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...]
SoaPen Wins UNICEF’s Wearables for Good Challenge
UNICEF’s Wearables for Good challenge -- hosted by UNICEF, Arm Holdings, and Frog -- found its two winners among 2,000 registrants and 250 design submissions. The key goal of the challenge was to identify the best products that can help fight infant mortality. One of the two winners is SoaPen, a wearable and portable soap designed to encourage children to wash their hands in … [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...]
Weather Changes Transform Pricey Accessories
The Unseen, a London-based design studio, has developed an ink that changes color in reaction to, basically, weather conditions: air pressure, wind, heat, and light. It might not sound earthshaking, but the company partnered with the very upscale London Selfridges, voted best department store in the world in 2014. The result is limited editions of some very beautiful leather … [Read more...]
Wearable Artificial Kidney Could Make Dialysis Machines Dinosaurs
Victor Gura, an associate clinical professor of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine, UCLA, and his colleagues have developed and are testing the first wearable dialysis machine. Patients who need dialysis must currently go to clinics and hospitals, where they are hooked up to a machine and spend as much as four hours sitting while the machine removes waste and … [Read more...]
Isansys Lifecare: Early Warning System for Sick Children
An English hospital is working on a project that uses wearables to predict when kids may be about to have a medical crisis. Isansys Lifecare, Ltd. is the technological power behind a revolutionary project at Birmingham (England) Children’s Hospital that has the potential to save a lot of young lives. Project RAPID (Real-Time Adaptive & Predictive Indicator of … [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...]