LONDON: There are billions of dollars riding on 2015 being the year of wearable technology. The release of Apple’s long-awaited Watch has been promised for next year and while smart-watches have not yet captured the mainstream market’s imagination, Apple could change that overnight.
Wearable tech will also allow consumers to don a headset to look around in virtual worlds, use a heartbeat-reading wristband to pay for purchases, and strap on an armband to control a computer or drone with a wave.Technology is beginning to wrap around us and cater to our needs, we’re moving more toward a natural experience, whether that is through motion and gesture — moving your hands through the air and being able to have those movements tracked — or from a neural capacity and being able to use your brain to control an experience,” says Helen Papagiannis, who researches augmented reality and virtual reality trends.
At the forefront of the looming virtual reality trend is the company Oculus VR, which in 2012 launched a crowdfunding campaign to get its Oculus Rift headset put into production. This March, the company shocked the tech world by announcing it had been acquired by Facebook in a $2 billion (U.S.) deal. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg called it “a new communication platform.”
