This year, the trendy wearables are all fitness trackers, which have already become something of a meme among gadget makers.
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Questioned by moderators Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg, who manage the technology blog by the same name, Cook seemed to hint that Apple may someday enter the "wearables" market, but declined to be specific.
Devices as non-intrusive and intimate as Shine show how machines are learning how to work with us in the age of wearables, rather than the other way round, says Olof Schybergson, chief executive of Fjord, a design consultancy.
There are already over a dozen wearables on the market with many more coming.
It had passed industry standard tests but the company found it had needed its own more rigorous testing as it explored the unknown territory of wearables.
Pebble has already demonstrated consumer interest in a watch that tethers to a smartphone, and Google Glass has staked claim to the leading edge on wearables.
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Second, Apple has to be in wearables and the iWatch is the first step: Yes it does, and that makes the iWatch a little like an ear-phone project.
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You can listen to, or even bump into the likes of Sonny Vu, the CEO of Misfit Wearables and Daniel Kraft, MD who leads FutureMed at Singularity University.
MOSSBERG:So is part of the post-PC era wearables that go beyond just sort of fitness devices that we have now?
Internalising sensors may be the inevitable next step after wearables.
We also got to take a peek at some hot-off-the-press Pebbles in their final finishes -- the black, gray, orange, red and white wearables posed for a point-and-shoot, so they don't pack the typical punch of a pro photo job.
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Having cycled through a few fitness tracking devices myself, I was naturally curious to see what Misfit Wearables has been up to for the past year.
Still, among the digerati, real-world uses for wearables are emerging.
Over the past three months the news around Google and Apple has been about wearables -specifically about Glass and iWatch.
But wearables are superficial by nature and cannot provide the level of in-depth data of embedded sensors being developed for the body.
Apple's entry with a smart watch could also jump-start the market, although Sonny Vu, chief executive of Misfit Wearables, says positioning a device on a wrist could be too restrictive for many people.
Tech companies like Google, Apple and Samsung, though, might be myopic when it comes to wearables, over-influenced by sci-fi cliches and unable to see past the obvious, the wrist and eye-wear.
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