'Wearable' Computer Industry Seeking Status

摘要

Vendors and others attending the International Conference on Wearable Computing in Fairfax, Va., received upbeat, yet cautionary advice on the market potential of their products during opening-day presentations May 12. Voicing a mantra familiar among computer spin-off industries, conference speakers proclaimed the dawn of wearable computers—battery-powered information processing systems worn as a belt, a vest, or a backpack, and often including head-mounted displays. But while the enabling technologies have arrived, they said, the business cases, infrastructure needs, and cultural changes required to sell "wearables" are off in the distance.