HP announces a laptop it claims is "tested to military field standards"-- the ProBook x360 11 Education Edition, an 11-inch convertible laptop aimed at the educational segment featuring a rugged build.

The military standard mentioned by the company is MIL-STD-810G, a standard covering a wide array of resitances, including drops of around 75cm and liquid spills on the keyboard. Construction is in hard industrial rubber, and Gorilla Glass displays come as an optional extra.

Being a convertible device, the ProBook x360 features touchscreen and active pen support, together with a hinge offering 4 different usage modes. An "explorer mode" dual-camera system allows users to take videos in tablet mode while viewing what is being recorded in real-time.

IBM adds more power to the MobileFirst iOS apps with Watson, providing "a broad set of conversational and cognitive capabilities to help increase the productivity and improve the experience of enterprise employees."

The Watson capabilities introduced to the MobileFirst apps include conversational interaction and deep insights to end users, making for more convenient and easier to use apps complete with ands-free control. For example, users can speak to the Find & Fix app while servicing equipment on the field, using voice prompts to ask for suggestions to solve specific problems through the app tapping into technical equipment manuals.

Another example has retail staff using the Sales Assist app to access data across different resources, such as customer databases and product forums, for deeper insight into customer preferences and purchasing trends.

BlackBerry might not be in the phone development business, but it is still lending its name to 3rd parties-- as is the case with the DTEK60, a TCL-made Android handset packing BlackBerry software.

A successor to the DTEK50 (technically a clone of the Alcatel Idol 4), the DTEK60 features enhanced security through the addition of a fingerprint sensor. It also carries a 5.5-inch 1440 x 2560 resolution display, Sanpadragon 820 CPU, 4GB RAM, 21MP rear-/8MP front-facing cameras, and 3000mAh battery inside glass-backed casing. Connectivity comes through USB-C port.

Customers in France, Germany, Ireland and the UK interested in the HoloLens can now preorder the mixed reality computing headset, following an initial US launch.

The device has been available in N. America since August 2016, and previous to that (specifically in March) Microsoft started shipping a number of HoloLens kits to a select list of organisations. Technically, in its current state the headset is aimed at virtual and augmented reality specialists, but in actual case all one needs to buy the device is a Microsoft account and €3299.

"When we set out to pioneer mixed reality we knew that many of the best innovations would be discovered only when developers and organisations started developing with HoloLens," the company says. "It has been nothing short of inspiring to see what our partners have built and what individual developers have created."