Bank branches, desktop computers, landline phones and bus tickets all have something in common: the next generation of children may never experience any of them first hand. Technology consumerisation and the digitisation of services have changed how we live, work and interact, at a pace that continues to accelerate. The next logical step in this transformation is the sensor economy.  It promises to create an entirely new overlay of information, semantics, analytics and, obviously,...

With wearables emerging as the top trend at CES 2014 and Google Glass being voted this year’s most innovative product in digital retail, it is hard to imagine that not so long ago, you may have been laughed at if you talked about technology devices that you could wear on your body.

While fitness devices make up the vast majority of the market at the moment. Devices are moving from niche applications and early adopters into much more mainstream products. Google Glass which was available only to a limited...

Kai Gait, Global Multi-Channel Marketing Director at GSK will be speaking within the Mobile Strategy and Marketing track at Apps World Europe examining the potential for marketers in the wearables industry. Although his presentation will be a general one his experience within the healthcare market is unrivalled given healthcare is the one market where wearable technology undoubtedly has the most powerful potential to do good. We caught up with him ahead of the show in November to find out more about how he sees the market. What is...

It goes without saying that, in the majority of cases, the first tech vendor that comes to mind when you think of wearables is Google, be it through Google Glass or Android Wear. Yet a new report makes the prediction that Apple could transform the smartwatch market.

The report, ‘Smartwatches: Market Prospects’ comes from Jackdaw Research and predicts that Apple is the likeliest candidate to do one of two things to turn the smartwatch market on its head: either overcome current technological...

The most common wearable device today, the smartwatch, is being targeted as the optimum place to keep track of our general health and offer ways we can improve our lifestyle - if we wish. This is great, but there are those out there with more serious ailments which must be monitored continuously or face more serious symptoms than an inflated waistline.

Chip manufacturer Intel is partnering with the Michael J. Foundation, who specialise in Parkinson's disease research, to offer their own expertise in the...

A report from Mindshare Worldwide argues that wearable technology, and specifically Google Glass, has the potential to “transform” the luxury goods market.

With wearables creeping into consumers’ mindsets and adoption rates going up, innovative manufacturers are thinking of new ways to penetrate the market. Increasingly, wearable technology solutions have to look appealing, as well as being technologically sound – so much so that the user almost forgets it’s a piece of technology...

Last week, Australian surf brand Rip Curl announced the first wearable surfing technology called the Rip Curl Search GPS Watch. Underpinned by database tech from open source cloud provider Rackspace, the device enables users to analyse surf data, as well as helps Rip Curl refine their own product offerings.

Alongside that, Rackspace released survey results which showed that one in five consumers of working age are using some form of wearable...

Research from HP of 10 Internet of Things (IoT)-enabled devices has found on average 25 security flaws per unit, including denial of service and Heartbleed.

The research, alongside Symantec’s study of wearable devices last week, pours cold water on widespread usage of wearables in the enterprise markets.

“A couple of security concerns on a single device such as a mobile phone...

In a BYOD-friendly office, the IT department has plenty on its plate with fragmentation, security policies and device management. With wearable devices threatening to push into the mainstream and enter the workplace, will it push the admin over the edge? Or will security not be as much of an issue?

Stephen Brown is director of product management at IT management provider LANDesk. He sees the easiest way of protecting wearable devices in the enterprise as segmenting the network. “Untrusted, or unmanaged...

Meet Ringly. This startup’s piece of wearable technology keeps you up to date with notifications, but makes sure you’re not pulling your phone out of your pocket every few minutes.

Utilising Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), the ring’s BLE-enabled circuit board makes the connection with the user’s phone, and is available on both iOS and Android platforms.

The ring lights up a specified colour and gives a different vibration pattern dependent on the type of notification received, be it a...

This goes a bit beyond waterproof watches for deep sea divers: Aussie surf brand Rip Curl, in association with Rackspace, has created the first piece of surf-friendly wearable technology with the Rip Curl Search GPS Watch.

The watch captures data from a surfer’s session, gauging wave count, distances between rides and sessions, as well as top speed.

The technology which underpins Rip Curl Search GPS is Rackspace’s database as a service ObjectRocket, which utilises the power of the cloud as users...

A note from Juniper Research’s James Moar has asserted that wearable devices will be of interest to Chinese manufacturers after Xiaomi announced the Mi Band fitness wearable.

Xiaomi is currently prospering in the smartphone market, having recently overtaken Samsung in Chinese sales, according to research from Canalys. Yet its move into the low-end wearable market with Mi Band – at 79 yuan (£7.50), less than one tenth of the cost of Fitbit’s Flex – has caused an interesting debate. A Business Week...

Security analysts at Symantec have found that they were able to track users who engaged in the ‘quantified self’, or tracked their lives using fitness or health apps, by using a $75 product dubbed the ‘Blueberry Pi’.

The security bods mashed together a Raspberry Pi (price: $35), a battery pack, a Bluetooth USB dongle and a 4GB SD card to create a device which could track these apps and can be built by “anybody with basic IT skills.”

These portable Bluetooth scanners were...

Every leap in technology brings forth different challenges over privacy and security. Wearable technology, with the arguably invasive nature of Google Glass, is no exception.

Public relations and communications professionals as part of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) recently debated the motion that “wearable technology is an ethical nightmare for PR, marketing and communications professionals” in the House of Commons, and concluded that it wasn’t, by 55 votes to...