We round up the whispers and news blips of the week
It’s that time of the week again when we round up all the juicy tidbits from the wearable week that we didn’t cover on the site.
“Why didn’t you cover them?” we hear you cry. And that’s a fair question.
But you’re not the boss of us, we don’t have to answer to you. We’ve been busy alright, jeez, get off of our backs.
Let’s get this over with….
Apple Watch woes
Oh dear. The Apple Watch manufacturing process has hit a snag as the company charged with producing the crystal sapphire displays has only gone and gone bust. The supplier, GT Advanced Technologies (GTAT), has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.
Let’s all just pack up and go home now eh? Without Apple boosting the industry, the wearable market is doomed. Doomed we tell ya.
Lenovo pays child support
We like this one, it makes us feel all warm and fuzzy inside and gives us hope that the world is a nice place. Chinese tech behemoth Lenovo have backed an Indiegogo campaign, set up by a 12-year-old boy, for a new smartwatch idea called Comb720.
Publicity stunt from a tech company in need of some good press? Perhaps. But the more likely story is that the young entrepreneur’s idea is better than any wearable design knocking about the Lenovo R&D labs. Yep, we went there.
Hybrid hiccups
If we’re honest, there’s a couple of reasons we didn’t include this half-phone / half-watch in this week’s ‘Crowdfund this’ (our weekly look at the world of wearable kickstarters). The first is that the Indiegogo campaign isn’t going all that well. Despite a fair bit of press coverage, the goal of $140,000 of funding is a long way off.
The second is the name. Just look how bad .klatz looks in a sentence. Who starts a brand name with a full-stop, we ask you?
Frickin’ laser beams
Apple is hoping its Digital Crown is the future of smartwatch controls, Google is well and truly backing voice gestures. No-one is really considering laser beams on people’s arms as a viable option though are they?
No-one apart from the Future Interfaces Group that is, who have developed ‘skin buttons’ that use tiny laser projectors to make buttons appear right on your skin. A winner, for sure.
Spire gets less stressed
Spire is an interesting sounding wearable that sensing stress levels in the wearer, by analysis breathing patterns in real time to show when people are focused, tense, or frazzled.
And this week, the Stanford University produced product picked up a prestigious National Design Award. Huzzah. It should ship later this month and will cost $119.