South Korean electronics manufacturer Samsung Electronics Co. is gearing up to beat rivals, Sony Corp. and Apple Inc., in creating a new category of wearable technology devices as it plans to release by next month its new Galaxy Gear smart watch.
The device will be unveiled at the same day as Samsung’s Galaxy Note 3 – a smart phone and tablet combo device.
Although Samsung continues to work on developing a bendable screen, the Galaxy Gear will not have a flexible display. Instead, it is expected to appear much like the Proxima smart watch prototype introduced by Samsung last year. That device featured a wide-wristband which had a removable screen that which shows time and has on-screen buttons for making calls and email.
The wearable computing device market is a potentially large money maker. The global watch industry alone is expected to generate $60 billion this year. A company that is able to become first in marketing a device that brings together smart phone, tablet and video capabilities, could lock consumers to its platform.
Apple claims to have 100 engineers working on its iWatch project which is expected to be released sometime this year. Google recently release for public testing its Google Glasses device.