Tech Trend 2014: Wearable Technology
What comes to your mind first, when you hear a heading or title such as “mobile devices and health”? Since the emerge of mobile phones, this phrase used to resemble one of the longest-ever debate on the question if mobile devices have any negative effect on our health. Not being sure when this discussion has (and, if at all) been over, when mobile devices and health come together these days, people completely think about something else – wearable technology.
According to many experts, the rise of embedded and wearable computing will bring the next revolution in digital technology, which is definitely one of the hottest tech trends of 2014 already.
On-body computing devices have many forms, such as glasses, watches, smart badges, and bracelets. The potential is tremendous: hands-free, heads-up technology to reshape how work gets done, how decisions are made, and how you engage with employees, customers, and partners. Wearable devices introduce technology to previously prohibitive scenarios where safety, logistics, or even etiquette constrained the usage of laptops and smartphones.
As a recent example in this field, The South Korean electronics giant Samsung, not long ago launched a new digital health technology platform referred to as “Simband” that uses sensors to track a range of body functions such as heart rate and blood pressure. Unveiled at an event in San Francisco, Samsung showed how a device can track measurements such as heart rate, respiratory rate and blood pressure and collect data from a variety of sources to help consumers better understand what is happening with their health.
Simband will work in tandem with a cloud-based open software platform called SAMI which securely stores data and can provide better insights into health issues. “The combination of Simband-designed sensor technologies and algorithms and SAMI-based software will take individual understanding of the body to a new level,” the company said in a statement.
We as SWExperts also believe that this new emerging trend will increase its popularity in the near future, which, in turn, will mean new mobile and server-side software development requirements for the clients and opportunities for the development companies.