Cogito enables activity tracking feature on existing watches

Cogito entered the market with analog smart watches that integrated notifications by way of icons on the watchface. The benefit of their approach is that their watches don't look like uber-geeky smart watches and they don't need to be recharged, at all.

Cogito Classic and Cogito Pop watches now have their activity tracking feature unlocked. This is great news for owners of Cogito devices which now have even more functionality than when they bought them. Hit jump for the announcement and instructions on how to enable the feature.

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First look: Olympus OM-D E-M5 II and 14-150mm F4-5.6 II lens

Here's a first look at the successor to the stunning Olympus OM-D E-M5 prosumer Micro-Four Thirds camera that's gained a lot of fans over the past year and a half. The OM-D E-M5II is said to have the same 16 Megapixel sensor, an improved image processor, and a new sensor shift shooting mode that allows to combine 8 pictures in one to create a 40 Megapixel image.

Also expected in this still unreleased model is improved 5 axis stabilization. Also leaked as a new and more compact 14-150mm F4-5.6II lens.

Source: 43 Rumors

Sony closing all of its Canadian retail stores, 90 employees laid off

It was a bad news day for retail Canada with the announcement that Target would shut down Canadian operations. The bigger news for consumer technology watchers was that Sony would close down all 14 of its Canadian retail stores including the five flagship stores in Toronto.

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Xpire brings ‘disappearing’ posts to Twitter on Android

Having messages disappear after an amount of time isn’t exactly new. But that has usually been the arena of the likes of Snapchat. But there is an app that wants to bring that ephemeral quality to social media. Xpire has been available on iOS but now makes its way to Android. It’ll bring the “self-destructing” posts to Twitter first. It offers you the opportunity to put expiration dates on your social media posts and even track back to previous posts via a search feature to get rid of those, too.

While it might be weird to be bringing ephemeral sharing to social networks, Xpire is hoping to tap into the younger market that uses Snapchat. Teens like to use Facebook in different ways that reduce the risk of content permanence and any drama these might cause. They hope to pull in more users to engage with the app daily instead of using it for “social cleansing” of sorts as well as use it to have more control over the time you spent on these networks.

Source: TechCrunch | Download: Google Play Store (Free)