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So close, Samsung: with just days to go before the unveiling of the Samsung Galaxy Gear smart watch, leaked pictures have emerged of the wrist-worn Android gadget.
The Galaxy Gear will be officially unveiled on Wednesday evening at Samsung Unpacked, the Korean company’s press blowout at technology trade show IFA in Berlin. And the watch nearly stayed secret, too, until VentureBeat revealed several photos of the Gear in action.
Now this is a prototype given out early to developers, and GigaOm reports the finished product will be much sleeker and less chunky.
Strapping on to your wrist, the Gear boasts Wi-Fi and a 4-megapixel camera. The battery is reported to last 10 hours. It talks to your phone over Bluetooth and shows you notifications and other data on the 3-inch OLED touchscreen.
If that touchscreen doesn’t appeal to your big ol’ sausage fingers, you can also control the Gear using your mouth parts with Samsung’s S Voice voice-control app.
It’s also a fitness tracker, similar to the Fitbit Flex or Nike FuelBand, recording in the S Health app things like the number of steps you’ve taken, your heart rate, and what you eat.
Although it’s not the first smart watch, the Galaxy Gear fires the opening salvo in a new war of wearable technology. Apple is reported to be working on an iWatch, with Microsoft and many others considering their own high-tech timepieces.
Samsung will also unveil the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 next week at IFA, where the titans of the technology industry do battle — and we’ll be there to live blog, photograph and video all the exciting new products.
What do you think of the Galaxy Gear? Are smart watches worth getting excited about? Tell me your thoughts in the comments or on our Facebook page.
