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Google To Compete With Apple and Samsung On Smart Watch

This article is more than 10 years old.

I had thought that the next leap forward for the smartphone community would be 3D vision, or clever technology that creates the illusion of 3D on a small mobile screen. HP is working on it, Samsung is collaborating with Russian scientists to create a new system, Apple has patents in the field. 3D vision is driving a lot of innovative thinking and is integral to good eye-tracking. But the specter of the smart watch will not go away.

The Financial Times is carrying a story that Google too is now working on a smart watch and it is doing so in its Android division rather than at X Labs, where the folks are looking after Google Glass and the driverless car. CNET interprets Android's involvement as a fast track to market.

Calculations by analysts suggest that the market for a smart watch could be worth anything from $2.3 billion to $6 billion for the company with first mover advantage.

An alternative view is that California tech companies are stuck in the device paradigm and seriously need to look at new ways of using sensor technology. The smart watch is a low-barrier to entry peripheral that start-ups such as Pebble already have covered. It's also one that has failed to convince consumers, so far. The watch market, itself, is highly fragmented, if indeed it is any guide to what will happen with smart watched.

Nonetheless, from Apple's point of view and therefore from the point of view of fast followers like Samsung, the smart watch market might resemble the MP3 market prior to Apple's entry there.

Before Apple designed and marketed an MP3 player the market was full of similar devices without Apple's legendary design flare.

But the reality is that Apple did more than create a device with its original MP3s. Along with iTunes, it provided an IP managed solution to the panic caused by Napster and other file sharing sites that seemed to have no respect for creative ownership.

It's difficult to see a similar problem waiting for an elegant solution in the area of the smart watch, though enthusiasts say it will save you getting your phone out of your pocket.

Of course it will also give you a short cut to your email, and to significant incoming data, as well as being part health monitor. Is that enough for three global tech titans to feast on? So it seems.

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