miles with the standard battery and over 20 with an extended battery and reach a top speed of 20 mph/32 kph. Charging time is 16 minutes with a “supercharger” or one hour with the standard charger.

Riding the skateboard of the future won’t be cheap. “I didn’t want to approach the first real Hoverboard from the standpoint of making it a price-product,” Bigler said. “I spared no expense to make it fully everything today’s technology could possibly provide.”

That means if you want one, you’ll have to fork over $3,775 (about £2,437, AU$5,243). Do so, and Bigler is saying your board will be delivered by May 2016. Of course, history has shown that the more complicated an item is, the more it will miss its anticipated delivery deadline on Kickstarter, so you might just have to go a bit more into the future till yours is in your hands.

Daniel Kaufman, Pres. & CEO, Reagan Wireless Corp.

Can't get enough of smartwatches? Well, a whole new batch is on its way.

New wave of Android Wear watches aims to make up for lost time

Asus, Huawei, LG and Motorola will introduce their newest smartwatches next week at the IFA electronics trade show in Berlin, according to people familiar with the companies' launch plans. The devices will all run Google's Android Wear software, which was created to power wearable products like smartwatches.
You might be forgiven if you don't remember Android Wear, which Google introduced last year with much fanfare, but which hasn't resulted in any blockbuster products. Next week's releases will mark the second big wave of Android Wear devices, following on from that dismal showing in 2014. Android powers the vast majority of the world's smartphones, and Google and its partners are hoping for similar success in the burgeoning market for wearables.
The goal is that the new Android Wear devices will have enough features and alternative designs to lure buyers away from the Apple Watch, which -- despite criticism -- became the world's most popular smartwatch within its first few months on the market earlier this year.

"Apple Watch has clearly raised the bar for the global smartwatch industry," Strategy Analytics analyst Neil Mawston said. "The ball is now in the court of rivals, like Samsung, to respond."

Some early wearables, including Samsung's Galaxy Gear from late 2013, used Android, but the initial version of the software -- which wasn't tailored for wearables -- caused devices to run slowly and batteries to drain quickly. Samsung quickly switched to its homegrown Tizen software in its smartwatches as an alternative.
Android Wear emerged in early 2014 as a modified version of Android created specifically for smartwatches and other Internet-connected wearables. Google and its partners -- Samsung, LG and Motorola -- unveiled the first devices that used Android Wear at Google's developer conference that June. The software promised a simple user interface, instant notifications and the ability to perform simple tasks, like texting friends, using voice commands. Other companies such as Sony and Asus introduced smartwatches of their own.
But consumers largely disregarded those initial devices. Smartwatch makers collectively shipped only 720,000 Android Wear units in 2014 out of a total 4.6 million wearables, according to market research firm Canalys. Samsung, the world's biggest smartwatch vendor last year, chose to push devices running Tizen instead of Android Wear, and nearly three out of every four smartwatches shipped in 2014 came from the Korean company.
Of the Android Wear watches, Motorola's Moto 360 stood out with its round face and the company's decision to use premium materials such as a metal case and leather strap. But others quickly followed with the same strategy. Motorola is slated to unveil the follow-up at the show.

LG, meanwhile, is expected to release a smartwatch similar to its LG Watch Urbane LTE, which the company showed off in March. The Urbane LTE ran on software called WebOS, which LG purchased from Hewlett-Packard to use on its own products; the new version will run on Android Wear.
Huawei debuted its first smartwatch -- a device designed to look as much as possible like a classical round-face timepiece -- at the Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona earlier this year. And Asus is expected to give more details about the ZenWatch 2, which made its debut in June at the Computex trade show in Taiwan. The company hasn't shared many details about the device.

Every smartwatch player has taken a backseat in the wake of the Apple Watch's introduction in April. With only three months in the wearables market, Apple surpassed Samsung to become the leader in smartwatches. In the second quarter of this year, 76 percent of smartwatches came from Apple, while Samsung's control of the market tumbled to 7.5 percent, according to Strategy Analytics.

Read more: http://www.cnet.com/news/next-wave-of-android-wear-smartwatches-set-to-make-their-debut/

Daniel Kaufman, Pres. & CEO, Reagan Wireless Corp. 

www.reaganwireless.com

Know how to save a wet phone? It's not with a dryer and it's not with rice.

It's not with a dryer and it's not with rice.

Read more: http://www.cnet.com/videos/save-a-wet-phone-or-tablet/#ftag=CAD30dd16f

Daniel Kaufman, Pres. & CEO, Reagan Wireless Corp.

www.reaganwireless.com