Welcome to The Wearable Weekly, your trusted guide to all things wearable tech. If you only have time to read one thing about wearables this week, this is it.
Industry Highlights
Oculus goes “hands-on” in the virtual world. Gearing up for its Q1 2016 consumer release of its virtual reality device, Oculus unveiled the final design of the Rift at a pre-E3 event yesterday. Oculus also announced a partnership with Microsoft that will see a wireless Xbox One controller bundled with the HMD, as well as Xbox Content and Windows 10 support. Oculus pulled a “one more thing” at the end of its presentation, surprising us with a first look at Oculus Touch, a set of handheld controllers that put your hands in virtual reality.
And you’ll need those hands to pet virtual animals in this virtual zoo. Landmark Entertainment Group is working on a $200 million virtual theme park in China. Called the L.I.V.E. Centre (Landmark Interactive Virtual Experience), it will offer up four hours of virtual entertainment including a virtual zoo and virtual aquarium.
But VR isn’t all fun and games. It has medical purposes, too. As prices drop on virtual reality headsets, more and more doctors and therapists are viewing VR as a valuable medical tool. VR is being used to treat PTSD, evaluate patients with glaucoma and more.
Statistics & Forecasts
The U.S. wearable sensors market is expected to increase to $100.35 million by 2018 at a CAGR of 46.87% over the period 2014-2020 according to Research & Markets (Business Wire)
Global market for smart wearables is projected to reach USD $37 billion by 2020 according to TechSci research report (PR Newswire)
Device Announcements
Oculus unveiled the final design of the consumer version of Oculus Rift, a partnership with Microsoft bundling an Xbox One Controller and new handheld controller, Oculus Touch (MobileSyrup)
Thync, the mood-changing wearable, is now for sale (Engadget)
The search engine, Lycos, announced they are launching a smart ring and smart band (The Verge)
Polar M400 was updated to support notifications (Wareable)
Huawei’s smartwatch is delayed (MobileSyrup)
ODG unveiled its enterprise smart glasses R-7 (Re/Code)
Funding, Crowdfunding, and M&A
VR Software company, Envelop VR, raised $2 million in seed funding to build its enterprise software for VR (Reuters)
NeuroLutions has raised $1.15 million to further clinical trials of its brain computer interface for stroke patients (Bizjournals)
Major Milestones
OMsignal launches pop-up shop in SF (Tech.co)
SensoMotoric Instruments and AltspaceVR demonstrate eye-tracking technology for virtual reality (Digital Journal)
Landmark Entertainment announced they are building a virtual reality amusement park in China (Mashable)
Pebble iOS app finally approved on the App Store (MobileSyrup)
The Dallas Cowboys have signed a two-year deal with StriVR Labs to train its players using virtual reality (Re/Code)
SoftKinetic announced its expanding its 3D vision and gesture recognition solution to allow multi-players to interact in virtual reality (PR Newswire)
Futuremark released its virtual reality benchmarking system VRMark (Road to VR)
Quantum introduces new augmented reality interface for smart glasses to improve navigation (FierceMobile IT)
Apple unveiled watchOS 2 for the Apple Watch – to bring native apps and new watchfaces to the device this fall (MobileSyrup)
Apple watchOS 2 will bring Activation Lock to the Apple Watch as an added security feature (The Verge)
Atheer added Intelligent Voice and Head-motion Controls to its gesture-based AiR smart glasses platform (Business Wire)
APX Labs announced its expanding its Skylight wearable technology platform to other devices including smartwatches (CDN)
Recon Instruments launched a new app, Fuel, for Jet (BetaKit)
Walgreens launched Apple Watch app to support medication adherence (Business Wire)
Jawbone has filed its second legal complaint against Fitbit (BBC)
Rumours
Google’s ATAP Job posting hints that Google Glass is moving forward (Business Insider)
Samsung is reportedly putting Samsung Pay on its smartwatches (Reuters)
