Wearables, portable hard drives dominate early announcements from CES
With the sun yet to rise on the first day of the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, companies looking to get a jump on the news cycle have provided early looks at wearable devices from new market entrants like Alcatel along with a number of intriguing portable hard drive updates and a plethora of iOS-connected accessories.
Included in the device's sensor package are a heart rate monitor, accelerometer, gyroscope, altimeter, NFC tag, and compass. The watch's software uses these sensors to track sleep cycle, distance covered, steps taken and calories burned.
Additionally, connecting the watch to a smartphone -- including Apple's iPhone --?will enable notifications and remote control capabilities. Alcatel says the built-in 210 mAh battery will run for 2 to 5 days after a 1-hour charge.
Alcatel's OneTouch Watch will be available in March for $149.
Withings's Activite Pop is the second in Withings's line of Activite smart watches. It appears from the outside to be a normal watch, but packs sensors to track activity and sleep inside a waterproof casing.
A small dial on the face displays the user's progress toward activity goals, such as a specific number of steps. Data is synchronized to Withings's compaion Health Mate app via low-energy Bluetooth.
The Activite Pop is available now in azure, shark grey, and sand colors with matching silicone straps from Best Buy for $149.95.
Seagate's Seven is the thinnest external drive in history, the company says. The seven-millimeter-thick metal case encloses a 500-gigabyte spinning hard drive and a USB 3.0 connection bus.
The case --?which also serves as the enclosure for the drive itself - is made of stainless steel using a "deep draw" process. The company says the drive comes with "extreme gyro handling capabilities" that will help it absorb the shocks and bumps that come in the life of a portable hard drive.
The Seagate Seven will be available later this month for $99.99.
Seagate's Wireless is a 500-gigabyte portable drive designed for use with mobile devices. Users can access media stored on the drive via the Seagate Media app, after connecting to the drive's built-in WiFi hotspot.
The app supports streaming to the Apple TV via AirPlay, and users with smart TVs from Samsung or LG or a Roku set-top box can connect the drive directly to those products. Seagate has made the new drive available in a number of colors, including lime green, cool blue, slate grey, fire-engine red and white.
Seagate Wireless will be available in February for $129.99.
LaCie's Rugged RAID is an expansion of the the existing rugged portable drive lineup. Two built-in drives provide up to 4 terabytes of storage in RAID 0 or 2 terabytes of redundant storage in RAID 1 mode.
LaCie says the array is hardware-controlled for increased reliability. Like its ruggedized siblings, the Rugged RAID is shock, dust, and water-resistant and can be powered via a Mac's Thunderbolt bus.
LaCie's Rugged RAID will be available for $449.99 in the first quarter of 2015.
Toshiba's TJM35420LT is an adapter for iOS devices that allows them to send and receive files using Sony's high-speed wireless TransferJet standard. Similar to a high-speed AirDrop, TransferJet can move data at a peak of 375 megabits per second.
Consumers can use Toshiba's iOS app to move data between a TJM35420LT-equipped iPad or iPhone and another TransferJet-enabled device. Selecting a file and then touching the two devices together is enough to initiate the transfer.
Pricing and available information are still unknown, but Toshiba is planning similar adapters for Android devices and Windows PCs.
Just Mobile's BakPak is another charging-focused entry for the firm. The BakPak's design is somewhat unique; the unit itself is meant to "strap on" to the back of an iPhone using flexible bindings, with a built-in flexible Lighting cable to connect to the handset.
The BakPak packs a 3,000 mAh lithium-polymer battery and zips 5 volts through the Lightning cable at 1 amp. A built-in USB cable on the opposite end allows for charging, and an LED indicator light shows users the current charge status.
Just Mobile's BakPak is available now for $59.95.
Urbanears's Plattan ADV headphones are the company's first foray into Bluetooth headphones. Urbanears has equipped the sets with touch-sensitive earcup controls, much like Parrot's Zik, along with a built-in microphone for taking phone calls.
Battery life is said to be some 8 hours, and a unique ZoundPlug feature will let users connect two sets of headphones with a cable to instantly share music. The Plattan ADV's headband is attached to its frame with magnets and is machine washable, making it easier for owners to keep the sets clean.
Plattan ADV will go on sale on June 2, 2015 for $100.
