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The Apple Watch is finally here. Again. Only this time, it actually works.

Details were scant when Apple first unveiled its much-awaited watch at a media event in September 2014 and watches featured nothing more than a demo loop of what software might do. Today Apple answered most of the big questions and we actually got to take an Apple Watch for a spin.

The two biggest blanks going into this morning’s presentation were price and battery life. We got answers for both. The Apple Watch Sport ranges from $449 to $519, the Apple Watch from $699 and $1,459, and the 18k gold Apple Watch Edition starts at $13,000 (all prices for Canada). Exact pricing varies based on case size (38mm or 42mm) and strap choice.

No GPS or cellular connectivity

Apple is saying that the watch will provide a “full day” of use on one charge, approximately 18 hours. It’s unclear what that means and how long a charge will last if you’re addicted to Instagram or handle a lot of email. It’s likely to be similar to what you can get from the Moto 360 and a little less than what the Samsung Galaxy Gear S offers. Charging is done inductively through a magnetic pad, and the Apple Watch Edition houses the pad in a leather box meant to mimic the boxes of high-end luxury watches.

A major criticism of the Apple Watch is that while it has Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, it does not have GPS or cellular connectivity, meaning it needs to be tethered to an iPhone to access the Internet, map your run, or notify you of email.

It doesn’t feel very Apple

There are more varieties of Apple Watch than of any Apple product offered before. As if three product ranges and two sizes wasn’t enough, each range also has two finish options and there are dozens of style and colour combinations of straps and bracelets. Apple smartly understands that while most people are ok carrying the same phone as their colleagues and friends, walking into a room wearing the same watch as everyone else feels a little strange. However, even if several varieties is an understandable decision for the marketplace, it still doesn’t feel very Apple.

The smaller 38mm size fits better on my small wrist, but you do get about 20% less screen than with the 42mm and I think that’s real estate I’d quickly come to miss. The fluroelastomer bands (you’ll get chastised referring to them as rubber near any Apple employee) are flexible and comfortable, but a little fiddly to put on, while the leather and link bracelets feel very much like watch bands you’re already used to. The Milanese mesh in particular feels and looks incredible, and fits your wrist perfectly by using magnets instead of sized clasp holes.

David Paul Morris/BloombergOn first use, the digital crown felt a little confusing and clumsy.

Digital crown feels clumsy and unrefined

Since the first Apple Watch announcement in September 2014, Apple has been touting the digital crown as a groundbreaking interface that will set the Apple Watch apart from its competition. So, how is it in practice? On first use, it felt a little confusing and clumsy. Sometimes it seemed to do one thing, and other times just the opposite. The display doesn’t use the familiar pinch-to-zoom gesture used on the iPhone and it seems like the interplay between tapping, swiping, and turning the crown will take some getting used to.

Unanswered questions

We thought we might get the full scoop from Apple on what the final release will look like, but details such as on-board storage capacity and exactly how you’ll manage and purchase apps via your iPhone are still missing. Sure, we got to go hands-on with a working watch, but things will surely continue to shift and change before the watches start popping up on wrists.

The Apple Watch will be sold at Apple stores and special demonstration cases will arrive in Apple stores on April 10, the same day pre-orders begin. Watches will begin being delivered just a few weeks later on April 24.

Bloomberg.com

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Apple Inc. talked up its new smartwatch’s ability to last up to 18 hours on a single battery charge at its splashy launch event Monday. What CEO Tim Cook didn’t divulge during the announcement is that the battery can drain in as little as three hours if you use it to make calls.

Details on Apple’s website reveal that tests done on a preproduction model using the call function showed the device could get ‘Up to 3 hours’ of battery life ‘with a call placed.’

Apple bases its 18-hour battery claim — or “all-day battery life,” as the company calls it — on tests done using a particular set of features that doesn’t include voice calling. Here’s what will get you “all-day” use:

• 90 time checks
• 90 notifications
• 45 minutes of app use
• 30-minute workout with music playback from Apple Watch via Bluetooth

Apple tested a number of other metrics as well, knowing that different people will use the device for different purposes.

