Foxconn gave a demo of a smartwatch last week that can check messages and Facebook and will soon also offer fingerprint recognition and further health-monitoring capabilities.
Taiwan’s Hon Hai Precision Industry, better known as Foxconn, one of Apple’s chief manufacturing partners, demonstrated the watch during its shareholder meeting this week. The device can link via Bluetooth to an iPhone, check and monitor the wearer’s vital signs (and offer advice if it doesn’t approve of the owner’s heart or pulse rate) and can be used to check messages and Facebook posts.
According to the Want China Times, Hon Hai chairman Terry Gou said that the current iteration of the device is simply the first stage and that the company’s wireless communications and medical research groups were also gearing up to add extra features such as fingerprint recognition. “With such a device, you can keep your phone in your pocket and simply check all kinds of messages on your watch,” Gou told shareholders.
June is shaping up to be a huge month for smartwatches. As well as Foxconn’s demo — which will no doubt help send the Apple iWatch rumour mill into overdrive — Sony this week launched a new version of its existing Android-powered smartwatch, the Sony Smartwatch 2. What’s more, Intel announced that it is actively developing smatwatches and Acer confirmed that it would be launching its first wearable computing device in early 2014.
Foxconn is yet to confirm when its smartwatch will launch or how much it will cost.
Source: The Hindustan Times
