Proteus Digital Health, the unicorn company that puts circuitry on pills to monitor drug compliance, has had a management shakeup, in what appears to be a push on the part of investors to drive revenues. A release on the company's site says that Molly O'Neill has been named Chief Commercial Office and Jonathan Symonds is the new chairman of the board. O'Neill had been the … [Read more...]
About Dan Rosenbaum
LG Kills the Urbane LTE, Citing Hardware Problem
LG today reportedly took the highly unusual step of canceling the launch of a product that was well into the preview window, citing unspecified hardware problems. The Urbane LTE was to have been the first untethered Android Wear watch, using a microSIM to connect to the Internet without the need for an intermediary smart phone. (There have been several other LTE … [Read more...]
APX Labs Closes $13 Million Funding Round including NEA, GE, and Salesforce
APX Labs, creators of the Skylight middleware for industrial wearables, says it's raised $13 million in its second institutional round, bringing its total funding to $29 million. This round was led by New Enterprise Associates, with participation from GE Ventures, Salesforce Ventures, CNF Investments, and SineWave Ventures. The company did not disclose the company's … [Read more...]
NFC Vaccine Tracking Wins UNICEF Wearables Award
We just wrote about one of the two UNICEF Wearables for Good challenge winners (well, we lifted it from our sister site Health Tech Insider). There was another winner -- one that weds RFID with a cultural totem to help health-care workers know whether a kid has been vaccinated. In rural places, access to the Internet is limited, as is access to reliable written medical … [Read more...]
Everysight Comes out of Stealth With Raptor Augmented Reality Bicycling Glasses
We got a buzz a little while ago about some very interesting bicycling glasses coming out of the Israeli defense industry. The other shoe has now dropped: Everysight has announced the Raptor glasses, a wearable heads-up augmented reality display. Everysight is spun out of the publicly owned Elbit Systems, Israel's largest defense technology company and a well-known maker of … [Read more...]
Movado Announces Two Tracker Lines; One with MMT, One with HP
The fashion watch company Movado has unveiled not one but two distinct lines of connected watches, one built with HP and the other with Fullpower's MMT movement. MMT, long-time readers will recall, is a Swiss company created by Philippe Kahn's Fullpower Technologies to provide electronic movements to the Swiss watch industry, enabling watchmakers to retain the … [Read more...]
Withings Intros Activitè Steel Tracker
Withings, maker of the popular Activitè line of trackers, has announced the Activitè Steel, less expensive than the flagship watch but more expensive than its plastic Pop. Like the other Activitès, the Steel is an analog watch with two dials: a main dial that shows the time, and another that indicates your progress to your daily goal. It looks like, well, a watch; the Pop's … [Read more...]
What the Misfit Purchase Means for Wearables Startups
Misfit, which began life as a Kickstarter and became one of the best known wearables companies, was bought yesterday by a big public watch company for $230 million. That was probably its best possible end as an independent company. Misfit, over its four years of life, had raised $63 million in three rounds of funding. The products are beautiful and have a loyal following. … [Read more...]
Misfit Acquired by Fossil Group for $260 Million
Misfit, the pioneering maker of sleek activity trackers that couldn't break through once bigger brands entered the market, has been sold to one of those bigger brands, the Wall Street Journal reports Fossil Group has agreed to acquire Misfit for $260 million. The company, founded by Sonny Vu and which counted former Apple CEO John Scully on its board, was best know for its … [Read more...]
Android Wear Now Supports Cellular Data
Most connected watches require a smartphone to communicate with the outside world. There are some exceptions -- Omate's watches have long included a microSIM that connects them directly to cell networks -- but that route is expensive and complicated, and required custom software Expect to see watches like that, though. Google announced yesterday that its Android Wear watch … [Read more...]