Wearable Computing & Fashion News - Page 33

Microsoft is gearing up to release a smartwatch that will be compatible with its Windows Phone OS, along with support for Google Android and Apple iOS devices. Using technology refined by Kinect engineers, the watch will have two days of battery life and support continuous heart rate monitoring. A product announcement and launch date have not been released, though it could be available to consumers later this summer.

Throughout much of its dominant era, Microsoft didn't put a lot of effort into cross-platform compatibility, though including support for Android and iOS makes smart business sense. Both the iPhone and Android-powered smartphones currently control the market, and excluding users would greatly hurt potential sales.

It is an exciting time for the smartwatch market, with Samsung, Fitbit, Nike, Jawbone, and other companies already deeply involved - with Microsoft, Apple, and other companies expected to release their own devices. However, continuous heart rate monitoring would be a valuable asset for Microsoft, providing a better overall health analysis of watch owners.

During its event in San Francisco this morning, Samsung launched the Digital Health Initiative, pushing open software and hardware platforms to the next level, investing $50 million to help startups and companies work together. The company previously announced the Samsung Catalyst Fund, a $100 million offering, in what could innovate digital health in the future.

The recently announced Simband wearable is one piece of the puzzle, offering a hardware platform for others to build off of. Innovation of medical sensors, which unlike hospitals don't require additional government scrutiny, is moving along with the idea of "intelligent digital health" being promoted by Samsung.

Focused on software, the Samsung Architecture for Multimodal Interactions (SAMI) relies on cloud-based sensor data that is open and secure. The software relays heart rate, blood pressure, respiration, hydration, glucose concentrations, and other readings, which can be stored online and shared with medical professionals.

Samsung has a new patent application out there that shows some tech that may eventually make its way into the firm's next generation smartwatch. The patent app outlines several new bits including a circular face, gesture controls, and image recognition. The gesture tech supports different hand gestures and movements to launch certain apps.

The app also shows a feature that lets users tap on the screen to control items around the house remotely. Other features that the patent highlights for smartwatches include sensors for monitoring pulse and the ability to show inactivity.

The smartwatch described in the patent is expected to be one of Samsungs first entries into the market with Android Go as the OS. One of the more interesting features of the watch will be its ability to identify barcodes, images, and objects. The user would only need to point the device at an image to read a barcode or read text with optical character recognition.

While Google Glass has been regarded as a major advancement in wearable technology, the general public has been, for the most part, hesitant to purchase a pair of Google Glasses themselves. While I am sure that there are thousands of early adopters, techies, and trend followers who have dived head first into the world of Glass, the $1500 price tag makes it very hard for many consumers to swallow, including myself.

According to new estimates, Google Glass is only comprised of about $80 in components which leaves one to wonder why exactly the new technology is worth the $1500 premium that Google has placed on it. Now before anyone jumps on me, I am sure that manufacturing, packaging and marketing cost are factored in as well, but at tops, I see Glass being worth only about $350-500. I also get that Google needs to recoup some of the R&D cost on Glass, but even then a $550-700 price tag would see fair.

When Teardown.com broke Google Glass down piece by piece, the company itemized each part and figured out the fair-market value on each component. Looking at the bill of materials below the most expensive piece of the whole device is its processor, coming in at $13.96, and the next highest component being the non electronic parts including the frame and such which accounted for an additional $13.63. Overall the entire list comes out to just under $80, and assuming that Google orders these parts by the tens of thousands, I am willing to bet they only pay about $50-60 per Glass device they ship.

2014 has definitely been the year of the wearable, and with the sector growing more with every passing day more retailers are finding better ways at capitalizing on this trend. Today Amazon.com announced that it has launched a new online storefront that is dedicated 100-percent to wearable technology.

"Wearable technology is an exciting category with rapid innovation and our customers are increasingly coming to Amazon to shop and learn about these devices," said John Nemeth, Director of Wireless and Mobile Electronics at Amazon. "We're thrilled to bring our customers a store with the largest selection and great prices that helps eliminate the guesswork when deciding which wearable devices best fit their needs-whether that is tracking activity, staying connected through smart watches or capturing their next adventure with wearable cameras."

The new online storefront is designed to not only sell customers on the latest and greatest wearable electronics, but educate them on what is best for them too. "To help customers learn more about wearable technology, the new store features a "Learning Center" which includes product videos and detailed buying guides. These resources provide information about device compatibility, product comparisons and use-case suggestions to help customers find the right device for them. Customers can also take advantage of the "Editor's Corner" to find information about wearable technology industry news, device reviews and more."

Most people who have played Fallout 3 loved the idea of the wearable Pip-Boy 3000 device, well, a five-member group called Team Reno have done just that - created a Pip-Boy 3000 like device.

Team Reno created the device as part of NASA's SpaceApps Challenge, which saw designers creating wearable technology for future space travelers. Team Reno's device was capable of displaying relative humidity, altitude, latitude and longitude, atmospheric pressure, ambient temperature, object temperature, and radiation levels.

The team wrote about their entry, saying: "We wanted to make a piece of popular science fiction into a reality so we chose the Pip-Boy 3000 from the game Fallout 3. The goal was to bring environmental sensors into an easy-to-use cuff device that could help a wearer determine if their environment is safe for navigation or helmet removal".

There are some incredibly exciting devices coming out this year, with the Virtuix Omni VR treadmill being one of them. Virtuix, the company behind the VR treadmill, has just received $3 million in a round of investment.

Virtuix has said that it will use the investment to increase the amount of staff it has, improve the mass production as well as the distribution of the Omni treadmill. The Virtuix Omni begins shipping in a few months to its Kickstarter backers, after which it will go on sale to the general public - and hopefully arrive at my house for a good old thrashing.

Google is pushing out an update to Glass, which will see some improvements, and the removal of the function to video call people. Google removed the video call function from Glass as the feature didn't meet Google's "high standards".

The search giant says that around 10% of Glass users were using the video call function, so in light of this, the Glass team made "the hard decision to remove video calls from Glass until the experience is better". Onto the updates, where Glass will not bundle photos together - this is really important, as your timeline can be completely cluttered with photos.

The latest update to Glass will bundle all of your photos, videos and vignettes into a single bundle for each day. For someone like me who takes lots of photos and videos per day, my timeline is constantly cluttered - news to my wearable ears!

The wearable game just got very hot, with Google announcing it will sell its Glass headset starting April 15, but what about Apple's place in the wearable market? New rumors of its iWatch suggest that we could see two versions of Apple's smartwatch released, including a high-end version that would cost thousands of dollars.

KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who is usually on the ball with most Apple rumors, said in a research note to clients on Thursday morning that Apple was preparing two iWatch models for this year. The first of which would be a smaller 1.3-inch device for people with smaller wrists, and another model that would feature a 1.5-inch screen.

Both models would feature a flexible AMOLED display with sapphire crystal display covers. Kuo said that Apple's iWatch would have a host of sensors that would monitor multiple things like motion, heart rate and more. The analyst noted the iWatch would have deep integration with iPhone and iPad, and would include an NFC chip, wireless charging capabilities, and a "fashionable appearance".

The United States Patent and Trademark office has raised two objections over Google's request to allow the trademark of the word 'Glass'. Google's application to trademark 'Google Glass' was already accepted and registered. But in the case of registering a common word 'glass', the one year old application raised objections by the application examiner.

The first objection was that the word 'glass' is too similar to other trademarks containing the same word, which would create confusion with the consumers. One of the companies with such trademark name 'Write on Glass' has filed a notice of opposition against Google in December.

But the main objection was that the US federal law does not allow the trademark of generic terms.