The time has come for the smartwatch.
I'm Bridget Carey and this is your CNET Update.
There's lots to talk about today as Samsung and Sony revealed new gadgets at the IFA tech conference going on this week in Berlin.
The buzz is all around Samsung with its newly unveiled Galaxy Gear smartwatch.
The Gear has a 1.63-inch screen surrounded by a metal frame and it has a 1.9-megapixel camera,
but the camera is on the side of the band so you can't video chat from your wrist.
The strap comes in six different colors including a beige option with a champagne metal frame and buckle.
How fashionable.
Gear works with other Samsung smartphones and tablets so users can check messages, make calls, or control music from the wrist.
It works with 70 apps at launch including Evernote and Pinterest.
The watch can create new calendar entries, set alarms, and check
weather with voice controls.
It also records audio and it has a pedometer to track physical activity.
So, what about that battery?
Well, Samsung says it lasts a full day before needing a recharge.
The Galaxy Gear will arrive in the US in October.
Now, we have to wait and see how Apple's gonna respond.
Sony also has a smartwatch of its own coming out in September, the Sony's SmartWatch2.
This update works with more apps and it has NFC.
It also comes with multiple colors of bands
and it's waterproof, but Sony's new Android smartphone was the more impressive gadget.
The Waterproof Xperia Z1 packs a 20.7-megapixel camera along with tons of features including unlimited online photo storage and something called Info-Eye.
Point your camera at a bottle of wine and it can suggest food to pair with it.
The phone will launch this month along with a wild new concept of a camera, the Cyber-shot QX10 and QX100.
These are cameras that clip onto a smartphone and not just the Xperia smartphone, but any Android or iPhone.
The camera is packed into the cylinder body and the smartphone becomes the screen to frame your shot and to control the settings or if you're in a hurry, you can shoot blindly with a button on the camera.
There's also a new oversized smartphone coming out from Samsung, the Galaxy Note 3. It has a 5.7-inch screen and a 13-megapixel camera that's said
to do better at handling low light and motion.
The back cover has a soft texture that looks like a journal and it comes in several colors, and as you might expect, there are several new software tools and tricks for taking notes and multitasking.
That's your tech news update, but you could find more details on the gadgets announced at IFA at cnet.com/ifa.
From our studios in New York, I'm Bridget Carey.
