The major finding from a new report by Research and Markets is that Wearables Technology Vendors Have Two Choices: Build Their Own Platforms and Try to Attract Developers, or License Android Wear.

The report title is “Wearables – Fitness & Style Now, Mainstream Smart watches Later”. Wearables are examined in context with a focus on some of the key challenges and opportunities surrounding smartwatches for traditional watch vendors and technology OEMs.

Evidence is used from case studies including smartwatch investments by Samsung and Apple, fitness bands from Fitbit, and carrier retail support in the U.S. and Europe.

According to this report, Wearables are encompassing a wide variety of product types, with most of them being driven by the smartphone supply chain and smartphone consumer adoption. The report believes that Smartwatches and fitness devices are one of the highest profile wearables, which have an immediate impact on traditional watch vendors and technology OEMs.

The main points concluded in the Wearable Market Report are:

• Smart watches are emerging in the market at the same time as computing becomes ubiquitous, giving vendors a path forward as a smart watch is an ideal control point for IoT.
• Technology vendors have two choices: build their own platforms and try to attract developers, or license Android Wear. Apple, Google, Pebble and Samsung are the only platforms with sizable developer followings.
• Google is the only licensable platform with developer support.
• If Apple can deliver on the promise of watches 3, it should be able to harness its developer community to create use cases that drive sales.
• To sell the next generation of watches, battery life must improve to allow always-on watch faces.

The first market report this week by Long Short Report, speaks of the Augmented Reality Devices Market growth in the next 3 years. This market report provides an executive level blueprint on the market, focusing on evaluating the market trends emerging in the regional markets with the report also representing historical data and statistics about the market and evaluates how the demand and supply trends have impacted the global Augmented Reality Devices Market Dynamics.

A report on the Smart Glasses Market covers different types of Smart Augmented Reality Glasses. The market report is split into sections including consumer, enterprise, industrial, public safety, and healthcare with a competitive analysis of various hardware and software vendors and a strategic recommendation for various players in the chain already.

Another report analyses the Smart Augmented Reality Glasses Market and makes forecasts. The thrust of this report is that shipments are to reach 22.8 million units annually by 2022. This large mass of volume is said to drive device revenue growth from $138.9 million in 2016 to $19.7 billion by 2022.

The market report includes Microsoft HoloLens’ introduction of Mixed Reality to the market, the failure of Google Glass as well as covering many other smart glass producers in the market.

This provides the value chain analysis, market attractiveness analysis, and company share analysis along with key player’s complete profiles.

Information about Smartglass:

Also known as switchable glass, is a glass which can alter its light transmission properties on application of voltage, light or heat. These glasses are used in windows, skylights, doors, partitions and have extended their range in automotive industry, aircrafts and in marine applications.

The Smart Glasses Market is segmented on the basis of types as architectural, electronics, solar power generation and transportation, architectural segment being the major market segment.

According to this report the marketed is estimated to grow at a significant rate in the next few years. The major players that are driving this increase are to be in architectural and transportation sectors however the article states that energy efficient building technologies will also contribute to the growth.

Some key facts about this Market Report:

• Electronics segment is expected to be a prospective market owing to its innovations and research to produce highly advanced devices such as digital eyeglasses and screens.
• Certain aspects are preventing the growth of the global smart glass market
• Comparable cost with its substitutes and lack of awareness about its benefits are inhibiting the market growth.
• North America accounts the major share in the global smart glass.
•  European market is expected to overtake the North American smart glass market in the forecast period. This will be resultant to the increasing demand for large size advanced windows in residential and commercial architectural structures.
• Further, market is distributed in regions of Latin America, Asia-Pacific Western Europe, Eastern Europe and Middle East & Africa.

The following is a summary of a report by DecisionDatabases.com, titled: “The Global Smart Glass Market Research Report – Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast”.  This provides the value chain analysis, market attractiveness analysis, and company share analysis along with key player’s complete profiles.

Information about Smartglass:

Also known as switchable glass, is a glass which can alter its light transmission properties on application of voltage, light or heat. These glasses are used in windows, skylights, doors, partitions and have extended their range in automotive industry, aircrafts and in marine applications.

The Smart Glasses Market is segmented on the basis of types as architectural, electronics, solar power generation and transportation, architectural segment being the major market segment.