Watch wearers planning to use the device primarily for Bluetooth-enabled music playback can expect up to 6.5 hours of battery life, while those looking to get fit with a workout session active and the heart rate sensor on will get up to 7 hours use.

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Apple points out that all of the tests were done using a 38mm version of the watch and that a full charge on the larger, 42mm model will typically last longer.

If you just really love the Watch for its good looks and choose to use it just to check the time, you should be able to get a full two days out of it, Apple says.

And should your battery get too low, the Watch will automatically switch into power reserve mode, which can let you see the time for up to 72 hours.

Gigaom, a pioneering technology website that attracts some 6.5 million readers every month, said it’s shutting down after failing to repay lenders.

The news blog, founded in 2006 by writer Om Malik and with offices in San Francisco and New York, said late Monday that all operations have ceased. The website still shows stories posted as recently as Monday on Apple Inc.’s new watch, HBO’s streaming service and Snapchat Inc. Chief Executive Officer Evan Spiegel’s meeting with Saudi Arabia’s Prince Alwaleed bin Talal.

“We do not know at this time what the lenders intend to do with the assets or if there will be any future operations using those assets,” Gigaom said in its statement.

Gigaom received its last funding round, valued at $8 million, in February 2014, with investors including Reed Elsevier Plc’s venture arm, according to Crunchbase. Overall funding exceeded $22 million, according to that website.

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While founder Malik has long been an influential voice among tech bloggers — his Twitter account shows he has almost 1.5 million followers — Gigaom’s popularity has fallen behind some of its peers. According to Alexa.com, the site ranks on position 1,247 among the most popular pages in the U.S., compared with 203 for TechCrunch, 142 for Engadget, and 68 for CNET.

“Business, much like life, is not a movie and not everyone gets to have a story book ending,” India-born Malik, who left the company more than a year ago, said on his blog. Read his full blog entry below:

Gigaom is winding down and its assets are now controlled by the company’s lenders. It is not how you want the story of a company you founded to end.

Every founder starts on a path — hopeful and optimistic, full of desire to build something that helps change the world for the better, reshape an industry and hopefully become independent, both metaphorically and financially. Business, much like life, is not a movie and not everyone gets to have a story book ending.

There will be time for postmortems, but not today. Today, I want to thank all the people who make (and have helped make) Gigaom. Their role in this journey was what really made it all worth it. They are great people and they will all do great work wherever they go. I want to thank our investors who believed in the business long before it became fashionable. And most importantly, I want to thank you dear readers for coming along on this trip of a lifetime.

I might have left Gigaom, the company, over a year ago, but Gigaom, the idea still lives in my heart.

Goodnight sweetheart, I still love you!

BOSTON — Hundreds of millions of Windows PC users are vulnerable to attacks exploiting the recently uncovered “Freak” security vulnerability, which was initially believed to only threaten mobile devices and Mac computers, Microsoft Corp warned.

News of the vulnerability surfaced on Tuesday when a group of nine security experts disclosed that ubiquitous Internet encryption technology could make devices running Apple Inc’s iOS and Mac operating systems, along with Google Inc’s Android browser vulnerable to cyberattacks.

Microsoft released a security advisory on Thursday warning customers that their PCs were also vulnerable to the “Freak” vulnerability.

The weakness could allow attacks on PCs that connect with Web servers configured to use encryption technology intentionally weakened to comply with U.S. government regulations banning exports of the strongest encryption.

If hackers are successful, they could spy on communications as well as infect PCs with malicious software, the researchers who uncovered the threat said on Tuesday.

The Washington Post on Tuesday reported that whitehouse.gov and fbi.gov were among the sites vulnerable to these attacks, but that the government had secured them.

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Security experts said the vulnerability was relatively difficult to exploit because hackers would need to use hours of computer time to crack the encryption before launching an attack.

“I don’t think this is a terribly big issue, but only because you have to have many ducks in a row,” said Ivan  Ristic, director of engineering for cybersecurity firm Qualys Inc.

That includes finding a vulnerable web server, breaking the key, finding a vulnerable PC or mobile device, then gaining access to that device.

Microsoft advised system administrators to employ a workaround to disable settings on Windows servers that allow use of the weaker encryption. It said it was investigating the threat and had not yet developed a security update that would automatically protect Windows PC users from the threat.

