W|W: The Wearable Weekly — IFA the next generation of wearables

Welcome to The Wearable Weekly, your trusted guide to all things wearable tech. If you only have time to read one thing about wearables this week, this is it.

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Statistics and Forecasts

Worldwide smartwatch sales rising with Apple leading the way says new IDC report (MobileSyrup)

Device Announcements

Samsung unveils Gear Fit 2 Pro, Gear Sport, and Gear IconX at IFA (MobileSyrup)

Dell debuts its Windows mixed reality headset, Visor (MobileSyrup)

Fitbit launches its Ionic smartwatch (MobileSyrup)

Lenovo’s Star Wars AR headset, Mirage, now available for pre-order (MobileSyrup)

Asus officially launched its Windows mixed reality headset at IFA (The Verge)

Diesel launches smartwatch (Engadget)

Garmin debuts three new wearables and a mobile payment solution (TechCrunch)

Fossil debuts a number of new wearables at IFA this year (TechCrunch)

Bang & Olufsen and Sony launch AirPod rivals (TechCrunch)

Lenovo debuts its Windows mixed reality device, the Explorer, at IFA (The Verge)

Funding & M&A

8th Wall raises $2.4 million for augmented reality tools (VentureBeat)

Major milestones

Google launches ARCore, its answer to ARKit (MobileSyrup)

Apple provides a preview of first ARKit apps coming to iPhone (TechCrunch)

TomTom to update software to measure your “fitness age” (The Verge)

Conde Nast and Facebook debut a VR dating show (AdWeek)

Alipay rolls out world’s first ‘Smile to Pay’ facial recognition system at KFC outlet (South China Morning Post)

Carl Zeiss and Valve bring Steam VR to mobile headsets (Wareable)

Bragi Dash to get Alexa support (Wareable)

Rumours

Latest Magic Leap patent shows off prototype AR glasses design (TechCrunch)

Future Apple Watch straps might feature functional buttons, sense user touch (Apple Insider)

This story was originally published on BetaKit.