Breeze
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The compact Yuneec Breeze drone is built for 4K selfies
Yuneec is known for high-end drones with features like 4K and collision avoidance, but is going straight for Joe Consumer with its latest model. The Breeze is a $500 compact drone with five flight modes and an on-board 4K camera, making it ideal for types who want high-quality aerial selfies.
RunKeeper gets into the step-tracking game with Breeze
When it comes to being fit, it's really the small stuff that counts. You can go to the gym as much as you want, run five miles every morning -- but if you eat like crap, drive yourself to the corner store and take the elevator every morning to your 2nd floor office, it'll be all for naught. RunKeeper can already help track each training session as you make your way from couch to 5K, now it's trying to motivate you to keep moving between runs with Breeze. The iOS-only app uses the iPhone 5s' M7 chip to track your movements and count the number of steps you take. Of course, pedometer apps are quickly becoming a dime a dozen. Breeze attempts to set itself apart through simplicity and minimizing user interaction.
The TUAW Daily Update Podcast for April 17, 2014
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get some the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the player at the top of the page. The Daily Update has been moved to a new podcast host in the past few days. Current listeners should delete the old podcast subscription and subscribe to the new feed in the iTunes Store here.
Breeze by RunKeeper steps up your activity level
RunKeeper is a great app, and I've been using it for years to capture my walks during those times that I'm actually getting off my butt and exercising. I've found that I'm much more apt to really get moving if I can just track the number of steps I take every day and try to reach or exceed a goal. Today RunKeeper is shipping a free iPhone 5s-only app called Breeze to track all of the steps you take during a day. I had an opportunity to use Breeze for a few days prior to its release, and wanted to compare it to other methods of capturing step information. For that purpose, I formerly used a Fitibt Force -- until it was recalled -- and then started using the Moves ($2.99) app. For iPhone 5s owners, Moves can take advantage of the M7 motion coprocessor built into the top-of-the-line smartphone to capture your steps without needing to use GPS information. In that respect, Breeze is quite similar to Moves. RunKeeper notes that their self-named app is focused on workouts, while Breeze is designed to capture the rest of your day and motivate you to move more. I'm a crappy dancer, so I won't be following in the footsteps of the star of that video. But I do enjoy seeing just how many -- or how few -- steps I take every day. Like Moves, Breeze is a background app that is constantly running. RunKeeper decided to make Breeze specific to the iPhone 5s and future phones that use the M7 coprocessor to keep it from being too much of a drain on your iPhone's battery. The app has a clean interface that's a snap to figure out. The first time you launch Breeze on your iPhone, it pulls your activity data for the past seven days from the M7 and then creates a daily movement goal for you -- automatically. Breeze gives you reminders throughout the day, nudging you to get out and walk more when you have time to get those steps in before heading to bed. Every morning, the app provides a recap of your steps the previous day, hopefully providing an incentive for you to move a bit more each day. Whenever you pull up a completed day, you're greeted with a beautiful photograph in the background. The RunKeeper folks have really made Breeze an app you'll be glad to look at. One other nice touch -- the app assigns you a "spirit animal" based on your activity level. Me? I'm a regimented lion that is active in midday, moves in short bursts, and is mostly active on the weekend. I found the little notifications delivered during the day to be a surprisingly good motivator to get me up from behind the desk and at least moving around the house. Compared to Moves, I think Breeze will make better use of the iPhone's battery as it doesn't use Location Services to determine where you're doing your walks -- it just knows that you're moving. The app is already quite impressive, but the RunKeeper team promises that they'll provide integration with the RunKeeper app so all of your activity is captured -- workouts and normal movement.
Thermaltake cures clamminess with $80 Cyclone Edition gaming mouse
Just when we needed a modern-day equivalent of sailing down the Nile while being fanned by Assyrian slaves, we get this: the Black Element Cyclone Edition gaming mouse, which has a 6,000 rpm rotor directed right at the point where slick skin meets plastic. Pictures of the device have been floating around the web for a while, but we've just heard from its creators -- TT eSports, Thermaltake's sub-brand for peripherals -- that it'll be available in US stores any day now (or officially, "in August") priced at $80. The patent pending design promises to keep noise down to a sub-environmental 21.7dB, while delivering an airflow of 2.6 cubic feet per minute -- which, if you're lucky, should be enough to not only keep your digits dry but also reach your palm. The fan can alternatively be removed, in which case you'll be left with a 6,500 dpi laser sensor, an adjustable weight of up to 22.5 grams, "military-grade" grip coating and an abundance of natural oils.