Apple said it had developed a software update to address the vulnerability, which would be pushed out to customers next week.

Google said it had also developed a patch, which it provided to partners that make and distribute Android devices.

© Thomson Reuters 2015

The news blog, founded in 2006, said late Monday that all operations have ceased

A man was caught trying to rob a Tesco grocery store 15 minutes after posting his plan onto Facebook.

After the Canadian man told the crook he was a thief and a scammer, the tech support scammer said he had the man's address and would send assassins.

The company, whose microblogging services are blocked on the mainland, will tap China for advertising revenue, even if Internet users on the mainland cannot see those ads

The office will allow the San Francisco-based company to tap China for advertising revenue, the company said

I’m not a super hardcore gamer.

I may play frequently and for long periods, but I rarely crank the difficulty past normal, and I’ve no qualms about lowering it to easy if I find myself struggling and not having fun as a result. I quickly weary of things made difficult merely for the sake of being difficult, as well as challenges that fail to deliver a sense of gratification once overcome.

Ori and the Blind Forest, a long-in-the-making indie platformer published by Microsoft and exclusive to Xbox (and Windows), is something different; a difficult game that is never anything less than fun and which bestows a frequent and tangible sense of accomplishment.

Moon Studios’ inaugural game delivers a steep challenge not easily conquered. Indeed, a couple of its most daunting sections required me to restart dozens of times totalling close to half an hour of play time to successfully surmount.

And yet I felt neither frustration nor anger.

Well, not at the game, anyway. Perhaps a little at myself for not being a better player. But that just drove me to improve.

I never had trouble figuring out what to do or fought the controls while doing it. I always understood what was expected of me, and it wasn’t unreasonable. It was just a matter of doing what was required, doing it well, and not making mistakes.

Just as important, I enjoyed nearly every attempt – even those resulting in failure. Simply moving around within and interacting with Ori‘s world is all kinds of fun. And when I eventually succeeded running particularly challenging gauntlets I felt a deep and authentic sense of achievement, as though I’d done something hard but worthwhile.

It’s among the best Metroidvania games I’ve played since…well, since the original Metroid.

Microsoft Studios

Metroidvania, for those readers wondering which language I just switched to, is a term for a very specific kind of side-scrolling platform-adventure game.

Such games have lots of platformer-style running and jumping, but also incorporate elements of open world adventure and role-playing games. You’ll gradually earn new abilities, and many of these abilities will empower you to enter previously inaccessible areas within the game’s free-to-roam world, all of which are connected, despite being set on a two-dimensional plane. The classic games Metroid and Castlevania were two of the first to do this, hence the awkwardly named genre of Metroidvania.

And while I usually refrain from using such niche gaming terms, in this case it describes Ori and the Blind Forest‘s structure to a T.

After an emotional opening sequence that does a lovely job setting the stage for – and stakes of – your adventure, you’ll take on the role of a cute little white guardian spirit named Ori. He sets off to explore a sick and decaying – though lush and gorgeously rendered – forest with an aim to restoring three elements that will help return the woods’ vigour.

Ori can run and jump and shoot little bits of energy from Sein – a wee speck of floating light that acts as his constant companion – to destroy puffy pink plants as well as any nefarious creatures that happen to get in his way. And you can explore the world however you like, following branching paths that lead to various challenges, treasures, and barriers you’ll gradually earn the power to get around.

Its standard Metroidvania stuff. But Moon Studios’ exacting execution and bar-raising controls sets Ori and the Blind Forest well apart from most other games of its ilk.

Microsoft Studios

Moving Ori around his world is a great big slice of video game bliss.

The controls are the very definition of tight, allowing for incredibly accurate movement. Whether you’re altering momentum mid-leap, stopping atop the tiny end of a hanging log, or swimming around narrow, maze-like underwater caverns coated in sharp, deadly spikes, you’ll never lack the confidence to do so. Imagine the peerlessly precise interface of N+, but applied to a more complex environment, and you’ll be pretty close.

As the adventure progresses Ori’s capacity to traverse his world eolves in interesting new ways and becomes even more satisfying. By the time you make it midway through the game and earn the power to double jump and “bash” – which is to say latch onto enemy projectiles to use them as slingshots, pushing yourself through the air in the direction of your choice – things really start getting exciting.

