Watch Airplane Vs. Volcano Tube Free' title='Watch Airplane Vs. Volcano Tube Free' />The Fitbit Ionic Might Be the Smartwatch That Unseats Apple. After months of leaks and hints, Fibit has finally revealed its newest wrist wearable The 3. I blame Adobe for this. Ulysses, one of the best writing tools available right now, is going subscription only. If you previously purchased Ulysses for Mac or iOS it. Come at the king, you best not miss. Thats what Omar said, and it applies in scenarios like this one. The king is the BMW 3 Series, the midsize sport sedan. Fitbit Ionic. Fitbit claims up to four days of battery life, a refined OS that pairs nicely with devices running i. OS, Android, and Windows, and a brand new sensor for tracking your heart rate. This smartwatch, which visually calls to mind the lovechild of an Apple Watch and a Fitbit Surge, is a natural progression for the huge wearable company. Just last year, it snapped up notable smartwatch makers Pebble and Vector for a reported 3. And between the almost perfect Surge and the incredibly unattractive Blaze, Fitbit has been interested in the smartwatch sector of the wearable market for a while. This is the culmination of that interest. Its profoundly uglylike every Fitbit thats come before, but it could be technologically cool enough that you might not care. A smartwatch, even an unattractive one, makes sense for Fitbit right now. According to IDC, Fitbits market share plummeted over the last year leading the former number one wearable brand to drop to third place in market share behind Apple and Chinese tech titan Xiaomi. Watch breaking news videos, viral videos and original video clips on CNN. Watch Airplane Vs. Volcano Tube Free' title='Watch Airplane Vs. Volcano Tube Free' />Get the latest science news and technology news, read tech reviews and more at ABC News. Search or upload videos. Popular on YouTube Music, Sports, Gaming, Movies, TV Shows, News, Spotlight. Browse Channels. Dont miss the HOTTEST NEW TRAILERS http CLIP DESCRIPTION By deciding to save the train driver, Stan John Carroll Lynch makes the. Good morning Welcome to The Morning Shift, your roundup of the auto news you crave, all in one place every weekday morning. Here are the important stories you need. After months of leaks and hints, Fibit has finally revealed its newest wrist wearable The 300 Fitbit Ionic. Fitbit claims up to four days of battery life, a refined. While you wont find a Xiaomi fitness tracker or smartwatch on many wrists in America, you will find the Apple Watch. Here in New York, I see a few on wrists every single day as I commute into work. Yet, while Fitbit has seen its marketshare shrink, the company still claims to have over 5. Its down, but not out, and clearly hopes that the Ionic will help turn things around. When it comes to style it cant hope to beat Google and its myriad of partners in the fashion world. Its big bezel and sharp angles cant even beat the gentle curves of an Apple Watch. The Apple Watch, by virtue of being Apple made, is something of a fashion accessory now. The Ionic will likely be too big and square to accomplish the same feat. So one way Fitbit is hoping to distinguish itself is by focusing on what it does best Fitness. To that end. Fitbit claims its built an incredible accurate new heartrate sensor. The current Fitbits use its Pure. Pulse system which is an optical heartrate sensor using green lights that rapidly flash across the skin allowing and sensor to detect the pulse of a persons blood flow. This is the de facto method for detecting the heartrate on the wrist. With the Ionic, Fitbit is introduces a new triwave color sensor that uses a combination of red, green, and infrared lights to detect bloodflow. How well it detects it, and whether it is more accurate than previous Fitbit devices or the Apple Watch remains to be seen. For the fitness focused, the Ionic is also water resistant up to 5. The Office Business Trip Full Episode. GPS, has swappable bands so you dont have to look like a gym goober all day, and can automatically detect when you exercise and when you stop exercisinguseful if you jog with a dog. And with a claimed four days of battery life, it could certainly do that. Battery life has long been one of the things holding smartwatches back from more widespread adoption. They can handle a day of constant use, but generally crap out early into day two. Meanwhile, the Ionic loaner Fitbit provided us on Thursday, which is running an early build of the software and nowhere near representative of the final product, was at 5. Thats more than three days of wear, whilst constantly checking my heart rate, and more importantly, polling my phone for notifications. Over the last few years, Fitbit has gotten pretty good at delivering notifications to your wrist, but its just not as good at it as wristables running watch. OS or Android Wear. The Ionic could, potentially, change that. It allows for call, text, and calendar notifications. Theoretically, it can handle notifications from other apps as well, and I managed to get it to work with three of the other apps on my phone. Besides notifications and the option for different watch faces another big smartwatch must the Ionic has is an NFC chip for cardless payments at retailers. At launch it is expected to work with Mastercard, Visa, and American Expressthough Fitbit insists its working with banks for better interoperability. But the best smartwatch feature coming to a Fitbit device are apps. Fitbit is going to launch a gallery where developers can add their own apps and watch faces for anyone to download. Apps will be subject to a review process and coded using Javascript and SVR. Theyre expected to be designed in Fitbit Studio, a new web based tool, similar to the one the defunct Pebble used to rapidly build a library of apps. In fact Tomas Sarlandie, Fitbits Software Engineering Director, told journalists at a recent briefing that Studio had already been seeded to select former Pebble developers in the hopes that theyd develop for the new Fitbit OS platform. And Fitbit had better cross its fingers they do, because at launch there will be exactly four non Fitbit apps available on the Ionic a Starbucks, Accuweather, cycling app Strava, and Pandora. Those are meager options, but the Pandora one could be nifty, as it will allow you to take Pandora offline and onto the watchs 2. GB of storage space provided you have a Plus or Premium Pandora account. Theres no Spotify, or Google or Apple Music, so if you dont want to listen to Pandora youll need to side load your own music. All of it will play via Bluetooth headphones, including the pair Fitbit itself is launching around the same time. The Fitbit Flyer are wireless Bluetooth headphones that Fitbit claims have six hours of playtime in them, compatibility with all available digital assistants, audio prompts for connectivity and battery life, and a small selection of wings, tips, and fins to help you find a better fit. The Fitbit Flyer wireless earbuds will retail for 1. Fitbit Ionic will retail for a whopping 3. Thats not a super competitive price, but its cheaper than the better looking watches on Android Wear and priced the same as the super successful Apple Watchwhich is rumored to have its own update coming in September. The Fitbit Ionic starts shipping in October 2. BMW Wont Quit Steering Wheels Just Yet UpdatedGood morning Welcome to The Morning Shift, your roundup of the auto news you crave, all in one place every weekday morning. Here are the important stories you need to know. Gear BMW Is Hedging Its Bets With Flexible EV Architectures On All Models By 2. Starting in 2. 