Wearable Technology
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2015 is the year that wearables begin to grow up
When I talk about an industry maturing, I don't mean "getting old" so much as facing a different set of challenges. For instance, a year ago, the wearable and fitness section of CES occupied a few hundred square feet. In 2015, the two categories had taken over almost half of the cavernous Sands Expo hall here in Las Vegas. That means that there are plenty more companies trying to get in on the action, but also that those that make the devices are starting to move beyond just making technology for marathon runners.
Swatch is finally coming around to this 'smartwatch' business
Spare a thought for the watchmakers of this world, who might start to feel the pinch as more people buy a smartwatch. According to the Wall Street Journal, Swatch is the latest old-school outfit to realize that it needs more than a janky, barely-readable touchscreen to appeal to its customers. The company has let it be known that it'll add fitness functions to its Touch line of watches, although it wouldn't reveal specific features that we'd expect to see. The new units won't arrive until 2015, which still leaves plenty of time for companies like Samsung, LG and Motorola to steal a march on mainstream wearables. Still, Swatch's parent company also owns Omega, and we'd gladly trade in a Galaxy Gear for a Seamaster Professional with James Bond's cutting laser in the bezel.
Feedback Loop: Earliest internet memories, first tweets and more!
Welcome to Feedback Loop, a weekly roundup of the most interesting discussions happening within the Engadget community. There's so much technology to talk about and so little time to enjoy it, but you have a lot of great ideas and opinions that need to be shared! Join us every Saturday as we highlight some of the most interesting discussions that happened during the past week. This week, we celebrated the 25th anniversary of the world wide web, shared our first tweets, discussed the fashion appeal of wearables and started a March Madness tournament bracket. Head on past the break and join the conversation.
Memoto camera wants to capture your life -- every 30 seconds
Perhaps you saw my post last week about Lightt, a new social app that allows you to capture highlights of your life in 10-picture snaps and share that stream with friends. Now a new Kickstarter project from Swedish company Memoto wants to create a photographic record of your life by giving you a postage-stamp sized wearable camera coupled with an iPhone app to send a photo to a web service every 30 seconds. The act of capturing your life in this manner is known as lifelogging, and has been going on for some time. The idea of making lifelogging technology affordable and inconspicuous is what Memoto is all about. The Memoto camera measures 36x36x9 mm, captures 5-megapixel images, keeps a log of GPS positions and timestamps, and has an accelerometer to ensure that photos are always oriented correctly. There's a micro-USB port for charging the device's battery, which is expected to last for two days per charge. Once the images are uploaded, software works to "organize the photos to work as a photographic memory that can be accessed at any time, even after many years, without the user ever feeling overwhelmed or disorganized." The images are catalogued by time, date, place and lighting conditions. The team expects the Memoto camera to be available in early 2013 at a price of US$279, but backers who pledge $199 or more through Kickstarter will get a camera (in graphite grey, arctic white or Memoto orange) and a one-year web service subscription.
Researchers use bioimpedance as a biometric, let health monitor devices know who you are
Wouldn't it be great if fitness and medical gadgets automatically knew who was wearing them? Researchers from Dartmouth have come up with a new way to provide health monitors just such an ability using a tiny electric current and a bioimpedance sensor. You see, each person's body provides a different amount of opposition to electrical current, so bioimpedance can be a unique biometric identifier. The researchers' idea is to create a bracelet that uses bioimpedance readings to recognize its wearer in a secure, unobtrusive manner and communicate that identity to other wearable devices. Using such a bracelet, "the devices discover each other's presence, recognize that they are on the same body (and transitively learn from the wrist device whose body), develop shared secrets from which to derive encryption keys, and establish reliable and secure communications." As opposed to other biometrics or password authentication, bioimpedance readings can be taken passively, which is much more appealing than remembering passcodes or scanning fingerprints and retinas. For now, the researchers have created an eight-electrode proof-of-concept bracelet, but its accuracy leaves something to be desired -- it correctly identifies its wearer only 80 to 90 percent of the time, whereas fingerprint recognition has a failure rate of less than 1 in 1,000. So, we're a ways off from bioimpedance-based security, but research is ongoing, and you can learn all about it at the source below.
Levi's announces iPod-ready jeans
If you love your Levi's as much as you love your iPod, you're gonna love this. Levi's has announced the launch of its new Redwire DLX Jeans, complete with features for carrying and controlling your iPod. No photos were released, so close your eyes and picture this. The jeans will have: A built-in iPod docking cradle in the side pocket. The company promises that the iPod bump will be hard to see. A joystick remote control that fits in the watch pocket. The joystick will let you play/pause, move forward and back, and adjust volume without removing the iPod from your pocket. A retractable headphone built into the jeans that's billed as a way to "prevent tangles and efficiently manage the iPod earphone wires." Levis is planning to make the Redwire DLX Jeans available worldwide in the Fall of 2006. If you get your hands on a pair, just remember to take the iPod out of your pocket before you throw them in the wash.
