wearable tech
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Humane AI Pin orders will start shipping in March
The Humane AI Pin is expected to start shipping in March. The company posted on Friday that “those who placed priority orders will receive their Ai Pins first when we begin shipping in March.”
Engadget giveaway: win a pair of smart glasses courtesy of Augmented World Expo!
There's no denying that virtual and augmented reality are on a roll lately. Oculus, HTC and a host of others have committed to producing quality VR experiences and Microsoft's Hololens put the buzz back into augmented concepts. That's just the tip of the iceberg, though. If you want to find out what's really going on in those circles, as well as IoT and wearable tech, you may want to head to Silicon Valley next month for the 2015 Augmented World Expo (AWE). The event includes more than 20 workshops, 200 interactive demos and over 100 talks by some of the best in the business. The folks at AWE have been nice enough to offer $19 Expo-only tickets for our readers (code: ENGADGET19), but for one lucky soul, the pot is quite a bit sweeter. We have a pair of Epson Moverio BT-200 smart glasses, along with two all-access VIP tickets to the expo for the winner this week. Just head on down to the Rafflecopter widget below for up to three chances at winning Epson's latest augmented tech and unfettered access to the Augmented World Expo at the Santa Clara Convention Center in California, June 8-10th. Winner: congratulations to Ron S. of Bernalillo, NM!
Hexoskin's new wearable is a smart shirt for exercise buffs
The wearable craze isn't only about fashionable watches and savvy glasses. After all, remember how tech giant Intel's vision for the space included a shirt? Hexoskin, a Canada-based startup, has similar beliefs, and that's why it recently introduced its biometric smart tee -- Ralph Lauren's doing it too. The newly developed shirt, aimed at people who are fond of exercising regularly, is equipped with sensors capable of tracking over 42,000 data points every minute. Naturally, given that Hexoskin designed its product with athletes in mind, the shirt's bread and butter is to gather stats during physical training sessions, although it can also track daily activities such as sleep. Unfortunately, Hexoskin's wearable is only available in the US at the moment, where the starting kit sells for a cool $399.
Where do you want to wear your "wearable tech"? [Poll]
Samsung and several other companies have smart watches, and an even larger group of manufacturers make wrist-mounted activity trackers. But is the wrist really the right location for wearable technology? We want to know, so we're asking the experts -- you! Take our poll, then feel free to leave a comment below if you have another idea of where wearable tech can reside on the human body (keep it clean...). The photo at the top of this post, by the way, is from Associated Press and shows three models at a Piper Jaffray event in 2000 displaying "futuristic wearable and wireless gadgets that will allow people to access the World Wide Web anywhere anytime". Where do you want to wear your "wearable"?
Apple has been hiring former fashion executives, but why?
Yesterday's hiring of former Burberry CEO Angela Ahrendts by Apple is just latest example of what is becoming a trend for new Apple hires: A lot of them have a background in fashion. As The Mac Observer points out, Ahrendts' appointment to senior VP of Retail and Online Stores was preceded by a pair of former Nike designers and an executive from French fashion house Yves Saint Laurent. In short, Apple is looking downright fabulous. But why would former fashion industry insiders be useful to Apple? It's simple: wearable tech. We've been hearing rumblings of an iWatch for some time -- though at the moment the competition seems to be doing more harm to the would-be smartwatch market than good -- and if Apple plans to release one in the future, it's going to have to be mighty sexy. Of course, there are other areas you could wear a gadget besides your wrist -- Google Glass being a fine example of this -- though if the new fashion-forward hiring trend is indeed intended to help influence new Apple products as they take shape, it's likely that we're nowhere near actually seeing them in the flesh... or on the flesh. [Image credit: Miss Karen] [via The Mac Observer]
Poll: Wearable tech not wildly popular with Americans
Google's testing the Glass; Apple's rumored to be developing an iWatch. Even Dell, which seems to be falling off of the consumer electronics map, is reportedly looking at wearable tech. And Sony just released the SmartWatch 2, the watch-like device with a color TFT display seen at right. However, these wearable computers might meet a tepid response in the market according to a recent telephone poll of Americans 18 or older conducted by IT staffing company Modis. The survey found that only 34 percent of those making US$100,000 or more annually were interested in purchasing or wearing a smart watch or smart glasses. Oddly, for those who make much less -- $35,000 a year -- the percentage jumped to 47 percent. Furthermore, 45 percent of those with less education -- a high school diploma or less -- were excited by wearable tech, while only 37 percent of college grads expressed the same desire. Apple watchers might find it interesting that more respondents -- 42 percent of all those polled -- expressed interest in a smart watch, while a slightly smaller group (39 percent) thought smart glasses were the way to go. Modis Senior Vice President Matthew Ripaldi noted that most Americans have not had an opportunity to try either smart glasses or watches, and that such technology needs to be tested and seen by people so that they can create an informed impression of these devices.
Disney's REVEL could turn the whole world into a tactile touchscreen (video)
Disney Research think it can go one better on Tactile and Haptic touch displays by using electrical fields to add sensation to nearly anything you can touch. Using Reverse Electrovibration, REVEL works by strapping an electrostatic signal generator to your body, so when you come into contact with an object on the same electrical plane, that low-level field can be altered to create friction. It's hoped that the technology could revolutionize touchscreens, add a whole new level of feeling to augmented reality and help blind people feel their way around. There's a video after the break, but be warned, it's light on the sort of cartoony hijinks you'd normally expect from the House of Mouse.
Nokia Morph patent application raises hope well beyond expectation
Remember Nokia Morph? It's the Finnish manufacturer's long-standing project to build a transparent, flexible phone that you can contort to your hearts content. Now the company's submitting a second missive to the Patent and Trademark office in the hope of claiming dibs on the IP contained therein. While it's very broadly written (and doesn't commit to anything), it's interesting to note that the phone would switch between the leaf-shaped candybar (we played with it at MWC) and a wristband you can wear on the go. The patent also talks about a "remote processing unit," in a nearby device or in the cloud, so, if the company can ever turn the dream into reality, the real action will be handled elsewhere. Then again, it's equally as likely to never appear in our lifetimes, you just never can tell with patents.
