c o v e r s t o r y WEARABLE TECHNOLOGY WILL TAKE CENTER-STAGE THIS YEAR Mobility will no longer be restricted to and tablets. Expect lots of mobility products this year, which you can wear — S. Aadeetya ver the years we have come across wearable the transition from mobile devices to the wearable devices in the form of , wearable devices happens hassle-free. Software platforms tied glasses and other devices that cater to user’s to smartwatches offer tremendous opportunity for Ohealth, needs and senses. The market is yet to developers to write apps in categories such as health understand the place for wearable technology but sooner and wellness or sports and fitness. Broadcom calls the than later the change in dynamics of consumer behaviour wearable computing as a subtext of internet of things will define the making of such devices. phenomena. “Earlier companies used to think that by cramming More standalone wearable products expected up the application’s design one can fit them to the smart Major technology companies agree that wearable watches but now the industry is going through a big products are meant to supplement your primary devices design renaissance to figure out the puzzle behind offer- like right now but going forward, their ing the best app user experience on smart watches”, said functionality will become more and more standalone. Troy Malone, general manager - APAC for Evernote, the Smart wearable bands are multi-purpose devices that can popular note taking app which is available on smart- run third-party computing applications and are designed watches also. to be worn on the body, and not carried, as per leading research experts. Integrating connectivity Tech experts across the globe have highlighted the For wearable devices all the known connectivity options premature functionality of smartwatches but tech is like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS will exist to make wearable constantly improving, so expect to see more and better tech a success but the need to evolve is fairly apparent. wearable devices to enter the market this year. The Bluetooth has been customized into a low-energy form market will gain more traction when giants like Microsoft, to supplement life of smartwatches, which offers all the Apple and LG make their foray into the wearable features of Bluetooth but on a low power levels, which technology arena giving impetus to such devices. negates the need to add big size batteries on these small According to Canalys, smartwatches are set to explode devices. All this leads to the technology being cost- by the end of 2014, growing tenfold as a new generation effective and affordable for end consumers. This is why of devices from Apple, Google, Microsoft, Samsung and wearable Tech in India can be a huge success. others are launched. Some of the Wearable tech in healthcare wearable devices What really connects these two trends together is available in the optimizing productivity technology. With wearable tech, market are: devices are always communicating with us connected Samsung Galaxy Gear to a hub or host in this case smartphones. Wearable The Gear comes with a devices need not only cater to end users, they have 1.6 inch Super AMOLED a role to play in the health sector with hospitals display and is powered making use of wearable technology to simplify process by an 800 MHz dual-core of treatment, says Rajiv Kapur, managing director, processor, 512 MB RAM Broadcom India. and an internal memory of 4 GB. The Room for all supports Samsung Apps With the rise of smartwatches, companies will have and can be connected to design their specific applications in such a way that to the Galaxy Note 3

52 PCQuest JANUARY 2014 pcquest.com twitter.com/pcquest facebook.com/pcquest linkd.in/pcquest [email protected] via Bluetooth 4.0. One can browse through the Gear for 168x144 pixels LED backlight display and runs on ’s message, listen to music, answer calls and even capture own platform and compatible with Android and iOS de- images with its 1.9 MP camera positioned on the strap, vices. One can charge it with USB cable and garner device which Samsung calls Memographer. The Gear is loaded life of 5 to 7 days on single charge. It is built around with a 312 mAh battery that as per claims should last the polycarbonate body and weighs 38 grams. entire day and even more. Qualcomm Toq Sony Smartwatch 2 Qualcomm is the surprising entrant in the wearable seg- The smartwatch 2 is Sony’s upgraded version of Smart- ment with its Toq smartwatch. The device sports a 1.5 watch which was launched way back in the market. The inch Mirasol capacitive display, compatible with Android latest version sports a 1.6 inch LCD 220x176 pixels display 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and above. With connectivity and is built with mixture of aluminium and stainless options like Bluetooth 3.0 and offers multiple days of steel. The device is compatible with smartphone running battery life. Toq works only as a pairing device as of now on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich or later and offers and we expect more functionality getting embedded in paring connectivity via Bluetooth 3.0 or NFC. This water the future. resistant device is capable of taking/making calls, reading messages and Facebook posts among others.

Google Glass Google made its big announcement way back in 2012 Pebble but the final product is only expected to be available Pebble is one of the first wearable device that made its in open market sometime next year. The Glass sports a way through the KickStarter campaign. It sports 1.2 inch 640x360 pixels display that will be real close to ones eye. The Glass comes with camera capable of shooting 5 MP resolution images and 720p videos. The sound recorded can be send across through ears via bone conduction. Inside, the Google Glass will have 16GB of flash storage, out of which 12GB will be usable, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity are also there.

pcquest.com twitter.com/pcquest facebook.com/pcquest linkd.in/pcquest [email protected] JANUARY 2014 PCQuest 53