CeBIT Showcases Latest Wearable Technology Hitting the Market

The device looks like an odd pair of glasses with green lights that point at your eyes and promise to beat body-clock problems. Exactly how the ReTimer works is unclear, but those green LEDs are really pulsing at a frequency your brain can’t detect (but which drives the focusing system on a Nikon camera nuts). The lights are supposed to boost melatonin production. For it to be effective, you have to use it for a few days.

The 4D Force headset, demonstrated by 4D Force executive Tamara Garcia Sabido, lets you interact directly with a computer using only your brainwaves. The product has a number of applications, the first of which is to use a game to improve situational awareness. But the product can also control a computer directly, which means it can be developed into means of helping physically challenged workers who couldn’t use a computer otherwise.

What’s the one piece of technology you wear nearly all the time? It’s your phone, of course. And virtually every phone in existence can use Bluetooth. This is the idea behind Blue ID from Baimos Technology. The company makes software for most phone platforms that lets you do things such as lock and unlock your car or open gates, barriers and doors. Here, you see a simulated locking key fob for that BMW I mentioned earlier. The people at Baimos wouldn’t let us drive it somewhere to try out other functions.

This may only look like a plastic mannequin wearing a camera on its shoulder, but in reality this is a simulated airport security guard hurrying to a spot out of reach of the built-in security cameras. The bag at her side contains both a transmitter and location electronics allowing the security staff to track where the images are coming from. Both are from BPS Technologies.

The shoulder-mounted camera actually works. This is the image taken by the simulated security guard. BPS is working to put the whole thing into a headset, eliminating the need for the shoulder-mounted camera and the bag at the waist.

The ICE Dot was originally designed as a crash sensor for people involved in sports, such as skiing, where accidents are common. However, this product is also applicable for companies with workers who might face potentially hazardous situations while working alone, such as in construction. The ICE Dot works by communicating with the user’s phone. When it senses a crash, the ICE Dot software comes to life on your phone and asks you to respond within a certain time. If you don’t (perhaps you’re trapped or unconscious), then your phone automatically informs a defined contact list of your current location. This gives your contacts a chance to save you.

StormFly from Now Computing is designed to be a computer operating system that lives on your wrist. Contained in the orange wristband (other colors may be available shortly) worn by marketing director Maye Mac-Swiney, the OS allows someone to reboot a Mac or a PC and then interrupts the boot process so that StormFly can take control of the computer hardware to run particular functions or maintain security.

The Blukii device is a Blootooth proximity sensor system that takes advantage of the signal characteristics of Smart Bluetooth to tell when the transmitter button is beyond a defined range. The Blukii device includes motion and temperature sensors. It is available as a near-field communication device in addition to Bluetooth.

The Blukii device can be worn as a button, an employee ID badge or carried as a pen. Because the parent company also makes pens, this form of the Blukii carries not only the actual devices, but on the other side of the pen, a stack of thin slips of paper.

When the person wearing the Blukii device moves beyond a set distance, the Blukii software detects this and it puts the laptop into protected mode. The screen comes up as a warning that you should leave it alone.

If the Blukii warning is on and if you touch the computer or try to use the keyboard, you’ll see a flashing approximation of an emergency beacon. You’ll also hear a very annoying sound. Think of the dive warning from World War II submarine movies, and you’ll have the idea.

In addition to sounding an alarm and annoying everyone in the vicinity of your computer, Blukii also takes a photo of whomever was tampering with your computer and sends it to your phone. In this case, the culprit was a passing eWEEK writer.