TUAW's Daily Mac App: Breeze
There are plenty of window management apps on the Mac platform. Some allow you to snap windows to the edges of your screen like BetterSnapTool, but others, like Autumn Apps' Breeze (which we covered last year), allow you to record a desired window size and position. Breeze sits in your menu bar and lets you define "states" of windows by positioning them on your screen wherever you want and selecting "Save State As." You can save states for one application and apply them to any window from any program or just for that one specific program. States can be bound to keyboard shortcuts or selected from a drop-down list from the menu bar. Once you've got all the window states you want defined, you can quickly and easily move your windows around with just a few key presses. Some programs don't react well to being manhandled like that, with one poignant example being Photoshop, but most programs behave as they should. If for some reason you have a problem with a window (maybe it moves too far off screen), Breeze has a handy "Rescue window" function that brings the window back on-screen for you to deal with. There's a free trial available from Autumn Apps' website, while purchasing the app will set you back US$8. Breeze works on Mac OS X 10.5 and up, including PPC-based Macs.
Acer Liquid mt review
Acer may not be a huge player in the North American smartphone market, but it has slowly been improving its game, and it's had some measure of success with its Liquid E -- which, for a little while at least, was one of the better budget-priced Android options around. That phone has now gotten a proper successor in the form of the Liquid mt (otherwise known as the Liquid Metal), which first rolled out in Europe last fall and recently made its North American debut on Rogers in Canada. We managed to get a brief look at the phone at Mobile World Congress last month, but we've now had some additional time to properly test the phone and see how it stacks up. Will it finally earn Acer a bit of respect? Read on for our full review. %Gallery-119778%
AOC's 8-inch Breeze Android 2.1 tablet goes for broke, sells for $200
No money? No problem! The world of craptablets has grown significantly over the past dozen months, and you won't find us encouraging anyone to add another to the pile. But AOC has actually managed to make a fairly decent name for itself over the years, albeit one in the LCD industry. In fact, this here company claims to be the world's largest manufacturer of LED / LCD monitors, but it's tough to say how that type of expertise will translate in the tablet arena. The newly launched Breeze bucks two screen size trends and splits the difference -- there's an 8-inch touchpanel here, complete with an 800 x 600 screen resolution and a row of physical keys along the right edge. You'll also find a Rockchip processor, an outdated copy of Android 2.1, not to mention a USB 2.0 port, 3.5mm headphone, inbuilt speaker, 802.11b/g WiFi, 4GB of internal storage space, a microSD card slot and a battery that's supposedly good for up to 12 hours of audio playback or (six hours of video). We're still waiting to hear back on what type of CPU is under the shell, but for under $200, we're going to hazard a guess that it's not the quickest silicon in the shed. Anywho, it'll be splashing down at "major retail chains" later this month, likely going toe-to-toe with Augen for your bargain-bin bucks.
Acer Liquid Metal gets official in the UK with Android 2.2 and Breeze UI
After seeing quite a few leaks, Acer just made its Liquid Metal handset official. The 3.6-inch slate runs Android 2.2 Froyo atop an 800MHz Qualcomm MSM7230 processor. Inside all that molten metal you'll find 802.11n WiFi, support for 14.4Mbps HSDPA, DLNA/UPnP streaming support, Dolby Surround technology, and an image stabilized 5 megapixel autofocus camera with LED flash capable of recording video at 720p (30fps). Acer's new handset also features a new Breeze UI and SocialJogger app that aggregates Twitter and Facebook feeds. Look for it to land in brown in the UK starting mid November for £299. A silver version should arrive in early December. Still no word on that AT&T compatible jobbie that passed through the FCC. One more image and the full press release after the break.
Breeze: another fresh take on window management
We've covered a surprising number of innovative Mac utilities for easily positioning windows, from MercuryMover to SizeUp and, most recently, Divvy. Well, a new one, Breeze, is taking yet another look at the task of window management. Breeze is similar to the others in that it runs in your menubar and handles resizing and positioning windows via keyboard shortcuts. Unlike some of the others, it does away with the confines of presets and grids, and instead lets you memorize any window position and assign a shortcut to it. What makes Breeze stand out, though, is per-application settings: you can assign a single hotkey to perform different window movements depending on which application you're in at the time. That's pretty cool. Breeze is resolution independent, allowing you to perform equivalent positioning no matter what display you're using at the time. The latest version also handles "drawers" (the sidebars that dock to some windows), adjusting as necessary to fit. It has a simple interface, too. It's a cinch to add new window states and shortcuts, and easy to see existing states from its menubar icon. Breeze also has a "Rescue Window" feature that will bring stray windows to the center of your screen. That's not a daily need of mine, but I can think of several frustrating incidents when I would have loved to have the option. Breeze has a couple of shortcomings, the biggest one being an inability to edit existing shortcuts. I have little doubt that the developer is working hard on expanding new features as I write, though, so this is one to keep an eye on. Try it out for free, and if you like it, pick up a license for $8.00US.
