The Fitbit Flex has officially gone on sale for $100 online and in U.S. retail stores. We saw the “OG fitness-tracking dongle” at CES earlier this year, where it was clear that Fitbit was trying to steal the mojo from competitors like Nike’s Fuelband and the Jawbone Up. Now the Flex is out in the wild, and users can be the judge.
Bluetooth 4.0 is used to connect the silicon wristband to an Android device or iPhone. It does everything the typical fitness tracker accomplishes: counts calories and steps, monitors sleeping, and lets you share stats with friends to keep you motivated. The actual exercise is still on you, though.
Just as the first prototype units are wending their way out to the initial lucky folks who get to use Google Glass before the rest of us, Google has posted its API for developers to start building apps for this latest wearable tech device.
In an out-of-character move for the Android operating system, Google is prohibiting developers from giving out their apps from anywhere but the official Google-hosted distribution channel. The company is also forbids anyone from adding advertisement or collecting any sort of fee to use said apps.
$50 for another controller in the TV hutch. Great.
The darling of the current gaming scene, Ouya, had some drama today when it was originally reported that the diminutive and open Android-based gaming console would not have online multiplayer functionality on launch, either for the initial distribution to Kickstarter backers, or even the retail launch, scheduled for June.
The updated reports, though, are now saying that there will, indeed, be online multiplayer included in shipping Ouya devices, just that it hasn’t been implemented by any developers for the tiny boxes as yet.
Home automation is here, but it isn’t cheap — unless you go the smart route with Securifi‘s new Almond+ router. For $100, this thing has much of what you’d expect from a top-tier router: Fast, next-gen 802.11ac compatibility (but still works with this-gen “n” devices), a claimed 5000 ft radius of coverage, four ethernet ports, a USB port and some slick mounting options.
The new Audiofly AF160. Somebody spent a looooong time setting this photo up.
Australian earphone-maker Audiofly was just a fledgling outfit with scarcely a handful of models and a shaky toehold in the earphone market when I first encountered a year ago at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show. After I had a chance to spend some quality time with what was then the company’s flagship set, the fantastic AF78s, I was pretty certain that, if the company did eventually fail, it would be in spite of the brand’s quality — not because of it.
But they didn’t fail. Now here they are, a year after debuting at CES, with a trio of new, more expensive additions — all decadently equipped with multiple drivers and balanced armatures — that shove the AF78 into the middle of their lineup.
One doesn’t see too many battery cases for the Galaxy S3. Unlike the glass-fortress iPhone — for which battery-cases are more numerous than species of bird — the S3’s battery is easily removable, somewhat lessening the usefulness of an external battery. But that didn’t stop iWalk from coming out with the Chameleon Easy, an impossibly sleek monster of a battery case with 2800 mAh on tap — which iWalk says is the highest capacity of any S3 battery to date.
Anyone remember that FCC complaint we showed you last week? The one filed by a consumer against Verizon for blocking Google Wallet? Anyone remember the official response by Verizon? No? Let me refresh your memory.
One of the standout features of the Galaxy Note II happens to be its Multi Window view. Unfortunately, not every Note II model currently has this feature available to it. T-Mobile has been dragging its feet with the update but will finally push it out to users come this Wednesday December 19th.
If you’re still trying to figure out which Android smartphone you should pick up this holiday season, let us help out by laying out a few of the great options available. We’ll give you a few choices for the various carriers and possible deals hosted by sites such as Amazon Wireless and Wirefly.
![Audiofly Goes All-In With Handful of New High-End Earphones [CES 2013]](http://cdn.cultofandroid.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/audiofly-af160.jpg "audiofly-af160")
