The authoritative market research company IDC says smartwatch sales dropped 51.6 percent last quarter from the year previous, although it suggests that the results are distorted by Apple's vast success last year. In 3Q15, when the Apple Watch was generally available for the first time, Apple sold 3.9 million units, IDC said, accounting for 70.2 percent of the market. This … [Read more...]
The Worm Has Turned: Graphene into Silk
Graphene might a 21st century’s philosopher’s stone: flexible, strong, fashionable material that’s also conductive; the goal is fabric that can support technology without being clunky about it. Scientists at Beijing’s Tsinghua University have come up with the idea of combining silk with graphene—conductive carbon one-atom thick -- by feeding it to silkworms. It works, … [Read more...]
Homeland Security Backs Wearables for First Responders
The Department of Homeland Security does more than patrol borders and run airport checkpoints. It's also busy in the world of technology. Through the Security Science and Technology Directorate’s EMERGE 2016 program, DHS supports wearable technology research for first responders. The program matches strategic partners, startups, and accelerators to expedite research and … [Read more...]
Knit Picking Your Music with Cyberknitics
The first knitted socks date to Egypt in the 1100s. (They must not have fit or they would have worn out instead of surviving all those centuries.) And hand knitting is still popular today, even though the cost of yarn frequently means it is much cheaper to buy ready-made; but, you know, arts and crafts and all that. Knitting has longevity. It has not yet been ousted by … [Read more...]
Cancer and Wearable Technology: Home Visits without the Visit
Cancer treatment has become comparatively easier to live with over the past decades, without actually becoming out and out palatable. And for a lot of patients, the treatment is still worse than the disease. Not that living with the disease is ever a walk in the park. A friend of ours who knows once said that deciding whether to undergo treatment for cancer was like deciding … [Read more...]
Hey, Dude, Answer Your Phone, You’re Drunk!
There’s a new entry in the rapidly expanding wearable tech category of "Who Would Buy This?": a patch that sends your phone a text when you’re “too drunk.” What’s your phone going to do, call a cab? If you’re that drunk, you probably can’t even focus on a text message. And chances are pretty good that you know you’re drunk, although “too drunk” is a relative condition unless … [Read more...]
Panasonic to Ship Flexible LiIon Battery This Month
Flexible batteries -- ones that can be repeatedly flexed without losing integrity -- are nothing new in the lab. But Panasonic now says it will start shipping sample units of a flexible LiIon battery at the end of this month. The batteries, about 0.5mm thick, retains more than 99 percent of its capacity when flexed more than 1000 times, even around a 25 mm radius or twisting … [Read more...]
Flexible Thermocell Battery Brings in the Volts
Batteries are the one part of your wearable device that still seem old school. Although we’ve seen improvements in size and endurance, the chemistry and physics of batteries are just plain hard. A lot of scientists are investigating the alternative of energy harvesting or scavenging; that is, producing usable energy from natural sources, such wind, sun, or human … [Read more...]