14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft already has the Band on the market, it’s working on Band 2, and concept photos published online today reveal another smartwatch that could have launched in 2014, so there’s no doubt that there’s more to come from the software giant in this particular industry.
And Dave Coplin, Microsoft UK’s Chief Envisioning Officer, has talked about the future of wearables in a post on Vodafone UK, explaining that Redmond is already looking into ways to change the way they work in a much more innovative way thanks to technologies that have already been developed.
“Today when we think about wearables all we think about is fitness devices. That’s not the point of wearables - that’s just one use case for them. If you have a device that fits on your wrist then it has the capability to let you interact with technology in a really interesting way. And because we’re Microsoft and we’ve got the breadth, we can start to work on technologies that really bring these devices to life,” he says.
The small touch display can be a lot more useful
Smartwatches obviously come with small touch displays that can be barely used for some tasks (Microsoft, for some reason, also offered a small keyboard on the Band, although it’s a nightmare to type on it, especially when wearing it on your wrist), but new tech could make it a lot more useful.
A technology that Microsoft presented in February can be used to analyze the text included in an email and provide you with options based on this content, so you can easily reply with a pre-defined message based on the displayed option.
“An example could be someone emailing you and asking what you want for tea when you get home - pizza or curry. Instead of displaying a long-winded email on a wearable with a small screen, the algorithm spots that you’re being asked a choice, and will present you with two options: pizza or curry, with a button for each,” he goes on to detail.
Just as expected, no specifics have been provided on when the next Band or wearable device could launch, but sources claim that the Band 2 is likely to see daylight after the debut of Windows 10 on July 29.
Reports on this revealed that the second-generation Band was already being tested in Europe, which could point to a possible international launch of the device, as opposed to the first model, which was only released in the United States at first.
Microsoft’s future in the wearables industry sure looks interesting, and just looking at the Moonraker concept confirms it, but only time will tell if the software giant can become a key player in this still growing side of the market.