Microsoft joins the wearables race

Microsoft joins Google in the race of creating wearables. All of us know that Google is developing its internet-connected eyewear (Google Glass), but now Microsoft has announced its interest on the subject. A report published last week in The Wall Street Journal revealed that the company is now testing smart glass prototypes of its own technology.

The rumors surrounding this news talk about a possible link with Microsoft’s Xbox line of gaming products, including the Kinect Glass initiative known as “Project Fortaleza”. This Kinect Glasses are slated as a 2014 product, but it’s not easy to know if they have gone further than the prototype stage.

Microsoft is trying to enter the future market of wearables, which could reach US$10 billion by 2016 (according to new data from http://www.gartner.com/). However, the company had variable success with the peripherals. Xbox 360 and its Kinect accessory have been a tremendous success, but the failure of watches is still a recent wound.

So, there is no apparent reason for the company not to study a glass technology. It’s possible than Google didn’t succeed in this field, partially due the sensitivity of the people to their privacy. Google Glass walks very close to exposure to privacy invasion, and it could prove to be a problem for the mass production of the product. However, the technology is still too new for a good prediction. Maybe it will just disappear, or maybe in three-five years everybody will be wearing any kind of smart complement.

McGregor said that Microsoft has just as much potential as everyone else, but no one knows exactly how the market, devices and services will develop or when. We have a limited experience in this field, but we know that it takes two or three generations (about five years) after the first products were introduced to know if a given technology will became appealing to the mass market.

Source: technewsworld.