Wearable technology: a glimpse into the future or just another passing fad

In the last month alone, the Pebble watch has gone on sale, Google officially announced Glass and Apple's iWatch was all but confirmed. We've even had reports of a dress that turns clear when you are turned on.

It might be too early to start writing obituaries for portable technology but it is becoming easier to argue that the next wave of technology innovation has already arrived.

The idea of wearable technology is not a new one. It dates back to the age of the Casio calculator wristwatches and is born out of the vision to seamlessly interweave technology into our everyday lives – the ultimate goal being to make technology pervasive and interaction fluid.

Like any other wave of technology, it has as many critics as it has champions. While the early adopters are chomping at the bit with the thought of what is yet to come, the sceptics are pointing out the loopholes and their concerns already.

One of the main points they bring up is that of battery life and how these gadget will fare when smartphones are barely over the line in terms of solving that conundrum. Another is that of privacy and just how much information about us these gadgets will reveal to the people we pass on the street.

Despite some negative press, I find it difficult to overlook the opportunities presented by wearable technology. It promises benefits to personal safety, health and a host of other plus points. It also represents the latest and most advanced convergence between that of the human body and technology, and nobody knows quite where this will eventually lead us.

Inventors are always looking for 'the next big thing', and more often than not it turns out to be anything but. This is not the first time we have reached what many believed to be a sea change in technology, but when you consider the players involved this time around, the knowledge and means at their disposal, and the rate at which technology has been moving forward over the last few years, it is not so fanciful to believe we could on the threshold of something groundbreaking.

Is Nokia the new SEGA?

In the late 80s/early90s, SEGA was one of the biggest players in technology. In a pre-Playstation age, the Japanese company dominated the video gamesmarket along with Nintendo, producing both outstanding consoles likethe Mega Drive and video games like Sonic The Hedgehog. SEGA vsNintendo was basically the Android vs iOS debate of its time.

Fast forward a fewyears and the company is not only a shadow of its glorious past butbarely visible in the gaming world it once dominated. Profits arerapidly declining, the console making arm has been closed andgenerally, SEGA is all but out of the games development andpublishing business except for a few titles it is still pushing out.

The reason behindSEGA's decline has been discussed extensively by gaming enthusiastsand having followed that discussion with keen interest, I can't helpnoticing the similarities with Nokia's current situation.

At the dawn of themobile phone revolution in the late 90s and early noughties, Nokiawas standard bearer and pace setter when it came to mobile phones.The mobile phone market was basically 'Nokia and the rest' but fastforward a few years to the smartphone era and Nokia is struggling forany significant share of voice.

Despite various attempts at a phone that competes with the iPhones and Samsung Galaxys, including its flagship Lumia range, business hasn't been going too well for Nokia. The Finnish company recently announced losses of $1.27 billion, mainly due to a sharp decline in sales of itsmartphones. There has also been reports of unit closures and joblosses as it continues to struggle.

Perhaps the mostinteresting recent development from Nokia is that it now has its mapping app, Here available in Apple's App Store. This has caused some morediscussions about the future of the company and whether it will endup as an app and component maker for other phone manufacturers, in the same waySEGA only exists as a games developer and publisher, or if it hashatched a very clever plot to use Apple's iOS6 mapping issues torebuild faith in its product.

No one knows how the story will end but it is clear to see that Nokia will not go quietly.There are a few phones lined up to be released and the company continues to work on new ideas that will allow it to compete against other smartphones available on the market. The only questionthat is left to be answered is whether these new phones will driveNokia back into reckoning or whether it will just be the equivalentof the SEGA Saturn and DreamCast, which ultimately proved to be thelast great effort from a dying brand.