With the
increase development of wearable technology designed for personal and
professional uses i.e. smartwatches like The Apple Watch, virtual reality head
sets and within this industry wear able technology has found its way into
helping people with disabilities or impairments i.e. hearing aids or cochlea
implants and wearable has been very helpful with the development of athletes
i.e. Fit Bit, Hysoco boxing trackers. The development of wearable technology
has gone up a great deal since 2000 from the Bluetooth ear piece to the Apple
watch, but by looking at the progression of wearable technology I think that
there is more technological convergence to be done in the sense that in a wide
variety of devises, which all offer different properties and tools, but there
is no over lapping areas with different pieces of wearable technology i.e. there
is no VR headset that you an take a phone call on or a pair of headphones which
will trach your run. I think that the next step in the development of wearable
technology is to have a device which will do a wide variety of tasks and serve
both personal and professional needs
The
changing media market place means that the average internet user accesses 5
different social media platforms a day creating a higher influx of messages and
notifications meaning the average brit will check their phone and average
10,000 times a year, which is the equivalent to checking it 28 times a day.
This increased influx of social media and communication across a wide variety
of platforms and mediums in the last 10-20 years has made us more connected in different
ways both personal and professional. In 2012 texting over took phone calls a
the most popular ways to communicate, which I think leaves the ability open to
the development in the communication technology sector of a much more convenient
way to receive and view these messages, which I not as invasive as getting
message after message and needing to check your phone 28 times a day.
A change in
cross industry relationships have created the opportunity for new technology
products like this one, a good example of this would be the smartphone and the
technological convergence that has been included in the development of that.
Through the convergence of different technologies in to one devise it has
opened the market up to more developments of technological convergence to serve
the purposes of the user, i.e. through developments and technological convergence
all smart phones now have internet access, a camera, games, guided exercise,
movies/tv, music player, telephone, news, books, courses, maps, texting, email,
calculator and shopping, these are nowadays seen as the basics in what you
would expect of a mobile phone this is an example of black box theory i and technological
convergences has led to the eclipse of many other forms of technologies i.e. Apple
that the iPod had met its end and then discontinued he iPod classic in 2014,
which I think is a direct correlation to the integration of a music player into
the standard smartphone. I also have seen that the uses of web 3.0 could be
applicable to my product in the sense that with more intelligent and connective
data on my particular users habits and hobbies my product would be able to provide
an personalised experience for the user so that it would know not to be too intrusive
in certain situations
Large
conglomerate companies have changed to meet the needs of convergence technology
by changing the properties and abilities of their products, for example Apple have
changed the size of their screens as their products have developed to make it
more pliable to other types of media that have been integrated into their
products i.e. VOD services will benefit from the increased screen size and with
the development of video calling with things like Skype being released in 2003 they
converged this technology into their product by introducing a front facing
camera to the iPhone 4 in 2010 so you could make video calls. These examples of
product developments in response to new technologies and then converging them
with their own product to make them more functional and desirable. This is a
applicable to my product as things in the field of image projection and VR is
still developing and as the technology develops the product will be open to
different developments into and open to other convergent technologies.