Wearables
Alcatel's OneTouch Watch (above) is a low-cost, Android Wear-powered smartwatch. The wrist-worn device features a round display and comes in a number of styles, which the company lists as "sporty dark red/volcano black, feminine all-white, classic chrome/dark gray and elegant metal-white."Included in the device's sensor package are a heart rate monitor, accelerometer, gyroscope, altimeter, NFC tag, and compass. The watch's software uses these sensors to track sleep cycle, distance covered, steps taken and calories burned.
Additionally, connecting the watch to a smartphone -- including Apple's iPhone --?will enable notifications and remote control capabilities. Alcatel says the built-in 210 mAh battery will run for 2 to 5 days after a 1-hour charge.
Alcatel's OneTouch Watch will be available in March for $149.
Withings's Activite Pop is the second in Withings's line of Activite smart watches. It appears from the outside to be a normal watch, but packs sensors to track activity and sleep inside a waterproof casing.
A small dial on the face displays the user's progress toward activity goals, such as a specific number of steps. Data is synchronized to Withings's compaion Health Mate app via low-energy Bluetooth.
The Activite Pop is available now in azure, shark grey, and sand colors with matching silicone straps from Best Buy for $149.95.
Storage
Seagate's Seven is the thinnest external drive in history, the company says. The seven-millimeter-thick metal case encloses a 500-gigabyte spinning hard drive and a USB 3.0 connection bus.
The case --?which also serves as the enclosure for the drive itself - is made of stainless steel using a "deep draw" process. The company says the drive comes with "extreme gyro handling capabilities" that will help it absorb the shocks and bumps that come in the life of a portable hard drive.
The Seagate Seven will be available later this month for $99.99.
Seagate's Wireless is a 500-gigabyte portable drive designed for use with mobile devices. Users can access media stored on the drive via the Seagate Media app, after connecting to the drive's built-in WiFi hotspot.
The app supports streaming to the Apple TV via AirPlay, and users with smart TVs from Samsung or LG or a Roku set-top box can connect the drive directly to those products. Seagate has made the new drive available in a number of colors, including lime green, cool blue, slate grey, fire-engine red and white.
Seagate Wireless will be available in February for $129.99.
LaCie's Rugged RAID is an expansion of the the existing rugged portable drive lineup. Two built-in drives provide up to 4 terabytes of storage in RAID 0 or 2 terabytes of redundant storage in RAID 1 mode.
LaCie says the array is hardware-controlled for increased reliability. Like its ruggedized siblings, the Rugged RAID is shock, dust, and water-resistant and can be powered via a Mac's Thunderbolt bus.
LaCie's Rugged RAID will be available for $449.99 in the first quarter of 2015.
Accessories
Toshiba's TJM35420LT is an adapter for iOS devices that allows them to send and receive files using Sony's high-speed wireless TransferJet standard. Similar to a high-speed AirDrop, TransferJet can move data at a peak of 375 megabits per second.
Consumers can use Toshiba's iOS app to move data between a TJM35420LT-equipped iPad or iPhone and another TransferJet-enabled device. Selecting a file and then touching the two devices together is enough to initiate the transfer.
Pricing and available information are still unknown, but Toshiba is planning similar adapters for Android devices and Windows PCs.
Just Mobile's BakPak is another charging-focused entry for the firm. The BakPak's design is somewhat unique; the unit itself is meant to "strap on" to the back of an iPhone using flexible bindings, with a built-in flexible Lighting cable to connect to the handset.
The BakPak packs a 3,000 mAh lithium-polymer battery and zips 5 volts through the Lightning cable at 1 amp. A built-in USB cable on the opposite end allows for charging, and an LED indicator light shows users the current charge status.
Just Mobile's BakPak is available now for $59.95.
Urbanears's Plattan ADV headphones are the company's first foray into Bluetooth headphones. Urbanears has equipped the sets with touch-sensitive earcup controls, much like Parrot's Zik, along with a built-in microphone for taking phone calls.
Battery life is said to be some 8 hours, and a unique ZoundPlug feature will let users connect two sets of headphones with a cable to instantly share music. The Plattan ADV's headband is attached to its frame with magnets and is machine washable, making it easier for owners to keep the sets clean.
Plattan ADV will go on sale on June 2, 2015 for $100.
Comments
I don’t care about external drives. I care about LARGER drives and cheaper SSDs.
There’s now a 6TB from WD, apparently, but the biggest SSDs can’t even match that. Have prices even been going down in the last few years?
I don’t care about external drives. I care about LARGER drives and cheaper SSDs.