According to this report the marketed is estimated to grow at a significant rate in the next few years. The major players that are driving this increase are to be in architectural and transportation sectors however the article states that energy efficient building technologies will also contribute to the growth.

Some key facts about this Market Report:

• Electronics segment is expected to be a prospective market owing to its innovations and research to produce highly advanced devices such as digital eyeglasses and screens.
• Certain aspects are preventing the growth of the global smart glass market
• Comparable cost with its substitutes and lack of awareness about its benefits are inhibiting the market growth.
• North America accounts the major share in the global smart glass.
•  European market is expected to overtake the North American smart glass market in the forecast period. This will be resultant to the increasing demand for large size advanced windows in residential and commercial architectural structures. 
• Further, market is distributed in regions of Latin America, Asia-Pacific Western Europe, Eastern Europe and Middle East & Africa.

In London, this week the Wearable Technology Show 2017 took place. This event is the largest event for wearables, AR, VR and IoT in Europe and RealWear were awarded the “Best Enterprise Solution.” These awards spot the “best innovators in the market” and “seek to recognize the excellence in wearables, smart device and IoT innovation.”

RealWear are the makers of the HMT-1. The HMT-1 is the first industrial head-mounted tablet and showcased this at the event introducing the new wearable. This new technology allows you to free your hands designed for skilled workers like technicians, engineers in field service, maintenance, equipment inspection and complex manufacturing assembly. Featuring voice control allowing you to work your Android tablets and smartphone apps handsfree.

The company spoke about how their hands-free head mounted tablets can help empower heavy industry workers and how enterprise wearables will play a major role in the evolution of the Internet of Voice. There HMT-1 is intended for remote video collaboration, technical documentation, industrial IoT data visualization, assembly and maintenance instructions. They believe this device is a safe, faster an smarter way for workers to get their jobs done in harsh, loud field and manufacturing environments.

European scientists are developing a new Augmented Reality surgical visor in a bid to improve accuracy of interventions, by employing new photonics technology.  The visor will show anaesthetic and medical data while superimposing a patient’s x-ray in perfect unison with their body, meaning surgeons never having to look away during operations, significantly reducing surgery times.

The VOSTARS (‘Video Optical See-Through Augmented Reality surgical System’) medical visor is a head-mounted display (HMD) system that is capable of superimposing the patient’s x-ray images in perfect 3D unison with their anatomy.

The visor presents other patient data such as anaesthetic data, heart rate, body temperature, blood pressure, and breathing rates, projecting them conveniently into the surgeon’s field of vision.  This is intended to increase the surgeon’s accuracy by focusing on the operation and reduce time by never having to look away.

The project forecasts a significant improvement of the intervention accuracy coupled with a reduction in time spent in an operation and under anaesthetic by at least 11%.  Technology features include the use of photonics components, with the small, high-luminous micro display, the LED optical waveguide, and the array of microns to project a 2D x-ray image in front of the user.

Project coordinator Dr Vincenzo Ferrari, biomedical engineering researcher at the Department of Information Engineering, at the University of Pisa, said: “With this state-of-the-art, highly ergonomic visor, we intend to provide all the information required to improve surgery. The primary goal is to reduce not just surgery times, but also the time spent under anaesthetic and the cost involved in any operation.”

Quicker surgery coupled with a higher degree of accuracy provides clear implications for the benefits, to patients, surgeons and healthcare management institutions.

In the same way that a facing camera on a smartphone films moving images, the VOSTARS system works by capturing what the surgeon sees from a head-mounted camera. The system then ‘merges’ this footage of reality with the patient’s medical images, from CT, MRI, or 3DUS scans.

The central processor, using the most advanced registration techniques available for surgical navigation, then presents a real-time hybrid image on the visor ‘dashboard’ to the surgeon.  The clinician can move freely around the patient.

A recent article summarises a new report by Gene Munster, of Loop Ventures, which ranks how some of the major tech players fare in Augmented Reality race.

Google parent Alphabet was an early player in the space, with its Glass and Tango products from several years ago. Munster says that while it might be easy to write off Glass, he calls it a “before-its-time experiment,” while Tango “looks like a for-its-time experiment.” Levono’s Phab 2 Pro is already Tango-enhanced and and Acer plans to make a Tango-ready phone. These devices will use rear-facing cameras to enable the AR experience.

