A growing number of successful American consumer companies are now looking to wearables for their future.
Some of the biggest and most celebrated businesses in the United States have now added a division of some form that is dedicated to looking into how wearable technology and other trends will affect them.
Burberry has now created its own innovation group that they have called the What If Group.
Christopher Bailey, Chief Creative and CEO at Burberry, stated that this business has assembled the What If Group in order to consider the way that tech and fashion can come together. This includes thoughts about wearable technology, such as if tech could be brought directly into a garment’s fibers or adding chips to a fashion accessory. At the time that this article was written, Bailey had not elaborated much more in terms of the details of their intentions, but a company representative shared a little bit more.
This group that is considering different possibilities for wearable technology has a range of different recruits.
The company rep explained that the members of the group are from all across the company. They assemble once every month in order to discuss areas in which there will be trends in retail, fashion, and technology separately or when brought together. The goal of these meetings is to be able to come up with innovative new ideas that may one day be offered to the company’s customers.
This is not the first time that the company has dabbled with wearable tech. In fact, in 2012, it attached RFID chips to some of its accessories. This way, when shoppers at the Regent Street flagship store of Burberry in London stepped near certain fitting room screens, specific content (such as some information about the materials that were used to create a certain bag, or a video that demonstrates the way in which a skirt was worn on a model that walked a fashion show runway) was displayed.
However, Bailey indicated that the company may now be looking to wearable technology more closely, examining certain devices such as the Opening Ceremony bracelet from Intel, or the “biometric” fabrics from Ralph Lauren.
A recent survey in the United States has shown that many people don’t have a high opinion of the devices.
Following an exciting single day of the sales of Google Glass a recent survey of people in the United States has shown that many people feel that wearable technology is actually doing more harm than good.
In fact, 53 percent of the respondents felt that these devices will actually be damaging to society.
The poll showed that many Americans feel a great deal of uncertainty when it comes to Google Glass and other forms of wearable technology. These results were released at a time in which industry giants are working very hard to boost the popularity of these devices. Google and Intel are both pouring a tremendous amount of energy and resources into developing wearables such as augmented reality glasses and smartwatches, among others.
This new survey says 53 percent of Americans fear that wearable technology will make society worse.
The survey asked Americans about their feelings on wearables that could range from mobile devices worn on the body to chips that are implanted into the body. It was specific to the types of devices that continually provide the wearer with information about the world around them.
There were about 1,000 respondents in this survey, among whom there were participants from every state. This poll was meant to obtain a better understanding of opinions on future technology. The Pew Internet Project published the results, which provided insight on predictions about long term human space colonies within the next half century and on whether or not people would feel confident being passengers in driverless vehicles. It also discussed products that are already on the market shelves, such as fitness trackers like Fitbit, or those that are nearly there but that are in the testing phase, such as Google Glass.
Only a handful of years ago, wearable technology would have seemed to be something more of science fiction than of reality. Even today, the tech is developing quickly enough that it continues to hold that type of association. Perhaps it is precisely that link that is causing people to wonder about the impact that these wearables will have on who we are.