Pantech Breeze gets remixed in black for AT&T
Looking for 3G, a wide VGA display, and a 5 megapixel cam? Well, friend, you've come to the wrong place -- but if you're looking for the drop dead simplest handset AT&T has to offer, the Breeze definitely has to make your short list. Following a white launch last year, Pantech's mega-simple clamshell for the older set has been redone in black, offering the same EDGE data, VGA camera, and one-touch "convenience keys" as the original. It's available starting today for $29.99 on contract.
Pantech Breeze carried into AT&T stores via strong gust
It's a little late -- if you can call falling behind an unofficial, rumored timeline "late" -- but the Pantech Breeze has finally hit up AT&T's website for sale to the masses. Though the feature set leaves it a bit shy of the HTC phone of the same name, your hard-earned $49.99 will still buy you a pretty attractive clam with quadband EDGE, a VGA camera, Bluetooth, and the large buttons, text, and speed dials directly below the display that all tend to be hallmarks of phones for a... ahem, more mature audience. No bother; we really like the way this one looks, and the price won't break the bank.[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
A look at AT&T's pipeline, early March 2008 edition
We've already mentioned that the LG Vu is looking solid for a late March release after being held up (or so they say, anyway) to work through a few MediaFLO issues; we've now received independent confirmation that it's true -- assuming no more issues arise, of course -- but that's not all. No, far from it, in fact. The Sony Ericsson Z750 is apparently inbound for a release within two weeks, and along with the rugged Motorola W760 "Hurricane" (pictured), that should close out AT&T's March docket.Moving on to April and beyond, the Pantech "Breeze" is expected some time next month, but don't get too excited -- it's an entry level flip that should move out the door free on contract. The Motorola Z9 slider should lackadaisically stroll into stores in late April, and finally, we've heard that the Nokia N95 has been approved by the carrier's powers that be (!!!) and should be available in the second quarter; no word on whether it's the standard N95 or the N95 8GB, though. How about an N96 with MediaFLO while you're at it, guys?[Thanks, Kal]Update: We've just heard from another tipster that the N95 in question is the original for the North American market, the N95-3. It apparently just started going through the arduous approval process last week, a testing marathon that takes roughly 400 hours -- four to six months -- to complete. By then, we'll all have 4G radios embedded directly within our brains and be living in terraformed colonies on Mars, but it was a nice thought on AT&T's part nonetheless.
O2 Mars and Jupiter, followup to Hermes, Breeze
Oh hell yes, did we call it or did we call it? That mystery device has a keyboard, and it turns out that HTC's totally sick successor to the Hermes / TyTn is the O2 Mars which nails the aesthetics where the Hermes suffers so, and will supposedly come equipped with a 520MHz XScale, GPRS / EDGE / UMTS (sorry, no HSDPA), 64MB ram, 128MB flash, WiFi, Bluetooth, miniSD, and a 2 megapixel camera. Ok, so maybe we're only excited about this thing because it's one of the only QWERTY devices we've seen lately out of HTC that wasn't a little hard to look at (Excalibur, we're lookin' at you, buddy), but we don't need to excuse our love of gadgets, so if you'll let us continue our fawning. Thank you.P.S. -Sorry, we didn't mean to gloss over the Jupiter, which appears to be the successor to the Breeze -- there's just not a lot of info there. Click on for some pics.[Via the::unwired]
i-mate gets HTC Breeze as "SP JAS"
i-mate, purveyor of all things HTC, has gone ahead and picked up their first 3G Windows Mobile Smartphone -- the Breeze, that is -- and christened it "SP JAS." Nothing about the SP JAS stands out from its brethren marketed under other labels, save for one detail: it restores the front-facing cam lost on HTC's self-branded Breeze, the MTeoR. As with the MTeoR, buyer beware, as the SP JAS lacks GSM 850 and UMTS 850 / 1900, features originally (mistakenly) touted on some of HTC's marketing materials. Pricing and availability remain under wraps, but with Breezes starting to circulate through retail channels, we reckon i-mate'll be dropping shortly.[Via the::unwired]
HTC typo leaves MTeoR customers fuming
Unsuspecting American buyers of the MTeoR, HTC's self-branded cut of the 3G-capable Breeze candybar, might be a bit surprised to find that they're not having much luck with reception. Some versions of HTC's own marketing materials for the device list it as sporting quad-band GSM and tri-band UMTS, but alas, it's actually a tri-band GSM 900 / 1800 / 1900 unit with support for UMTS only on the European 2100 band. Of course, had this really been a tri-band UMTS phone, we'd have been throwing parties, launching fireworks, and generally making merry here at Engadget HQ, but for the few folks who've imported one of these pieces stateside, our hearts go out to you.[Thanks, Rick V.]