Apple has also been moving into the space, as CEO Tim Cook has said repeatedly in recent months. Munster speculates that the next iPhone could be the first AR hardware with mass adoption if it integrates a dedicated 3D mapping chip as expected.

Munster writes that Microsoft “may be the furthest along in AR today” thanks to its Hololens and Windows Holographic OS. He writes that Microsoft will be determined not to miss out on the AR market with its competency being in productivity, an area that’s not necessary to win the AR OS battle.

Facebook bought Oculus in 2014, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been pushing Augmented Reality product hard. Facebook is experimenting with both VR and AR.

Munster doesn’t expect Amazon to try to enter the AR wearables space, but he does think they’re a player through Alexa, and these devices will eventually come with cameras that will further this capability.

Snap has an advantage because communication is a “key use” for AR, according to Munster, so its focus on the camera as a communication tool is an advantage. He expects them to focus more on communication in AR, making them an intermediary between developers and the larger OS players.

Maybe our conclusion is disheartening: in the foreseeable future, some combination of Google, Apple, and Microsoft is likely to win the AR OS race. While not exciting, it’s logical. Apple and Google, prior OS winners, won the mobile layer. Part of the reason is that these shifts are well defined and the existing players are carefully positioning themselves to be sure that they have a seat at the table. The good news is that the future won’t always be owned by the incumbents. As we move away from purely digital technologies into ones that combine the sciences — biology, chemistry, psychology – the opportunities for new major players will emerge.

In a recent article, the Mineral Exploration industry is said to be moving towards the use of Augmented and Virtual Reality.

The article states that in 2015, Integra Gold open-sourced the data on its Lamaque project in Val-d’Or, Que. The project has nearly 900,000 ounces of high-grade gold indicated and another 1 million ounces inferred.  As payoff for opening up its data, Integra got an artificially intelligent virtual reality model of its resources. As more data is collected and plowed into the model, the database learns from itself and creates increasingly accurate new models of the underground gold deposits.

George Salamis Chairman of Integra Gold has said that this technology is a much-needed digital revolution in mining since he felt that the mineral exploration industry is not normally known for its digital innovation.

He also commented: “The oil and gas industry is already about a decade ahead of mineral exploration… by creating $1-million contest that sought the best proposal for how to use data it put a call out not just to geoscientists but to tech developers, game designers and even medical researchers.”

In this year’s conference of Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada, which was held in Toronto this week, Quebec-based SGS Geostat took first place winning a $500,000 top prize with a program combining artificial intelligence and machine learning, data analytics and Virtual Reality which will map the Lamaque resources below ground in an interactive 3D space. The article says that this map will help the company go after high value drilling targets on the Val-d’Or property more accurately than traditional methods.

According to the article the exponential growth of computing power means that mines could now stick sensors on pretty much everything from haul trucks to worker uniforms, tracking the data centrally and then open-sourcing it to let the tech world help find efficiency improvements and solve problems.

News was announced this week by Caterpillar Inc about the availability of their CAT LIVESHARE software platform, delivered in conjunction with AREA member Scope AR.  This software delivers the industry’s first Augmented Reality-based live video calling platform for members of the Cat dealer network to conduct real-time remote support, training and equipment maintenance.

According to the article hundreds of users across six Cat dealers have already starting using the software worldwide in the United States, South Africa, Australia, Denmark and Canada.

Scott Montgomerie, CEO and co-founder of Scope AR has said, “we are thrilled by the immediate response to and adoption of CAT LIVESHARE. When downtime of complex equipment can lead to millions of dollars in lost revenue and days of lost productivity on a job site, it’s imperative that expert knowledge can be shared with remote workers in real-time to help with repairing, troubleshooting a problem or conducting maintenance on equipment. Through the use of CAT LIVESHARE, companies can now ensure workers complete a procedure accurately every time, while also documenting the process for accountability, performance assessment and knowledge retention.” 

CAT LIVESHARE is based upon Scope AR’s Remote AR technology. The platform delivers an ‘unprecedented’ ability to save time and money by combining Augmented Reality with live video streaming, voice, 3D animation, annotation, screen sharing and white-boarding to simulate the effectiveness of having the expert looking over your shoulder guiding you on what to do step-by-step.

Caterpillar have over 160 dealers and millions of pieces of Cat equipment in use worldwide. This new platform, CAT LIVESHARE, is gaining significant adoption, with several operators and dealers having already recognized the potential for efficiency and cost gains.