A typical scenario might see you sliding down a hanging wall that’s moving up and down, then letting go at just the right moment to do a double jump forward to grip another moving wall on the opposite side of the first. Then you might need to leap off that wall just as an enemy fires a glowing bit of energy your way and press the Y-button to use the projectile as leverage, flinging your way up to a crevice that will force you to quickly wall jump back and forth off each side, avoiding spiky outcroppings while shooting enemies trundling up and down the vertical surfaces.

That sounds super hard – and it can be – but in the best possible way.

Microsoft Studios

Ori’s abilities take time to master, but the world is smartly laid out to ensure a gradual introduction to and a fair amount of practice with each new skill before ramping up to a sequence of moves as complex as those I just described.

And it doesn’t take long for new abilities to become intuitive. I never felt like I was battling the controller to do what I wanted. Instead, it came to feel like an extension of my will. I didn’t have to think about what I wanted to do. I just did it.

Consequently, my failures were almost always a result of me not thinking quickly enough or not paying close enough attention to what was happening around me, not because Ori reacted to my inputs in ways I didn’t intend or expect.

And once you have a proper feel for a new movement mechanic, you’ll want to put it to the test – and in as extreme a way as possible. That’s where the fun is.

Working through a tough stretch – such as a particularly dramatic two-minute sequence midway through the game that involves quickly moving up the hollow of a massive tree as it floods, where one mistake means death – becomes the video game equivalent of ballet; the more demanding Ori’s routine, the more wondrous and rewarding the experience.

Microsoft Studios

There’s a lot more to love about Ori and the Blind Forest besides its terrific running and jumping.

Its huge, cleverly interconnected world isn’t just a treat for your eyes, it’s also fun to explore. Filled with doors to unlock, treasures to ferret out, secrets to discover, and some wonderfully imaginative creatures – not all of whom are out to hurt you – I never lost that burning need to know what was beyond the next hill, tree, or gate.

And the story – simple and at times sad but also beautiful and ultimately uplifting – is just more proof of the medium’s capacity to make an audience feel something beyond the thrill of combat. Ori is a memorable little fellow; a small being of light standing up to a large and overwhelming darkness all on his own. Well, almost all on his own. I was rooting for him from the start.

The long and the short of it is that Ori and the Blind Forest is just a pleasure to play – and the first Xbox exclusive in some time likely to leave at least a few PlayStation owners green with envy. Download this one with confidence.

Apple's latest security fixes are out. The FREAK bug is now fixed, but so are numerous other holes worth patching in their own right.

Apple Inc. showcased what its long-awaited watch is capable of on Monday, announcing that its first brand-new device developed without Steve Jobs will begin shipping to nine countries including Canada on April 24.

At the special event on Monday in San Francisco, Apple chief executive Tim Cook and his team described how the watch can make calls, keep track of workouts, pay for groceries and even open your hotel door. The Cupertino, Calif.-based company also unveiled a new MacBook weighing just two pounds and announced developments for Apple TV.

Here are 10 things you need to know about Apple’s event:

1. Apple Watch comes with a hefty price tag

The Apple Watch is more expensive than its rivals, further solidifying Apple’s reputation for releasing high-end, pricey products. While the Samsung Gear S is priced at $399, the lower-level sport version of the Apple Watch will cost between $449 and $519, with higher-end steel iteration of the device falls between $669 and $1,449 in Canada. The limited Apple Watch Edition version — crafted from rose or yellow 18-karat gold — starts at $13,000 in Canada.

2. Eighteen-hour battery life

David Paul Morris/Bloomberg Tim Cook, chief executive officer of Apple Inc., speaks during the Apple Inc. Spring Forward event in San Francisco, California, U.S., on Monday, March 9, 2015. Cook returns to the spotlight to answer questions on many of the Apple Watch's key selling points, including price range, battery life and when in April it will reach stores.

Apple claims its upcoming smartwatch will be able to last an impressive 18 hours, although many analysts and industry insiders are skeptical of this statement, especially since Apple neglected to provide further detail related to battery life during its press conference.