Orange shows small army of Windows Mobile devices
Talk about sensory overload -- MoDaCo got its hands on a bunch of semi-official Orange debuts for a number of devices over the weekend, and we have to admit, we're insanely jealous. Perhaps the most interesting of the bunch, Samsung's "Blackjack" WM5 Smartphone comes fresh on the heels of the i320, offering basically the same functionality plus 3G data and a forward-facing camera for video calling (feeling the heat, Moto?). Also shown were the HTC Breeze and Oxygen, known on Orange as the C700 and C100 respectively; no real surprises here, though we can now confirm that the Oxygen won't be sporting DTV like we had previously heard might be the case. In case that all doesn't have ya impressed, the Hermes (M3100) and Star Trek (F600) showed up for the party, too. Don't know about you, but we're feeling a bit overwhelmed here; excuse us while we lie down for just a few minutes.
Breeze: because robotic trees are better
As any mad scientist can tell you, all things natural can be improved upon through robotics. In homage to this axiom we bring you the robotic tree, Breeze, the horrific robotonous embodiment of juvenescent nightmares. Described as an ambient robot inhabiting the body of a Japanese Maple, Breeze can "visually sense" and react "allowing her to reach out to you and others whenever you are near." Its "subtle and artistic" movement is created through Nitinol wires which flex like muscles when electrical current is applied. Of course, it's only a matter of time until DARPA advances the technology into a forest of seemingly passive attack trees with razor sharp leaves and poisonous needles. Lorax, can you look into this... Lorax?[Via Robot Gossip]
HTC self-brands Hermes (TyTN) and Breeze (MTeoR)
It's been a crazy few years for the once unknown Taiwanese OEM known as High Tech Computer. Although still not a household name like Sony or Samsung, HTC has leveraged its strong ties with Microsoft to offer tantalizing products that have made us early-adopters stand up and take notice, and now the company feels that it's in a strong enough market position to ditch the Qtek brand and begin selling phones under its own name. The Qtek phase-out was announced as part of HTC's official unveiling of the 3G Hermes Windows Mobile Pocket PC phone -- now known as the TyTN -- as well as the compact, UMTS-capable Breeze smartphone -- which is now called the MTeoR (yeah, we're noticing a MOTO-like naming trend too; see the rebadged STRTrk for further proof). In announcing July's European launch of these self-branded handsets, HTC reemphasized its dedication to the many carriers selling its products under their own names, but this development certainly bodes well for the company's overall name-recognition; imagine, instead of lying and telling people we have a Treo because Sprint-branded-UTStarcomm-PPC-6700-based-on-the-HTC-Apache sounds so nerdy, we may one day be able to proudly proclaim "Oh, it's an HTC." [Warning: PDF link][Via Geekzone, thanks to everyone who sent this in]
HTC Breeze up close and personal
You may not be able to read it without the aid of some wonky Babelfish translation, but it's still well worth checking out Mobinaute's review of the HTC Breeze smartphone. They totally blow things out with a ton of detailed of pics, sample shots from the phone's camera, and a six minute long video demonstration of the handset (in French, of course). As previously reported, the handset itself has a 300Mhz Samsung 2442 processor, 240x320 TFT screen, 64MB RAM, 128MB ROM, Bluetooth 2.0, a MicroSD slot, 3G capabilities, and dual cameras (1.3 Megapixel on the rear for still pictures and a 352 x 388 CIF camera on the front for video calls). On the whole, Mobinaute seems fairly impressed with the handset, the biggest downside being the lack of integrated WiFi.[Via coolsmartphone]
