The US Commerce Department, in partnership with the Industrial Fabrics Association International, announced today that it will host a Smart Fabrics Summit on April 4, 2016 in Washington, DC. A release from the Commerce Department says that the day-long session will be designed to get fashion, technology, and policy players around the same table. Specific issues include … [Read more...]
[Updated] Omate Announces Carbon Fiber Rise LTE Smartwatch; Indiegogo Launches Dec 7
![[Updated] Omate Announces Carbon Fiber Rise LTE Smartwatch; Indiegogo Launches Dec 7](https://wearablesinsider.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2015/12/3-150x150.jpg)
LG may have had some trouble getting its LTE smartwatch out the door, but that doesn't seem to have hindered pioneer Omate. The company today announced a 48-hour Indiegogo campaign to pre-sell its Omate Rise LTE watch. The Omate Rise will run Android 5.1 (Lollipop) with a user-facing interface designed by Omate; the watch will connect with both Android and iOS apps using … [Read more...]
Jabil Publishes Reference Platform for Connected Clothing
Jabil, the electronics manufacturing giant that bought connected fabric leader Clothing+ earlier this year, is starting to use its heft to establish itself in the smart clothing business. The company today published the Peak+ reference design for clothing, incorporating smart fabrics from Clothing+, transmitters and apps from Suunto, and analytics from Firstbeat. John … [Read more...]
Swatch to Sell NFC Watch Next Year
Swatch, the Swiss watchmaking giant, says it will sell an analog watch next year with an NFC payment chip linked to the Visa payment network. The Bellamy line of watches will be sold in the United States, Switzerland, and Brazil starting next year. The first two countries are pretty obvious; Brazil is the home of the 2016 Olympics, of which Visa is a global sponsor. The … [Read more...]
Google’s Flexible Glass Patent
Nearly every day brings another rumor of what the next Google Glass will look like. This one isn't really much more reliable than any of them, but it is at least a Google patent. The company got a patent last week (9,195,067) for a lightweight visor with a flexible headband that can articulate at the ear, the temple, and the back of the head for precise fit and positioning. … [Read more...]
Jawbone Lays Off 15 Pct of Staff, Closes NY Office, in “Streamlining”
Jawbone, the fitness tracer/speaker/headset company, has reportedly laid off 60 people -- 15 percent of its staff -- in a general "streamlining of its business. The cuts came across the entire company, Techcrunch reports, and were not aimed at any particular part of the company or product. As part of the cutbacks, Jawbone closed its New York office, which was devoted to … [Read more...]
Top-Level Shakeup at Proteus Digital Health
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...]
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...]