Battery life is a hurdle smartwatches with full-colour displays have had difficulty circumventing, with most devices currently on the market barely managing to last more than eight hours with moderate use.

3. Apple Watch as a key

Stephen Lam/Getty ImagesThe new Apple Watch is seen on display after an Apple special event at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts on March 9, 2015 in San Francisco, California.

Apple CEO Tim Cook previously told The Telegraph the watch is designed to replace car keys and fobs, and while he didn’t show that function on Monday, the company revealed a few apps that indicate its potential as a key replacement. For example, a Starwood Hotels app not only provides Apple Watch users with their room reservation information, but it also can be used to unlock their hotel room door. Apple also showcased Alarm.com’s app that allows a user to open a garage door remotely from their watch.

4. Apps will make or break Apple Watch

Handout/AppleApps will be important to the Apple Watch's success.

Developers have been working on thousands of apps since November when the company released software tools, though Apple didn’t specify just how many would be available at launch. Apple’s event showcased Uber’s app, which allows people to hail a car using Apple Watch, and users can go go into the Apple Watch app on iPhones running iOS 8.2 to find watch-specific apps.

5. A fitness ‘coach on your wrist’

David Paul Morris/BloombergApple Inc.'s Apple Watch is displayed after a product announcement at Flint Center in Cupertino, California, U.S., on Tuesday.

Mr. Cook said Apple Watch will be like “having a coach on your wrist.” Similar to other fitness wearables that are already on the market — including the FitBit band — Apple Watch will track your steps, heart rate and remind you when you’ve been sitting too long. It will also deliver a weekly fitness summary and goal suggestions for week to week improvements.

6. Siri will control the Apple Watch

AppleStarwood Hotels is creating an Apple Watch app where you can check in to the hotel and unlock your hotel room door by simply waving your watch in front of the door.

Apple’s virtual assistant, Siri, is coming to the Apple Watch, allowing users to speak to the device and interact with it hands-free. The “Hey Siri” command can be used to send texts, search the Internet and also perform tasks such as checking the weather or searching for flight times.

Apple Watch also may offer users new ways to communicate, judging by some of the features unveiled at Monday’s event. The wearable’s Glances feature notifies users with a “tap” when a new email arrives.

While users can answer texts and voice calls with the new device, “Digital Touch” is an Apple Watch-specific feature. Digital Touch can be used to share emojis and even your heartbeat with other Apple Watch users, and the feature can also be used to send simple sketches to other Apple Watch wearers.

7. Smartwatch sales potential

Justin Sullivan/Getty ImagesKaty Huberty, an analyst at Morgan Stanley, in July said Cupertino-based Apple may sell as many as 60 million of the new wearable devices in its first year on the market, adding as much as US$9 billion in revenue for fiscal 2015. At the time, she estimated the company would charge about US$300.

Apple analysts expect that Mr. Cook’s new wearable could help kickstart the smartwatch market. Apple Watch sales may reach nearly 14 million in the first fiscal year, according to the average estimate of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. Global smartphone sales could increase to 28.1 million units this year from 4.6 million — and Apple is forecast to capture 55% of it, researcher Strategy Analytics said.

8. Apple in the living room

HandoutThe new Apple device, which plugs into a television set, will have a faster processor than the previous version and an upgraded interface to make it easier for customers to navigate between TV shows, movies and other online content, a source told Bloomberg.

Apple cut the price of Apple TV by US$30 to US$69 and is partnering with HBO to offer its stand-alone streaming service, HBO Now, on Apple devices. It will be the first time an HBO subscription is available directly to Apple customers directly, in time for the “Game of Thrones” premiere on April 12. It will cost US$14.99 monthly — but for now it’s only available in the U.S.

9. Apple reinvents the MacBook

s Stephen Lam/Getty ImagesApple Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller introduces the new Macbook.

The new MacBook is set to be lighter and thinner than previous designs – including the current MacBook Air – and also comes equipped with an edge-to-edge 12-inch screen and two new colours, space gray and gold. The laptop’s trackpad has also been reworked and doesn’t click in the traditional sense, instead its new “Taptic engine” simulates the sensation of clicking.

