tag 标签: Wearables

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  • 热度 19
    2015-12-30 18:12
    1819 次阅读|
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    1) Wearables: In 2015, Wearable devices garnered the most attention from multi-functional smart watches with brands like Samsung, Motorola and Apple fighting for a place on the Wearable computing bandwagon. We now see a shift on the landscape of wearable technology, with the focus mainly on fitness-related wearables. Health monitors, pedometers and fitness activity trackers have changed the way we move, exercise, communicate and stay connected. Wearable Technology is still in its infancy and can expand to do even more impressive things in the near future.   2) UAV Drones   Drone technology has taken a massive leap forward in the last few years and we are now seeing a greater demand for unmanned aerial vehicles for both consumer and commercial purposes. DJI, 3DRobotics, and Yuneec are some companies offering high-end drones that consumers can buy and fly. In addition to this, the personal camera giant, GoPro has also announced plans to launch a quadcopter in the first half of 2016.  Drones are currently being used for various purposes like security and surveillance, event coverage, inspections and surveys, environment assessment and more.  Shell, the petrochemical giant uses drones in some of Europe’s largest energy plants to access hard-to-reach places because it is safer and more efficient than physically sending people.  With the hope of several exciting applications, it seems clear that drones will seem much more ubiquitous in 2016.    3) 3D Printing   2015 saw a rapid rise in popularity in 3-D printing which we believe will continue into 2016. Advances in 3-D printing technology have enabled new practical applications in several sectors including aerospace, medical, automotive, energy and the military. Companies like Tesla are using 3-D printing to build engine parts, while NASA is testing out 3-D printed parts for its systems. A group of Carnegie Mellon researchers are working on producing models of a variety of human organs and body parts using 3-D printing technology. Their work could one day lead to a world in which transplants are no longer necessary to repair damaged organs. According to Gartner, in 2016, better applications of the technology for biological material and food will follow.   4) Flexible Displays   Development in Flexible Electronics has spanned over the last few years and has led to several interesting innovations such as the OLED range of electronic displays.  There are several benefits to flexible displays such as ruggedness, light-weight, portability and reduced brittleness which have contributed to the rise of flexible electronics. In June 2015, LG had revealed its bendable, paper-thin TV panels which could be rolled up like a newspaper to a radius of just 3 centimeters. According to various unconfirmed reports, Samsung is also reportedly working on a flexible, bendable mobile screen to be released by early 2016. With a recent sharp rise in the number of patent applications for flexible display technologies, the market for various types of flexible displays is expected to broaden in the coming year.   5) Big Data   Big Data, cloud services and predictive analytics are continually innovating fields which offer holistic insights into the way businesses are run. The biggest challenge facing big data is the method of capturing data and proper utilization of the captured data. In 2016, businesses will move away from irrelevant data noise and will take a more strategic approach to analyzing the copious amount of data received. The Internet of Things and Industry 4.0 is expected to  create new opportunities for data visualization and real-time analysis with the explosion of connected devices.   6) Video Analytics   The need for enhanced security and the availability of mature analytic engines is driving the Video Analytics market globally.   Video Analytics Technology has been playing a crucial role in security and surveillance and has been actively contributing to fields like retail analytics, transportation, business intelligence, public safety, intrusion detection and more. With advancement of technologies like machine vision and data analytics the use of high speed cameras along with the powerful video content analysis (VCA) will soon become inherent part of industrial automation and object modelling.   By, Mistral Solutions Pvt.Ltd.
