Tech Trends straps on the latest smart watch from Samsung.

I still remember my first watch. A red and blue, plastic, made in China, digital beauty that was also a Transformer. The fact it told the time was incidental. The reason I loved it was because of all the other crazy stuff it did. If we’re honest, smart watches are the grown-up version of that, still targeted at the same people. The difference is that now the “grownups” of my generation have a bit more pocket money to spend on their toys, and those toys can actually do a lot of the things that we couldn’t imagine back then.

Smart watches are about much more than just telling the time
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Looks are also important, of course. A watch you choose to wear all the time should look the bollocks. I know my Transformer one was the king of the classroom, if only for a week. It’s a great feeling. And that’s the feeling I got as I unboxed the Samsung Gear S3 smart watch, in spite of it looking – sorry Optimus Prime – a whole lot classier than my childhood companion. Papa’s got a brand new toy, and it’s pretty awesome.

Packed behind the 1.3” Super AMOLED touch screen and safely sealed inside the IP68 certified steel body are a 1 GHz processor, 768MBs of RAM, 4GB of storage and a huge 350mAh battery that promises a 3 day charge. All of this weighs in at 59gms and is attached via a very nice quality leather strap that is conveniently punched for wrists of all sizes.

So, what is it like to use? Let’s get the obvious out the way first, yes it tells the time but you can choose how, with a multitude of watch faces available and even more that you can download. So whether you’re a classic, analogue or digital person, there’s a watch face for you. So now we’ve got the timekeeping bit out of the way, what else can this baby do? Quite a lot, as it turns out.

Initial setup and linking to my Samsung Galaxy S7 phone was very straightforward, and I soon had the watch synched with my calendar, Gmail and WhatsApp, and impressively the connection was rock solid. Over two weeks testing I never once lost the link between phone and watch. Location detection and weather is useful and accurate in my experience but you need to use a third party app like Here WeGo to get reliable maps and directions working independent of your phone. I did feel the lack of Google maps here but Here WeGo is a functional replacement.

Initial setup and linking to my Samsung Galaxy S7 phone was very straightforward
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A key feature expected of smart watches are fitness aids, and Samsung’s own Health apps tend to get good reviews, so the first thing I did when I strapped on the S3 was get out of the house and start moving. Within a few minutes the S3 detected that I was walking briskly, congratulated me (thanks!) told me how long I had been walking and how many calories I was burning, hooray!

When I stopped walking, the watch also detected that, and gave me a quick summary of my walk, and based on the number of calories I had burned, classed it as a healthy walk. Of course, it had no way of knowing that my brisk walk had taken me to the coffee shop where I proceeded to have a latte and a bacon sandwich. It’s not THAT smart.

The fitness app worked well, giving me lots of options and suggestions to make me more active
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After a while the app did warn me that I had been inactive for a while and encouraged me to exercise some more, which I did after I finished the last bit of bacon. As you can tell, I’m not the most active of folks, but joking aside this did get me thinking about my physical activity and caloric intake a bit more, and every little helps! And there are a lot more features and functionalities such as setting reminders to drink more water, easily logging how many glasses you’ve had each day. A quick twist of the dial will also show you more info on number of floors climbed, heart rate, number of steps taken, etc. You can also choose how naggy you like the app to be, so if – like me – you get tired of the constant nudges you can tone them down a bit.

Overall, the wireless charging works smoothly and the battery life held up pretty well even with days of intensive use. The screen is also lovely to look at considering its relatively low resolution. The only downsides to it were that although the buttons were nice, the twist dial that you use to navigate the menus was a bit too delicate, I would have liked a more solid-feeling one like in an old-school watch, but that’s a personal preference. The keyboard was also completely unusable, at least for me.

Downloading new apps for the Samsung Gear S3 via the Samsung Galaxy App Store is easy
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The main complaint I had is the same one everyone makes about Tizen devices – the app ecosystem is nowhere near as advanced as Android or the Apple app store – but having said that, I don’t need my watch to do everything my phone does, I still have a phone for all that, and wearing the Gear S3 I was able to find a good option on the Samsung Galaxy App Store to do everything I wanted, so it’s more of a niggle than a real issue. A huge plus was that downloading new apps via the Samsung Galaxy App Store is easy – done through the Get More Apps option within the S3’s Apps menu – downloaded and installed very smoothly via your phone. Very impressed with that side of things.

