Fossil Gen 5 smartwatches get new sleep tracking, fitness features

Fossil updates its Gen 5 Wear OS smartwatches with many new features, even without Google's help. The wearables get new functions that aren't part of standard Wear OS, including sleep and VO2 max tracking. The latter helps with tracking your overall cardio fitness level. 

The update improves activity tracking, promising better real-time fitness tracking (like heart rate, pace, distance, steps, and calories) at half the power consumption. Fossil achieves this by offloading the tasks to the QCC1110 co-processor.

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Zoom to support Facebook, Amazon, Google smart displays this year

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Zoom is bringing its video conferencing app to smart displays this year. The company will start rolling it out to Facebook Portal first in September, with Amazon Echo Show and Google Nest Hub Max getting support before the year ends. 

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Apple 'won't make an exception' for Epic Games as legal dispute rages on

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Apple responds to Epic's latest claims in its ongoing dispute, saying it "won't make an exception" for the company because "we don't think it's right to put their business interests ahead of the guidelines that protect our customers." Epic filed a preliminary injunction against Apple, asking the courts to stop the company from taking it off its developer program. The developer says Apple has given them until August 28 to take out the rule-violating payment processing option Epic snuck into Fortnite. 

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'Earth to Ned' extraterrestrial talk show lands on Disney+ on Sept. 4

Disney+ is introducing the galaxy's first alien-hosted talk show next month, starting September 4. Earth to Ned is produced by The Jim Henson Company and Marwar Junction Productions and introduces a different take to the late-night talk show format. It stars extraterrestrial-creatures Ned and Cornelius, who, like many talk show hosts before them, are there to interview our stars. The episodes focus on themes unique to Earthlings and are fascinating subjects to Ned, including comedy, sports, social media, and fashion.

Some of the celebrity guests lined up for Earth to Ned include Rachel Bilson, Michael Ian Black, Gina Carano, RuPaul, Taye Diggs, Bindi and Robert Irwin, Gillian Jacobs, NeNe Leakes, Joel McHale, Andy Richter, Olivia Rodrigo, Eli Roth, Paul Scheer, Jenny Slate, Raven Symoné, Reggie Watts, and Billy Dee Williams, to name a few. If you're looking for something light and quirky to watch, this new show might fit the bill.

Source: Deadline