In the United States, medical devices have strong privacy protections written into law. But fitness trackers are, pretty much by design, not medical devices. Therefore, U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer pointed out yesterday, it's possible that fitness data can be licensed to third parties without the customer knowing it. Schumer (D-NY) yesterday called on the Federal Trade Commission … [Read more...]
Moto360 Smartwatch Details Emerge
The site Android Police is writing about some Italian coverage of the forthcoming Moto360 Android Wear smartwatch. Among the more salient details is that the watch appears to feature wireless charging, which is a nice touch. The charging station looks more than a little like the charger for the much-lamented Palm Pre WebOS smartphone: But what strikes us most is that the … [Read more...]
Slow News Week
Every year, the management of Wearable Tech Insider goes off the grid into the land of fringe cell service and 28.8 kbps modem lines. We bring a stack of books, maybe a few Maker Shed projects, sit by a lake with family, and cook a lot. That's this week. We'll be checking in to make sure the world hasn't ended -- the latest iWatch rumor does not qualify -- and will post … [Read more...]
Heapsylon Lands $5 Million in Funding; Changes Name to Sensoria
The company formally known as Heapsylon, makers of the Sensoria smart clothing, has closed a $5 million Series A funding, raised entirely from the large publicly traded Italian consulting company Reply SpA. As part of the deal, which values the company at $25 million, the company changed its name to that of its product: Sensoria Inc. Company CEO Davide Vigano today showed … [Read more...]
Android Wear Opens the Door for the Luxury Watch Market
Like you all, we've been digesting the wearables news that came out of Google I/O last week, and puzzling a bit over its paucity. There was very little about Glass, which may or may not indicate that it's no longer a development project but may be about to be a project. (Remember, I/O is a developers' conference.) And we were kind of surprised about the muted reception for … [Read more...]
Interview with Healbe CEO Mikaberydze: We’ll Ship 50K This Year
We caught up today with George Mikaberydze, CEO of the controversial startup Healbe. In a conversation at CE Week, Mikaberydze told Wearable Tech Insider that the GoBe was currently in production and would ship 14,000 units to its Indiegogo backers and pre-orders in August and September of this year. He also said that he was in discussions with other distributors, including … [Read more...]
Fitbit Leads the Wearables World: Canalys
Anyone can project billions of dollars in the future, but counting actual shipping products is hard. The consulting firm Canalys reports that Fitbit shipped nearly half of all wearable bands in the world in the first quarter of 2014. Overall, Canalys reported, 2.7 million wearable bands shipped worldwide last quarter, and Fitbit's strength was despite the skin rash-related … [Read more...]
HBO’s “Veep” Episode on Wearables
If you can find a way to see last week's episode (Season 3, Episode 4) of HBO's political comedy "Veep," you should do so. (We can't find it anywhere except at HBO's own site.) Vice President Selena Meyer (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) makes a fundraising trip to the Silicon Valley company Clovis, which appears to be based on Google with a CEO modeled after Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg … [Read more...]
Teleca Exec on Nokia X: “We Did That.”
We don't usually talk about cellphones on this site, considering them to be carryable but not really wearable. But we had an interesting conversation today about something we haven't seen elsewhere. There's been a lot of chatter about the Nokia X phone, which debuted here at Mobile World Congress. A lot of the talk has been about how the phone uses a customized version of … [Read more...]
Vuzix Looks Ahead: Hands-on With Prototypes
We've already written lots about Vuzix: how it's focusing on enterprise and industry instead of the consumer market, how it's the first actual commercially shipping eyewear wearable. Nothing in this business stands still, though, and Vuzix continues to move ahead. We caught up with CEO Paul Travers at Mobile World Congress. One new product the company's showing is a thin … [Read more...]