The notifications interface is really nice, where they pop up accompanied by a pleasant vibration and are then stored for review. Twist the dial anticlockwise to see them again and simply swipe up to pop in the trash and dismiss. Twisting the dial clockwise to access widgets is also very neat, adding extra app widgets such as calendar and world clock easily.

To add app shortcuts – for example Here WeGo – these could only be added to the App Short Cut Screen, which only allows 4 shortcuts, and that felt rather limiting. You can, however add multiple App Shortcut Screens and edit them so each screen shows four different apps. This is great but needs a bit of setting up and I would like to be able to twist the dial to the app I want and just touch to activate it.

The Samsung Gear S3 Reminded me of how much fun watches can be
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I had stopped wearing a watch years ago, but after trying out the Samsung Gear S3 I have become a convert again. Not only is it really useful to be able to see your notifications and read your emails without constantly having to fish your phone out of your pocket, but it reminded me of just how much fun watches can be – even though it doesn’t become a Transformer. Maybe there’ll be an app for that soon though.

Tech Trends is a Samsung consultancy and media partner and this is a #sponsored post. However, we retain full editorial control and all reviews accurately reflect our experience in testing out the products.

The post Product Review: Samsung Gear S3 appeared first on Tech Trends.

Virtual Reality is all about presence,  so content that lets you create and share live moments could be its killer app

Getting people to try out a VR experience for the first time is usually not hard. The novelty factor gets most people curious enough to at least give it a go. And having watched a lot of newbies (or VRgins as I like to call them) go through those first moments of immersion is always a lot of fun, as they gasp and reach out to touch things that aren’t really there.

Getting people to try out a VR experience for the first time isn't usually hard
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But if this new medium is to fulfill all its shining commercial promise, and prove to the doubters that it’s got the momentum to move beyond its “hype cycle” it needs to get those first-time users to do it again, and again… and so forth. In other words, we need to make VR “sticky.”

To do that, companies pushing the technology (specially around mobile VR) have to enable users to create and share content in an intuitive, compelling and addictive way. And while there’s probably not one silver bullet for what that’s going to look like, it is clear that piggybacking onto live events presents some interesting possibilities.

Live events present interesting possibilities for VR
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Think about it: when you go to an event – be it a comedy show, a play or a rock concert – you are there to create some memories. You’ve invested serious time and money into being there in that moment, and that usually means people are keen to share them with friends (wherever they happen to be) and even broadcast it to strangers. And we usually do that by taking pictures or video on our phones and sharing these all over social media.

This is why Social VR has attracted such attention. Linden Lab recently opened up its Sansar platform, and AltspaceVR got substantial amounts of investment by exploring the live events vertical. And even though AltspaceVR recently hit significant obstacles, narrowly missing having to close down, there is little doubt that social will play a huge part in the mass consumer adoption of VR.

Social will play a huge part in the mass consumer adoption of VR
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The latest crop of smartphones is already making it possible to create that shareable content in 360, and platforms like YouTube allow you to easily share it too. Companies like Samsung have invested heavily onto those functionalities for the Galaxy S8 Handset, and you can also get peripherals such as a camera that automatically takes 360 pictures.

Yet for most of us, though, that all still feels a bit intimidating, so the challenge is to show users that such 360 content can be easy to capture, easy to share, and socially relevant.

The challenge was to show that 360 content is easy to capture and share
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This is in fact what Samsung set out to do by bringing a giant 40-foot installation to two of the most popular events in the UK Summer festival calendar: Reading and Bestival.

The so-called Hypercube housed a mirrored chamber which created an infinity effect that was enhanced by hundreds of projected light effects. Into that chamber, groups of 30 festivalgoers at a time were ushered in with instructions to dance their hearts out to create a collective selfie, which was captured by a 360 degree camera mounted on the chamber’s ceiling.

360 content is the next step in social content sharing.
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That selfie then got emailed to each reveler, who in turn shared it around. Although very visually impacting, however, this wasn’t about showcasing breakthrough tech. This was all about showing people that 360 and VR content is just the logical next step in social content sharing. And if the excited crowds on the day were anything to go by, it seemed to be working.