  • 热度 24
    2015-9-23 12:39
    1652 次阅读|
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    The world of Wearable Engineering Demystified through this simple Infographic from Mistral: http://www.mistralsolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/infographic.html
  • 热度 28
    2015-3-4 14:53
    1903 次阅读|
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      In 2014, wearable technology saw an enormous increase in popularity with Internet searches for related terms increasing ten-fold and over $1 billion invested towards development in this domain.  While the technology is still in its infancy, experts predict that wearable devices will rise at a 154 percent annual compound rate through 2017 with over 110 million devices being sold. Analysts at Morgan Stanley believe it will become a $1.6 trillion business in the near-future. Crowdfunding has become the source of choice in bringing creative ideas to the wearable market, and 2014 saw crowdfunding companies like Kickstarter and Indiegogo raise money with high success and delivery rates.    There are several technologies that revolutionize wearable devices; few of them are Sensors, Form factor, Display and software. At present motion sensors like accelerometers, gyroscopes, magnetometers, pressure sensors are the dominant type of sensors used in wearables. UI-related MEMS sensors microphones for voice control will be integrated to wearables soon. Form factor also plays a major role in wearable technology; not just with respect to the SoC but also for the entire system. Packages like quad flat no-lead (QFN), micro-chip-scale packaging (uCSP) and wafer scale chip packaging (CSP) are popular solutions for power management, microcontrollers and wireless functions due to their small form factors which can be used on small PCBs or integrated with the use of flex-based circuits. Android Wear OS brought Google into the software world of wearables when it was launched on March 18, 2014. There is also Tizen, the open-source by Samsung and Intel, MediaTek’s LinkIt and the Wearable OS expected from LG.   The focus in the current wearable market is clearly on wrist-mounted devices like smartwatches, fitness bands or a combination of the two. But, the future of wearables is not limited to our wrists alone. There are plenty of places like Medical and Banking that manufacturers are keen to venture into with their desirable tech pieces. Google, Apple and  Microsoft have launched their own health Wellness platforms to extract data from people who are having a health conditions about what they have done or to measure essential data. Doctors have increasingly shown interest in using these wearables to give regular information to the patients about health; by tracking and providing corrective inputs on the fly. A few Canadian banks are exploring the option of using a wrist band made by a startup “Bionym” that will measure ECG pattern to authenticate payments.   Cambridge Consultants are working on a UV hair slide that would tell how much UV exposure you have had on a summer day! A pair of headphones could monitor your heart’s electrical activity and feed the data to your smart phone. Several developers are working on a tattoo that will be implanted on the skin of the hand and would interact with everything that a person touches like locking/unlocking doors, protecting credit card information and so on. These new gadgets are just around the corner. Some of the other product trends that are emerging in the wearable world are:     Sensors and Glasses – There are already a host of photo-snapping life-loggers available in the market such as the OMG Life Autographer and the Narrative Clip. They will take pictures throughout your day and keep a log of your movements to build sharable photographic memory of the day. Then there are devices like the Sony Core which is a waterproof sensor and can pair with a camera to keep track of special moments or a fitness band to give your workout a new dimension.   Tech-Woven Clothes - Implanted technology will likely be the preserve of medical applications, at least in the new future. But not so for tech-woven clothes. Fashion giant Ralph Lauren recently took the initiative by announcing The Polo Tech Shirt. This shirt is designed to be used when exercising; embedded with various sensors that would collect the user’s biometric data, heart rate, how much calories burned, distance traveled and intensity of movement. Dolce Gabbana in collaboration with Motorola are also working on a tech-woven clothing indicating that this may definitely emerge as a huge trend.   Automobile – BMW showcased their research vehicle i3 at CES 2015 that could lead to collision free driving in the near future. Smartwatch can be used by the driver to park the vehicle through the remote-control valet parking system developed by BMW.  According to the company, a driver can activate the “Remote Valet Parking assistant” through an app, which would guide the vehicle to a parking spot all by itself. This car works with the help of laser sensors that scan the surrounding environment so it can move without running into anything.   Home Automation - Soon, switching on the lights in your house will involve a simple wrist-and-hand gesture as you walk through the door and another gesture would turn on the HDTV and Xbox while dimming the den lights. When you are set to go out, another hand gesture would switch off all your home’s lights and lock all the doors. Playtabase wristband “Reemo” would make all of this possible.   Aviation - Japan Airlines ensures that its gate agents are equipped with smartwatches at the Tokyo Haneda Airport’s Terminal 1, enabling them to receive location-specific tasks from the control desk which can track their whereabouts using iBeacons.   While a lot of new trends and opportunities are opening up in the wearable technology space, there is one simple fact that will be key for this technology to move from a few experimental low volume products to mass market. This make-it-or-break-it element is that consumers want wearable devices to be such a seamless experience that they can forget they are even wearing it. They look for devices that are unobtrusive and blend into the fabric of the physical appearance.  Achieving this seamlessness is still a way away. A couple of technical challenges that stand in the way of many of these futuristic ideas are the limiting battery life and circuit shrinkage. But both of these aspects will inevitably improve over time and allow manufacturers to integrate them into their wearable devices. Wearable technology may not take off as quickly as some are expecting. But, if the above points are addressed, wearables will be on the rise, which means they could be on their way to the enterprise.   - Authored by Sachidananda K, Mistral Solutions