02. BMW is going to build every model on a flexible vehicle architecture that can accept electric, plug in hybrid and internal combustion engine powertrains, Klaus Frhlich, member of BMWs board of management, said this week in Frankfurt. With government regulations influencing purchase price of electric cars, EV infrastructure in limbo, fluctuating fuel prices, ever changing emissions regulations, inter city driving restrictions, and battery technology and price rapidly evolving, the success of electric cars in the near term is still uncertain. For an automaker to place all of its bets on EVs is a dangerous move, but to not offer an extended EV range could also be similarly disastrous. The industrys volatility has driven BMW to hedge its bets by basing all models starting in 2. This means that, pretty soon, consumers in various markets could theoretically be able to buy a fully electric, plug in hybrid or internal combustion engine version of any BMW model. I spoke with head of the BMW i brand Robert Irlinger at the Frankfurt Motor Show, and he stressed thatwith the insecure future of the EV and combustion enginebuilding all models on architectures that can accept a variety of different powertrain technologies just makes sense. When I asked how BMW can build a gas powered car on an electric car platform without, for example, having a giant void where the batteries would be, he made clear that a standard architecture across model variants really only means that things like the crash structure and suspension mounting points stay the same. The body between the axlesi. EV, PHEV or ICE packaging needs. So, as an example, an EV version of a 3 series might replace the exhaust tunnel with a flat floor to store a battery pack. So yes, even if BMW says electrification is part of its grand plans, the companys immediate plans are to keep a variety of powertrain options on the table. Gear For Self Driving Cars, BMW Is Holding Onto Its Steering Wheels. Another question I asked Irlinger and his colleague Alexander Schmuck, manager of the Product Technology Communications team, is how a brand that markets its vehicles as the Ultimate Driving Machines sees itself in a future where cars drive themselves. How does BMWs sporty dynamism and other weird PR buzzwords sell cars when people wont even be driving Irlanger told me that even drivers who appreciate the handling of a BMW are still interested in drivers assist features, especially during boring driving conditions like traffic jams. But obviously, they still want the option to drive, telling me BMW doesnt have any plans of removing steering wheels or pedals from the cars at this time. As for how that position will change in the distant future, BMW wouldnt tell me. But at least for the mid term, BMW has no interest in ditching the wheel as it explores autonomy, which isnt surprising, because the brand would likely face an identity crisis otherwise. Gear Samsung Is Throwing Down Cash For Autonomous Cars. Weve known Samsung has been dabbling in autonomous cars for a while now, but today the company announced how serious it is with its 3. Samsung Automotive Innovation Fund, whose goal is to support connected car and autonomous technologies. Those technologies, the worlds largest smartphone maker writes in its press release, include smart sensors, machine vision, artificial intelligence, high performance computing, connectivity solutions, automotive grade safety solutions, security, and privacy. The first investment from that fundwhich will total nearly 9. Tech Crunchwill go into the Australian company TTTECH a company that Audi, too, has made investments into, which is known for integrating software for advanced driver assistance systems, as well its work in functional safety, deterministic networking, real time systems. On top of that, Harman now owned by Samsung, has created the AutonomousADAS Strategic Business Unit, which will work with Samsungs team to develop key technologies for safer, smarter, connected vehicles. Its worth mentioning that Samsung stresses that it is not going to enter the car manufacturing business. Instead, it will focus on working with automakers and mobility enablers to develop the next generation of automotive innovation. Makes sense I guess, as it seems everyone in the tech sphere is throwing money into autonomous cars. Gear It Turns Out, That Driver Dressed Up As A Car Seat Was With Ford. In early August, quite a few people were weirded out by whatat first glanceappeared to be a car with no driver, but what on second glance, was actually a car with a driver dressed as a seat. We eventually found out that the stunt was part of a research effort by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute to look into the potential need for additional exterior signals on automated vehicles to better communicate with pedestrians, cyclists and human drivers. Now Automotive Newshas learned a bit more about that research, including the fact that it was ultimately funded by Ford, and that the whole point was to come up with a standard light signal to communicate autonomous cars next moves to people outside the vehicle. After speaking with Fords human factors technical specialist John Shutko, the news site wrote The white light display, located at the top of the windshield, is designed to communicate intent to yield way or accelerate from a stop, which today is done through hand gestures, head nods and eye contact. The displays color and location were chosen to comply with federal motor vehicle safety standards and not create confusion with other light signals on the vehicle, Shutko said. The story goes on, describing what the different signals mean The cue for yielding to a full stop is two white lights that move side to side. A rapidly blinking white light indicates the vehicle is beginning to accelerate from a stop and a solid white light means the vehicle is driving under computer control. Ford says it wants to share results of its research with other automakers to eventually agree upon a common standard.