Tag: wearable technology

Augmented reality glasses from Sony to ship in March 2015

| September 23, 2014

This rival to Google Glass will become available for purchase during the first quarter of next year.

Sony has announced that its augmented reality glasses, a product which will be in direct competition with Google Glass, will become available by the end of March, next year.

Simultaneously, it revealed that its software development kit has now become available.

The hardware for these augmented reality glasses will also soon be available for developers. This announcement about the SmartEyeglass aligns well with a range of different product unveilings and releases within the wearable technology category. That said, while many companies (including Sony) have been stepping into wearables with devices such as smartwatches, not nearly as many have looked to headsets for this same purpose.

The augmented reality glasses from Sony were first revealed in their prototype form at the recent CES 2014.

Sony - Augmented Reality GlassesThese AR technology devices are meant to be just as versatile as Google Glass, while rising above those rival products in a number of ways. While the prototype for the SmartEyeglass is somewhat awkward in appearance, it is heavily equipped with a range of different sensors, such as an electronic compass, a gyroscope, an accelerometer, an ambient light censor, and a 3 megapixel camera. It is also wired to an external battery pack that is equipped with a microphone and added touch sensor.

Now, Sony has also released the software development kit for this wearable technology and has stated that by the end of March, next year, the hardware kits would also be ready for developers to purchase. Aside from the way that the battery is attached, the primary difference between the Sony product and Google Glass is that the SmartEyeglass uses a green monochrome display in order to be able to provide an information overlay over the actual view of the user.

Like Google Glass, the Sony augmented reality glasses will be able to sync with Android smartphones in order to provide the wearer with various types of alerts and other forms of information, such as navigation directions. After recent announcements that mobile devices have been hurting Sony’s profitability, it is clear that they are highly driven to make their mark in new cutting edge market sectors.

Wearable tech initiative for mhealth launched by team of doctors

| September 22, 2014

The hope of this effort is to be able to bring meaningful health data through these devices.

While wearable tech has been gradually rising in popularity, many believe that it wasn’t until the recent Apple Watch unveiling that this type of device was catapulted into the mainstream spotlight.

That said, even before that time, a team of doctors had started a new effort to make them practical for mhealth.

The wearable tech industry specifically for activity and sports trackers is expected to reach $1.4 billion within the upcoming two years . This will allow for a tremendous collection of activity data. A team of doctors feels that this presents a massive opportunity for leveraging that data to develop resources that will help people to be able to make meaningful decisions with regards to their health care. The team is working under the name Vivametrica.

Vivametrica is aiming to develop a wearable tech based analytics platform that will be a first of its kind.

Wearable Tech - mhealth dataThis platform for wearables will be meant for enterprises, health care providers, and patients, alike. Its development is based on several years of clinical research that connects health risks with various types of activities.

The mobile wearable device being produced by Vivametrics is operating system agnostic, which means that it will be compatible with smartphones regardless of whether they run on iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Windows Phone, or any other operating system. This was because the team was seeking to take a standardized approach to the collection and management of the data. The goal was to help to span the gap that currently exists between current wearable fitness apps and actual health data upon which specific action can be taken.

The Vivametrics company has every intention of using wearable tech to be able to provide improvements in the areas of credible, personalized assessment, and research based analytics. The team is made up of health, medicine, and business experts that include: Dr. Richard Hu (the company’s CEO and founder), Dr. Christy Lane (the company’s COO and co-founder), Dr. Matthew Smuck (the company’s scientific advisor and cofounder), and Scott Valentine (the company’s president).