There’s now a 6TB from WD, apparently, but the biggest SSDs can’t even match that. Have prices even been going down in the last few years?
SSD prices have been dropping, but not very fast, not anything like HDD! There's HDD coming out at 8TB's in size. I still remember my first HDD, a 5-1/4" Full Height 40 Meg that I paid around $600 for which was cheap at the time. It was a SCSI drive, the only type I could run on my Amiga computer. It's Amazing how much Data is stored on something so much smaller. Take 2 CD drives together and that's a 5-1/4" Full Height HDD. I have my NAS with 4 3TB HDD in it for like 8.5 TB in storage capacity I don't remember the exact number. Besides the 2 SSD's and 2 3TB HDD in my Windows PC.
I don’t care about external drives. I care about LARGER drives and cheaper SSDs.
There’s now a 6TB from WD, apparently, but the biggest SSDs can’t even match that. Have prices even been going down in the last few years?
SSD prices have been dropping, but not very fast, not anything like HDD! There's HDD coming out at 8TB's in size. I still remember my first HDD, a 5-1/4" Full Height 40 Meg that I paid around $600 for which was cheap at the time. It was a SCSI drive, the only type I could run on my Amiga computer. It's Amazing how much Data is stored on something so much smaller. Take 2 CD drives together and that's a 5-1/4" Full Height HDD. I have my NAS with 4 3TB HDD in it for like 8.5 TB in storage capacity I don't remember the exact number. Besides the 2 SSD's and 2 3TB HDD in my Windows PC.
How big is big enough? These huge HDDs aren't very fast when compared to SSDs until you stick them in a RAID configuration with a fast interface. I'd take four 2TB HDDs over a single 8TB any day of the week. I'd really like to hear about new RAIDs with Thunderbolt-2 coming out at with lower costs and packaging that makes them virtually silent.
I'd like 4x8TB drives. My 4x4TB RAID1+0 is almost out of space.
Prices are still dropping, 1TB is as low as $423 or $0.42/GB:
http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-2-5-Inch-SATA-Internal-MZ-7TE1T0BW/dp/B00E3W16OU
http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-2-5-Inch-Internal-MZ-75E1T0B-AM/dp/B00OBRFFAS
http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-9-5mm-adapter-Internal-CT1024M550SSD1/dp/B00IRRDHW6
It was over $0.60/GB about a year ago - there seems to be roughly a yearly 25% drop. This would make a 1TB drive $100 by 2020 and so entry machines can bundle them and HDDs will be relegated to external storage in mainstream computers as Apple has almost done in their lineup already.
Even at $0.20/GB in 2-3 years, I can see people ditching HDDs. It's not just cost. You can buy an 8TB drive but if it can only sustain 150MB/s, it'll take 15 hours to fill it.
HDD is maintaining 1/10th the price of SSD and Seagate is around $0.04/GB with the larger drives but most people don't have large data requirements and the more people migrate to SSD, the HDDs manufacturers will continue their race to obsolescence and until they reach it, it means low prices for buyers.
That Alcatel watch looks pretty good at $199:
[VIDEO]
It doesn't run Android Wear so it can pair with iOS. 3 day battery life. The size is nice too, it doesn't look as bulky as the Moto 360.
Nothing on the Nvidia X1 yet?
I'm REALLY curious what our resident processor expert will say about Nvidia abandoning their Denver K1 cores and going to stock ARM A57/A53 cores.
3 day battery life means it can be used for monitoring sleep, something ?Watch hasn't talked about, and it should (hopefully) be able to fully charge each morning during a typical shower with only 1/3 being used in a 24 time frame.
Man, it feels like so long ago, but remember 2007 when the first 1TB HDDs came out? They were about that price. And now look where we are. Barely 7x higher. Someone needs to make a breakthrough.
Oh, but did you see we finally came up with a lithium anode? Batteries should be getting better soon.
Wearables, portable hard drives dominate early announcements from CES
You'd think the TV manufacturers would be pushing "4D" TV now.
It's been years since 3D TV died out, and it's only one extra dimension.
And it would be so cool to have a 4x4 TV: 4K and 4D.
/s
Is anyone shocked that wearables are a major focus at this year's CES?
I'd like 4x8TB drives. My 4x4TB RAID1+0 is almost out of space.
Change that array to RAID 0. Double the space and slightly better performance. Problem solved.
And what redundancy will I have if a drive goes bad?
Wow, 40 MB! My first was 5 MB ...:D That said I was able to network it using fiber optics to half a dozen Apple ][es.
