Author: Lucy

Will Google miss its wearable technology opportunity?

| April 9, 2015

The company has yet to show that it has secured a long term position within the smartwatch category.

Google does seem to have embraced the idea of wearable technology as it produced an open-source software, Android Wear, that could be installed into the devices of hardware partners, and it had even been selling test models of smart glasses for a while through its Google Glass line, but it has shown that it is moving toward a higher amount of control over a heavier version of the operating system, including its APIs, which are typically licensed to smartphone and tablet makers.

Some have reported that they believe that Google doesn’t want to repeat past mistakes through its Android Wear.

The Android operating system for wearable technology is considerably more closed than the version of the OS that is designed for tablets and smartphones. Because of this, many OEMs have become a little bit leery of choosing the operating system for their own wearables. Samsung, for example, has chosen to use its own proprietary platform, the Tizen OS, for the majority of its smartwatches in the Gear line. LG is another brand that has created its own Wearable Platform OS, using the WebOS that it obtained from Palm.

The upcoming release of the Apple Watch is expected to throw the wearable technology market forward.

Wearable Technology - Missed OpportunitySince that device is clearly based on a smartwatch version of the iOS platform, many are starting to wonder if Google’s actions to protect itself from the mistakes it had previously made in its standard Android operating system could actually be what locks it out of the wearables market, when all is said and done.

Samsung has previously battled it out with Google over the degree to which Google has attepted to control the implementation of the Android OS. As TouchWiz UI is used by Samsung to differentiate the version of Android that it uses from that of other devices, Google wasn’t pleased that Samsung had chosen to move some of its apps around.

This demand for control and failure to open up the Android platform was what drove Samsung to use the open source version of the Android OS to develop Tizen and steer away from the limitations it faced from Google.

Augmented reality glasses from Sony, SmartEyeglass, hit the shelves

| April 6, 2015

These wearable devices have now become available in ten countries for an official price of $840.

The SmartEyeglass from Sony, that brand’s augmented reality glasses, have now officially received their rollout for consumers to purchase them in any of ten different initial countries.

The smart glasses were first unveiled last year, but they hit the store shelves at the end of March.

At the moment, what is available is the Sony SmartEyeglass Developer Edition (SED-E1). Those augmented reality glasses also include an additional controller and come with a price tag of $840. That said, if the nerdy appearance of Google Glass was a put off too much of the market, then they may not be impressed with the far less sophisticated looking wearable technology that Sony has now released.

These augmented reality glasses have been designed to provide the wearer with a pure AR experience.

They use hologram optics tech in order to be able to superimpose images, symbols, and text overtop of the natural field of view of the wearer. This idea is not unlike Google Glass, in that sense, as Sony’s version is able to place an overlay of digital information over top of the real environment of the wearer. For instance, it could add directions and arrows on top of the actual street view being seen by the person wearing the device.

At the moment, these AR glasses are available only in the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Sweden, Italy, Germany, and Belgium. Consumers in the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan and Germany are able to buy these wearables, no matter who they are. However, in the other countries in which the devices are being sold, there are certain limitations, such as the fact that only business customers will be allowed to buy them, at least for the first wave of the rollout.

At the time that this article was written, Sony had not yet announced how it intended to move forward with the rollout of these augmented reality glasses beyond the initial ten countries. It is unclear whether there will be a global release or whether the device will ever become available to all consumers.