Читать книгу Body Sensor Networking, Design and Algorithms - Saeid Sanei - Страница 11

Earlier in history, it would take hundreds of years between breakthroughs such as eyeglasses being developed in 1286 and the abacus ring being manufactured in 1600. Today, new wearable tech innovations happen on a monthly basis, if not weekly. In the last 10 years, we have had the Google Glass, Fitbit, Oculus Rift, and countless others.

The Nuremberg egg manufactured in 1510 by Peter Henlein was one of the early portable mechanical timekeeping devices (like a watch) which had a chain to hang over the neck. An air-conditioned top hat was a wearable designed by a Victorian in the nineteenth century. In 1890, a lighting company in New York used to send girls with wearable lights onto the performance stage and to light up houses during ceremonies. In the1960s, the wearers of roulette shoes, created by Edward Thorp and Claude Shannon, used to observe the rotations of the roulette ball, tap the shoe accordingly, and then receive a vibration telling them which number to bet on. In 1963, a small portable TV screen was worn as a glass. The aviator Alberto Santos-Dumont pioneered the use of the wristwatch in 1904 as it allowed him to have his hands free while flying. This also led people to start using wristwatches. Calculator watches came onto market in 1975 and the first low-cost Walkman stereo was offered by Sony in 1979. In the 1990s, interest in the Internet of Things (IoT) started to rise. In December 1994, Steve Mann, a Canadian researcher, developed the wearable wireless Webcam. Despite its bulk, it paved the way for future IoT technologies. This required advances in artificial intelligence, which started to flourish in the 2000s.

The Sony Walkman was a clear commercial success. The Walkman and subsequent Sony Discman helped the company become an entertainment powerhouse. Over 400 million Walkman portable music players have been sold with about 200 million of those being cassette players.

However, not all products launched with a fanfare are destined for success. The commercial potential of many wearable technologies introduced in recent years are not always predictable or even achieved.

Fitbit filed for a $100 million initial public offering, but it now has to compete against a plethora of other fitness trackers on the market. The Apple Watch was been launched amidst a great deal of publicity, but it comes with no guarantees for Apple – a company that needs a lot of new revenues on a product to move the needle. Finally, the creation of the Oculus Rift virtual reality (VR) headsets could finally bring VR to the masses. The company has already been bought by Facebook for over $2 billion. Garmin, as a global positioning system (GPS), and Samsung Galaxy Gear, as a smart watch, are other popular wearables.

What is clear is that, based on the history of wearable technology, devices that move the masses are far and between. The successes that do make it, however, can change the world and generate chart-topping returns. Meanwhile, people's needs change over time, and include entertainment, activity, sport, and now most importantly health. This brings wearables such as Quell to the market. When strapped on the body Quell predicts and detects the onset of chronic pain and stimulates nerves to block pain signals to the brain. Other wearables to measure blood alcohol content, athletic performance, blood sugar, heart rate, and many other bioindicators rapidly came to the market as the desire for health monitoring grew. This may become more demanding as the interest in personal medicine grows.