HP and designer Michael Bastian prepping a luxury smart watch

HP is no stranger to collaborating with designers to create special edition notebooks. This time around, HP's going with designer Michael Bastian to create a luxury smart watch. The working outline for this device, which is an Android Wear compatible watch, goes as follows, " it will feature a circular, 44mm stainless steel case and three swappable bands: black rubber, brown leather, olive green nylon and a limited edition black."

Interesting to see HP, which doesn't do smartphones anymore, try and capture some of that sweet wearables market buzz. The design inspiration for this as of yet unnamed watch will be taken from automobile industrial design and interiors and HP  apparently differentiate the experience by adding to, "the watch's smart features, which will include notifications like email, text and calls, along with user controls for music and other apps." The HP smart watch is earmarked for a fall release.

Source: Engadget

Apple to flip the switch on its own Content Delivery Network resulting in faster transfers

Apple has reportedly flipped the switch on its own CDN which means it can more quickly and efficiently deliver files to iOS and Mac users running Apple cloud services or accessing any of the conten from iTunes or the App Store.

Apple has historically relied on CDN's like Akamai but is now renting bandwith from various ISPs in order to speed up various transfers. This means Apple customers should experience faster downloads, software updates, backups and file transfers. This also bodes well for the upcoming iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite releases which will rely heavily on cloud transfers for their continuity features.

Source: Streamingmediablog

Microsoft Devices launches the Nokia Lumia 635

More Windows Phone news coming down the pipe today as Microsoft Devices Group just announced the Canadian availability of the Nokia Lumia 635. The Lumia 635 brings the same capabilities as high-end Lumia smartphones at an affordable price, plus it is the first Lumia smartphone to be pre-loaded with Windows Phone 8.1 for the best Windows Phone experience, so Cortana is included. Also included is a 1.2GHz quad core Snapdragon 400 processor, a 5 MP rear camera, a 4.5-inch ClearBlack, IPS LCD with 854 x 480 pixel resolution.

The Lumia 635 is available at Rogers and Fido (free for two-year plans, $199 without contract) starting today and is coming to Telus in August. 

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BlackBerry Messenger now available for Windows Phone

BlackBerry just announced a collaboration with Microsoft to bring BBM to Windows Phone 8 and higher. This makes BBM available on all major mobile operating systems.

“We are intent on bringing the most popular application experiences to Windows Phone, and with BBM, we are pleased to bring many of its top features to the Windows Phone platform,” said Bryan Biniak, Vice President and General Manager, Developer Experience, Microsoft. “BBM on Windows Phone brings our customers the secure, easy-to-use messaging experience they demand, and we expect that new features will roll out in the months to come.” Hit jump for all the details.

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