The new MacBook also includes a USB-C connector, used for charging the laptop, sending video to external displays and USB purposes, forcing users to purchase an additional peripheral to attach multiple devices or any function beyond charging the laptop. The new MacBook is set to launch April 10 for US$1,299 and will include 8 GB of ram and a 256 GB SSD card. Apple will reportedly continue to support its current MacBook Air and MacBbook models as well as this new version.

10. ResearchKit turns the iPhone into a medical diagnostic device

AP Photo/Eric RisbergApple CEO Tim Cook talks about the new Apple Watch during an Apple event on Monday, March 9, 2015, in San Francisco.

ResearchKit aims to turn any iPhone into a medical research tool, helping people and researchers participate in tests related to Parkinson’s, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and asthma, as well as many other diseases and conditions. An example shown off during Apple’s press conference included a Research Kit application monitoring the minute fluctuations in someone’s voice, possibly an indicator of Parkinson’s or another related health issue.

According to Apple, all information shared via ResearchKit is private and the company reportedly never sees it. Data is only shared directly between researchers.

With files from National Post Wire Services

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Anthem, the health insurance giant that recently suffered a massive data breach, is "refusing to cooperate" with US regulators attempting to conduct vulnerability scans and configuration tests on its IT systems.

With ambitions of becoming a national wireless carrier and owning a hockey team, Quebecor Inc. is a company with big dreams – but it can keep shareholders happy even if it never achieves them, analysts say.

Since last June, when the company announced it was “ready, willing and able” to become the fourth national wireless carrier the federal government wants, Quebecor has taken some baby steps but no big leaps. Instead, chief executive Pierre Dion will be able to talk up his success building the company’s cable and wireless business in its home base of Quebec and selling underperforming assets when Quebecor releases its fourth quarter and full-year results Wednesday.

Greg MacDonald, a telecom analyst with Macquarie Capital Markets Canada Ltd., said Mr. Dion’s dream big, take it slow approach is fine by him. Even if Quebecor never takes the  plunge into a national wireless expansion or buys a professional hockey team, Mr. MacDonald believes it’s the most attractive telecommunications stock in the country.

This is just the best-looking stock in the sector. I think it’s got years of upside

“This stock works for me without any of that,” he said. “This is just the best-looking stock in the sector. I think it’s got years of upside.”

He has company in the bullish camp on Bay Street. Of 17 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg, 15 have a buy recommendation on Quebecor, while the other two are telling clients to sell the stock.

Despite its national ambitions, Quebecor has spent the past year becoming more focused on its core Quebec market in wireless and cable. The company has sold the international design and technology consulting firm Nurun for $125 million, 74 Quebec-based weeklies for $75 million and is awaiting regulatory approval for the sale of Sun Media’s 175 English-language newspapers and digital publications to Postmedia Network Canada Corp. for $316 million.

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That left the company with more than $500 million that it could spend on something fun like a National Hockey League team. Quebecor has already purchased naming rights on a new $400 million arena being built in Quebec City.

Desjardins Securities analyst Maher Yaghi said buying a hockey team would be a fine thing to do, helping Quebecor boost ratings on its cable channels and winning the company goodwill from its Quebec base. However, he said he would prefer the company spend the money on something a little less exciting: Buying back the Caisse de Depot’s 25% stake in Quebecor Media.

“The hockey team is not important,” Mr. Yaghi said. “It’s better to control 100% of QMI… It would crystallize value for shareholders quite quickly.”

Quebecor purchased spectrum in Ontario and Quebec in the latest spectrum auction, but Mr. Yaghi said that doesn’t mean the company has abandoned its ambitions beyond those provinces. If and when Quebecor does make a move to go national, it would almost certainly be by partnering with another company with spectrum rights in other areas, he said.

Quebecor has long maintained it’s waiting for the right set of regulatory conditions, including more favourable wholesale roaming rules, before making the investments necessary to become a fourth national carrier. Euro Pacific Canada analyst Rob Goff said from a shareholder’s perspective, the company’s willingness to be patient is good news.

“If the big ventures do not come to fruition, the company hits a stage of financial flexibility much sooner,” he said. “Ultimately, that could translate into a much more aggressive dividend policy. That policy could pull with it a very significant re-valuation of the shares.”

