Indian students launch world’s first smartwatch A group of college students from India – including a designer who is just 17 years old – has beaten the likes of Apple, Google and Sony to launch the world’s first fully-featured smartwatch. Nicknamed Anddroidly, the device comes with Bluetooth, GPS, Wi-Fi and a camera. The £150 watch can also be used as a phone to make calls and send text messages using a phone SIM card and packs up to 16GB of storage. Although other smartwatches, including the Pebble and Sony’s Live Watch, can wirelessly connect with mobile phones, Androidly is the first to come with the operating system fully integrated. Androidly has a two-inch screen and comes with a 2-mega pixel camera. It runs on an older version of the Android operating system called Android 2.2 Froyo. A speaker, camera and microphone are built into the device and it can be plugged into a USB socket to be used as a storage device. It can also be used to charge the phone. Androidly is the brainchild of four students from India. They include software developer Ankit Pradhan, communications professional Pavneet Singh Puri, and lawyer Apurva Sukant plus teenager Siddhant Vats. Sukant said: ‘There are other such products in the market, but they mostly sync with a smart phone and are not phones in themselves. “We have ported Android on to a much smaller board and built a wearable phone.’ Puri added: ‘We have all been friends for years now. I was a member of my college student council then and was getting a lot of calls regarding the college festival. “That day, my phone rang at a time when my hands were dripping with chicken curry and I just couldn’t retrieve it from my pocket.’ “Later, over dessert, we discussed the episode and figured that things can be made much easier if the device is always within reach, accessible and visible. “Making it a wristwatch seemed to be the most practical solution”, Vats continued. The Androidly watch was originally a Kickstarter campaign – a fundraising and investment site. The devices can now be ordered, in black or white, from the Androidly site for £150 each. The £90 Pebble watch was the first device to be classed as a ‘smart watch’ and similarly launched following a successful Kickstarter campaign earlier this year. The Pebble smartwatch syncs wirelessly with a smartphone and allows users to receive emails and Facebook messages, control their music and even see who is calling them. Users can also downloads apps to their watch to upgrade its capabilities. It works by connecting to an iPhone or Android device via Bluetooth, then downloading the Pebble app to transmit software updates. Apple is also rumoured to be developing a smartwatch, although the firm has refused to comment on the plans. Google is also known to be investigating the area. Explaining the potential of Androidly, the site explains: ‘Multi-task like a super hero. Reach out for that refreshing drink in middle of an email, with full confidence. “Read through your documents, with references on your wrist and a coffee in your hand! “Cook with the recipe handy, or manage your stocks with a live ticker always at hand. “Switch between the digital and the real world effortlessly, without putting anything up or down!” –dailymail.co.uk. As culled from Punch
Posted on: Wed, 03 Jul 2013 12:45:31 +0000
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