It usually begins as skunk work…but then topics might eventually emerge as trends, even mega trends. Currently, some mega trends exist: drone delivery and wearable gadgets among them. Wearable gadgets are nowhere close to replacing smartphones, but they are certainly gaining traction. Wearable gadgets have the potential of being highly disruptive and they come in all shapes and styles, rings, bracelets, watches, glasses to name a few.
Many of them are tracking your vitals, mainly to document workout sessions. Others alert you when emails arrive, track kids or pets. What I find very inspirational is the “Like It” ring that recently won the James Dyson Award. Take a look here: http://www.jamesdysonaward.org/projects/like-ring/ This is a wearable device for Facebook. By raising your thumb, the ring takes a photo and then uploads it to Facebook directly. `Like It` ring recognizes images. Such as brand logos, bar codes of your favorite products, then share your interests on Facebook timeline.
This concept transports a Facebook community feature (the Like button) into the real world and that’s a cool idea. It might be a starting point for a new emerging trend: wearable gadgets as a way to further blur the lines between the Internet and the “real” world….virtual becomes real…that’s an important concept and my VC company quantumReality is deeply engaged in skunk work to come up with a Ring that takes this to the next level: blur the lines between remote feelings in the real world and on the Internet. For further information on that please see www.remotefeelings.com.
I´m excited about these trends and hope that more and more people engage in wearable gadgets and contribute to blur the lines between Internet and actual world, between virtual and real … more and more…so one day we might be able to answer the legendary question: “Is the moon there when nobody looks?” Sounds strange? No! :o): it’s all about the question what we consider as “real”.