I like TS, I want to see SSDs drop in price and I want those pesky special SSDs in the new Mac Pro drop, OWC has them at last but they are pricey. Anyone tried one yet?
And what redundancy will I have if a drive goes bad?
None. I was being a bit snarky in my post. But most people think that the redundant RAID configurations will save them from disaster. This is totally untrue -- true RAID will only save your data in the event of a drive failure. Get a virus, corrupt filesystem, lightning, etc. and your stuff is toast or bad data faithfully replicated across all drives. Backup solutions are necessary.
You may laugh but I now use a second TB RAID 0 as the target for synced cloning from my first TB RAID 0 .. I call it RAID X
Sure, but I'm not really worried about a virus or corrupt file system on my Mac. Now a drive failing… I worry about that.
I may just do that. A couple years ago $200-ish 5-bay RAID with FW, USB3.0, and eSATA, and 4x4TB HDDs. I didn't want a NAS or TB, at the time, because I knew I'd be connecting it to very old iMac with USB1.0 and FW400 for at least a couple years and figured USB3.0 would be good enough for a couple years after that. Now, when I do finally get a Mac mini with TB I'll consider TB but I'll first see how fast my iTunes Server loads 1080p video before I consider the extra cost of TB.
OT: I'd really like to see 10Gib Ethernet on Macs and AirPort products.
HDD is maintaining 1/10th the price of SSD and Seagate is around $0.04/GB with the larger drives but most people don't have large data requirements and the more people migrate to SSD, the HDDs manufacturers will continue their race to obsolescence and until they reach it, it means low prices for buyers.
Looking at cheap SSD's and hard disks on Amazon, the cheapest 1TB SSD's are around $0.36 per GB, while the cheapest 5TB hard disk is around $0.0315 per GB, which is a factor of 12 cheaper.
http://www.amazon.com/Eluktro-Performance-2-5-Inch-Internal-TRO-SSD7-1TB-PRO/dp/B00QANBX8Y/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1420484640&sr=8-4&keywords=1tb+ssd
http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Backup-Desktop-External-STDT5000100/dp/B00J0O5R2I/ref=sr_1_10?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1420485204&sr=1-10&keywords=4tb+hard+drive
That's pretty good progress for the SSD! 15 years ago the ratio was 100, and even 10 years ago it was around 50.
You may laugh but I now use a second TB RAID 0 as the target for synced cloning from my first TB RAID 0 .. I call it RAID X
You should call it "RAID: Redemption".
It looks like they plan to double or triple capacity, some expecting to ship in 2015:
http://spectrum.ieee.org/nanoclast/semiconductors/materials/layer-of-nanospheres-enables-a-pure-lithium-anode
http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21637344-adding-sulphur-electrical-cells-may-quintuple-their-performance-whiff
It's about time. The big thing IMO is electric vehicles replacing fossil fuels. If they can get 2x battery life, they can ship vehicles with half the battery size for faster charging with the same range and cheaper or obviously double the range at the same size.
The same would be true about mobile phones and laptops. Either double the battery life or half the size.
I like the USB drive that lets you use the SSDs externally, that should work for the MBP and Air storage too, which is handy for recovering data from broken computers where the storage works fine:
https://eshop.macsales.com/preorder/OWC-Aura-SSD-for-Mac-Pro/
It's nice they go up to 2TB. They are a bit slower than Apple's but not that much. The 1TB one is a bit pointless as it costs more than Apple's 1TB upgrade but the 2TB one would be harder for Apple to beat on price. Samsung (the NAND Apple uses) should be bringing the price down though. Their 850 Pro 1TB is only $700:
http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-2-5-Inch-SATA-Internal-MZ-7KE1T0BW/dp/B00LF10KTE
Apple should be able to ship 2TB for $1400 minus the price of the 256GB in the entry model. They might offer it for the laptops first.
Wearable devices so far have been ugly ones. I saw my co-worker with Moto 360 today and seriously, it's ugly and looks cheap like a $20 watch. I want to see how Apple Watch looks like in the real life.
My own, albeit anecdotal experience. I have had horrible time using USB3 docks on my new Mac Pro. The same bare drives, SSDs and HDs run flawlessly in my new dual TB docks. The USBs were useless for RAID, they were useless for video and the drives would keep sleeping on me.
Do you have a link for Apple's 1TB upgrade, I can't find it anywhere! Thanks.