It’s difficult to say which will prove the crucial tipping point for VR and 360, but what is clear is that such stunts can be useful in bridging the psychological gap in your typical user’s mind between VR as a gimmick and VR as a technology that they can incorporate into their everyday lives.

VR’s ability to create a sense of presence gives it a unique edge
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We saw this happen with the Internet and mobile, and at various points with every groundbreaking technology we’ve also had many pundits come out and say that the “hype” was over at various stages. Personally, however, I think VR’s ability to create a sense of presence gives it a unique edge, so that it will eventually become pervasive. And the sooner we get people creating and sharing meaningful moments and memories, the quicker that day is likely to arrive.

To find out how to leverage VR/AR/MR in your enterprise, Tech Trends offers bespoke Virtual Reality Consultancy support

Alice Bonasio is a VR Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio and @techtrends_tech on Twitter.

The post The Future of VR is Social and Shareable appeared first on Tech Trends.

Capturing 360 photos and video is a breeze with Samsung’s nifty little camera.

Launched alongside the Samsung Galaxy S8 and the new Gear VR, this is an updated version of Samsung’s Gear 360 camera and app which allows you to capture, edit, view and share 360 photos and videos, and even live stream in 360 straight from your phone.

You can even live stream 360 video straight from your phone
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The new Gear VR is a beautiful, palm size camera featuring two fish eye camera lenses that simultaneously capture the world around in stunning 360. The 2017 version is a real improvement on the original version, not least because it’s now truly pocket-size, while the previous iteration was simply too big to be easily portable.  Your videos and images are stored on the camera on an SDXC card (up to 256GB & sold separately) but can easily be synched to your phone or computer via bluetooth or Wi-Fi for you to edit, save and share in any way you want.

The new Gear 360 sports dual 8.4 MP cameras and produces pleasing, sharp and colourful images that when saved off the Gear 360 are not too large to impact your data allowance when sharing on social media. The 360 videos it produces can go up to 4K resolution but are similarly well compressed, giving your sharp and clear content compatible with 360 capable platforms including YouTube.

Samsung's Gear 360 sports dual 8.4 MP cameras and produces sharp and colourful images
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Weighing only 130g the Gear 360 is light and comfortable to hold
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Weighing only 130g it is light and comfortable to hold. It comes with a cute rubber ring base to help stand it on a surface or attach a tripod or similar via a standard quarter inch thread in the base. Check out some of the images I captured at Reading & Bestival music festivals this year. Images can be exported in several formats including panorama and the now famous ‘Little Planet’ look.

Images can be exported in several formats including panorama
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The camera has a capable internal battery that charges via a simple USB-C port
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This tidy little camera couldn’t be easier to use with a simple power button plus start and stop trigger for recording and a menu button to toggle through the settings. It has a very capable internal battery that charges via a simple USB-C port and never showed signs of struggling to get me through a day out. Simply charge it up, pop in a micro SDXC card and off you go!

Both the PC and Mac software and the iOS and Android apps are simple to use and quickly synch with the camera via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi so you can save and share your videos and images. It really is a breeze to snap a few pics, synch them with the app on your Galaxy S8 and post then to Facebook so your friends can live the moment with you in immersive 360.

Software apps are simple to use and quickly synch with the camera
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We tested the Gear 360 camera at Reading and Bestival
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To test it out Tech Trends took it to Reading Festival and then Bestival to capture the raucous experience in rain and sun. After two day’s hard use we were really impressed with the Gear 360 and can vouch for its sturdy design as we dropped it repeatedly in the mud while pushing through the crowds of festivalgoers, the little camera took the hits without problems and kept on shooting throughout the day. Both the Android and Mac Apps worked very well, linking quickly making it easy to achieve the right look you want before sharing the experiences online. All in all, this is a great little 360 camera that fits in your pocket and has the juice to keep going all day!

The battery lasted quite well
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• Give friends and family a look into your life as it happens with social 360° live streaming
• Capture every moment in high-quality 4K 360° videos
• Easily edit and share content by using the Gear 360 app
• Comfortably hold the slim and sleek grip

Tech Trends is a Samsung consultancy and media partner and this is a #sponsored post. However, we retain full editorial control and all reviews accurately reflect our experience in testing out the products.

The post Product Review: Samsung Gear 360 appeared first on Tech Trends.