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Jack Liu

From smart milk bottles for infants to smart watches customers can assemble themselves using tiny Lego-like blocks, last week’s Global Sources mobile electronics show in Hong Kong treated visitors to a kaleidoscopic array of new gadgets among the hundreds of innovative products on display.
Here are five of the top picks from the latest edition of the world’s biggest mobile electronic sourcing show.
 
Dual-screen smartphone that doubles as an e-reader

Jezetek Mobile has produced this nifty smartphone featuring a regular screen in front and an e-ink touchscreen on the flip side.
Electronic paper screens are used in Kindles and other e-book reading devices. They are not as bright and colourful as regular screens but are less harmful for the eyes.
Users can double-tap the phone’s home button to send content from one screen to the other, a fun little gimmick for those who want to keep flicking their phone over like pages in a book.
The company, also known as Jiuzhou Group (Hong Kong) Holdings, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Sichuan Jiuzhou Electric Group, a high tech enterprise with a reported turnover of US$3.5 billion last year.
 
Glasses-free 3D screen and detachable game pad for serious gamers on the go

When it comes to taking on angry birds or zombie plants, touchscreens can provide a fun but limiting experience. However, to succeed in fighting games or shoot-em-ups that require complex commands and lighting-fast reflexes, a game pad (aka “controller”) still ranks as a gamer’s best friend.
Most wireless game pads require the user to find a way of resting their tablet on a nearby surface, thus detracting from the mobile nature of the playing experience; others with the screen attached are often bulky and not much-loved by gamers.
In this respect, the new Morphus X300 tablet from Aikun China Electronics seems like the ultimate solution as each one comes equipped with a full-sized but detachable game pad.
Remove the pad and the device functions like a normal tablet. It also comes with an 8-inch glasses-free 3D display and ARM Cortex-A7 processor.
The tablet is expected to enter production in the next few weeks and retail for around US$300.
 
World’s first smart helmet tracks your vitals, plays music and records video

A Chinese company claims to have built the world’s first smart helmet for bike riders. The device being touted by Shenzhen Qianhai Livall IoT Technology features speakers and microphones that let it act like a walkie-talkie.
It also includes a phone and music player, making it a safer way to listen to death metal or call your mum while racing down mountain slopes than fiddling around the separate devices.
The helmet comes with a remote control that attaches to most bicycle handles so there is no need to ride one-handed when answering a call or changing tunes.
The same remote can also be used to take photos on your smartphone if the devices are paired via Bluetooth.
Livall’s hot new smart accessory recently finished a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo and is now being shipped to backers.
 
World’s first modular watch

Smart watches tend to be either small and slim or big and bulky. Blocks, the world’s first modular smart watch by the start-up of the same name, tackles this problem by dividing its functions into different modules.
These effectively serve as “links” on its strap that be added or removed at will. Each one adds different functions - an extra battery, air quality sensor, or even a SIM card reader - to what ranks as a fairly impressive smart watch.
“Wearable devices are very personal devices, so naturally being able to customise yours would be amazing, as you could make it unique to your own lifestyle,” wrote Blocks spokesperson Hakeem Javaid in a blog. “The sustainability angle that modularity brings [is another] huge plus.”
A Kickstarter campaign launched on October 14 has already raised over US$1 million.

WATCH: Block modular smartwatch explained
 
Smart bottles for babies

There are plenty of things to worry about when giving milk to infants. A new nursing bottle from Shenzhen iHotku Technology aims to takes the pressure off parents by sending them reminders, monitoring the liquid’s temperature and keeping track of the feeding plan with an affiliated smartphone app.
It also tells concerned mums whether their baby’s calory intake is sufficient and how much they have consumed that day, among other functions.


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The Next Big Thing

Smart helmets to glasses-free 3D screens: Top 5 picks from the Global Sources mobile electronics show in Hong Kong 

No Caption Available.

Surely one of the coolest smart watches to (soon) hit the market, Block features “modules” that can be added to the strap. Each one offers different functions. Photo: Handout

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