CHICAGO — Apple Inc on Monday released ResearchKit, an open-source software tool designed to give scientists a new way to gather information on patients by using their iPhones.

Several top research institutions have already developed applications to work on the ResearchKit platform, including those pursuing clinical studies on asthma, breast cancer, heart disease, diabetes and Parkinson’s disease. They include Stanford University School of Medicine and Weill Cornell Medical College.

The format will allow users to decide if they want to participate in a study and decide how their data is to be shared with researchers.

“With hundreds of millions of iPhones in use around the world, we saw an opportunity for Apple to have an even greater impact by empowering people to participate in and contribute to medical research,” said Jeff Williams, Apple’s senior vice president of Operations, said in a statement.

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• Apple Watch unveiled with lots of features, functions and price tag ranging from US$349 to US$10,000. So, do you want it?
• Read our blow-by-blow coverage of Apple's Watch event

The ResearchKit platform is designed to work hand in hand with Apple’s HealthKit software, which allows iPhones to work with health and fitness apps that gather information on weight, blood pressure, glucose levels and asthma inhaler use.

The ResearchKit also allows researchers access to accelerometer, microphone, gyroscope and GPS sensors in the iPhone to gain insight into a patient’s gait, motor impairment, fitness, speech and memory.

The software is also designed to help researchers build more diverse study populations, which traditionally have been limited by physical proximity to large academic medical centers.

© Thomson Reuters

BlackBerry’s next quarterly results will reveal a very different company – one that has the potential to flourish without relying on handsets

SAN FRANCISCO — Make calls, read email, control music, manage Instagram photos, keep up with your workout, pay for groceries, open your hotel room door. CEO Tim Cook says you can do it all from your wrist with Apple Watch — for 18 hours a day. That’s how long the battery will last.

Pre-orders start April 10 and the devices will range from US$349 to as much as US$10,000 for a luxury edition. Apple Watch will be available on April 24 in Canada and eight other countries, including Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, China, U.K., France, U.S., Germany.

In Canada, prices for the watches will range from $449 to $13,000 for the high-end edition.

Handout/AppleThe new Apple Watch.

Industry watchers are eager to see if Apple’s version will be the tipping point for the sluggish smartwatch market. There was similar skepticism when Apple released the iPad in 2010, yet the company has successfully sold millions and its popularity has shaken up the PC market.

Shares of Apple rose about 1.4% to US$128.41 after the announcement, but pulled back a bit to US$127.03 just after 2:30 p.m.

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• Five things to look for from Apple's Watch event: A car key replacement? Swappable bands?
• Why has it taken Apple so long to make it to the Dow?

The stakes are high for a company that just dislodged AT&T as one of the 30 stocks comprising the venerable Dow Jones industrial average. The watch is the first brand-new device Apple has launched without Steve Jobs.

Handout/Apple

In the presentation, Cook described the watch handling many functions currently associated with the iPhone, which tethers wirelessly to the watch and connects it to the Internet. For instance, Uber cars can be contacted from the watch.

The watch will track exercise, remind wearers of events with a tap on the wrist, and make calls through the tethered phone, since the watch has a built in speaker and microphone, he said.

“I have been wanting to do this since I was five years old,” said Cook. He also laid out other product successes and launched a new MacBook notebook computer that starts at US$1,299 and weighs as little as two pounds.

Every major car brand had committed to delivering Apple’s CarPlay entertainment system, and the new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus have 99% customer satisfaction rates, he said. The Apple Pay payment system is now accepted at 700,000 locations.

Apple also is offering researchers new development tools, called ResearchKit, to help medical researchers design apps for clinical trials, the company said.

Screenshot/Apple.com

It cut the price of Apple TV by US$30 to US$69 and is partnering with HBO to offer its stand-alone streaming service, HBO NOW, on Apple devices in time for the “Game of Thrones” premiere April 12. It will cost US$14.99 monthly. Cook said 2,500 banks are now signed up with Apple Pay, which is available in 700,000 retail locations nationwide.

With files from Reuters

Apple just wrapped up its latest information session about its new product, the Watch, a wearable wrist computer