Tech Trends in Practice

TREND 3From Wearables to Augmented Humans

The One-Sentence Definition

This trend harnesses artificial intelligence (AI, Trend 1), the Internet of Things (IoT, Trend 2), Big Data (Trend 4), and robotics (Trend 13) to create wearable devices and technology that help to improve the physical – and potentially mental – performance of humans, and help us lead healthier, better lives.

What Are Wearables and Augmented Humans?

Perhaps the most prevalent examples of wearables today are fitness tracker bands and smart watches – small, easy-to-wear devices that typically monitor our activity and provide insights that help us lead healthier, better, more productive lives. However, the term “wearable” doesn’t necessarily mean something that you strap onto your wrist or wear elsewhere on your body; it also extends to “smart” clothing, such as running shoes that can measure your running gait and performance, advances like robotic prosthetics, and robotic wearable technology used in industrial settings.

As technology gets smaller and smarter, the sheer range of wearables is going to expand enormously – and new, smaller, smarter products will emerge to supersede the wearables we’re familiar with today. For example, we already have smart glasses, but these are likely to be replaced by smart contact lenses (see practical applications later in the chapter). And after that, smart contact lenses will likely be replaced by smart eye implants.

Advances like this lead many to believe that humans ...