Month: January 2017

Enlarge (credit: Capcom Mobile)

In the wake of the NES Classic's holiday sellout across North America, another beloved '80s gaming property, Mega Man, offered a major nostalgia trip this week. The series' first six NES games rolled out on Wednesday for both iOS and Android, with each classic game costing a mere $1.99.

Sadly, the ports are so bad that even $2 a pop is asking a lot.

Capcom Mobile itself published a series of trailers for the games after they appeared on mobile storefronts, and those trailers looked iffy, mostly thanks to choppy framerates. Sadly, those weren't due to a bad capture; that's actually how the games run. All six games currently appear to run at inconsistent frame rates, typically 30fps or less, which is brutal for a classic series that relies so heavily on precise jumps and tricky enemies.

LAS VEGAS—The number of third-party apps and services that work with Fitbit devices is vast, and now the company added a couple more partners to its Works with Fitbit program. Fitbit announced that now its trackers can integrate and share information with the personalized nutrition and diet service Habit, the at-home biking system Peloton, and the virtual reality sports company VirZoom.

Habit is a service that tests your body composition and tailors nutrition recommendations and meal plans to meet your goals. Fitbit devices will share weight, body fat, and calorie information with Habit so it can update your personalized food plans. For example, if you want to lose weight but you don't exercise enough daily to achieve this goal, Habit will be able to use Fitbit's information to recommend a lower daily caloric intake with the proper breakdown of carbs, proteins, and fats to meet your goal.

Peloton and VirZoom have similar ways of using Fitbit information. Both can sync their activity data to your Fitbit account, and any completed routines will show up in the Fitbit app as a recorded exercise. You can also use Fitbit devices like the Charge 2 that track heart rate to monitor pulse throughout a workout.

Video shot/edited by Jennifer Hahn. (video link)

LAS VEGAS—Misfit has stayed away from wearables with screens. From its most basic Shine tracker to its Phase hybrid smartwatch, the company has focused on fashion first. But at CES 2017, Misfit announced the Vapor smartwatch. Not only is the Vapor the first Misfit device with a digital touchscreen, it sports many other smartwatch features that Misfit has typically foregone for the sake of simplicity.

The Vapor looks a lot like the Phase. With its 44mm round case, you could mistake it for a regular wristwatch. But instead of an analog face, the Vapor has a 1.39-inch, 326ppi AMOLED display. Inside is a Snapdragon Wear 2100 processor, an accelerometer, altimeter, gyroscope, optical heart rate monitor, GPS, and microphone. All of those things in one device mean you'll be able to track most activities, including outdoor exercises that benefit from an onboard GPS that maps running and cycling routes. The Vapor also has 4GB of memory as well as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth capabilities, so you can store music on the watch, sync wireless headphones, and rock out to your jams during a workout while leaving your smartphone at home. Misfit estimates the Vapor will last two days on a single charge, which puts it in line with devices like the Apple Watch.