Once the stuff of science-fiction shows and spy movies, wearable devices are now becoming reality. While still in its infancy, wearable technology is already poised to redefine the technological landscape, and the newly announced Wearables Developer Conference will gather the developers behind it into a unified industry.
Taking place from March 5-7 in Burlingame, Calif., Wearables DevCon will bring together more than 300 app developers, software engineers and product designers for intensive tutorials, technical classes, product exhibitions and services.
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The conference gives developers building and innovating the first generation of wearable computer products like Google Glass, Samsung Galaxy Gear, Fitbit, Pebble, SmartWatch 2, Jawbone and Google’s forthcoming Gem smartwatch the opportunity to ask questions, showcase their products and bounce ideas off other wearable developers. They’ll learn new ways to program the hardware and software behind these devices, taking classes and tutorials focusing on app development and core coding topics, all specialized for wearable technology.
BZ Media LLC, which publishes SD Times, is managing the conference, another in its stable of conferences including AnDevCon, the world’s largest Android developer conference; SPTechCon: The SharePoint Technology Conference; Big Data TechCon; and the upcoming Cloud DevCon, an event about Amazon Web Services. Wearables DevCon is now calling for speakers to share their knowledge and insight into the state and future of wearable computing at WearablesDevCon.com.
“Wearable computing devices are the next big wave in technology,” said Ted Bahr, president of BZ Media and conference director of Wearables DevCon. “The winning developers in this market are going to be the ones who take advantage of these new technologies early and build the next generation of red-hot apps. If you are designing, building or developing applications for the upcoming wearables revolution, you need to come to Wearables DevCon.”
Juniper Research projects nearly 15 million wearable devices, US$800 million worth of glasses, watches, and health and fitness monitors will be sold in 2013 alone. They expect wearable devices to be worth more than $1.5 billion by 2014, and eclipse 70 million devices sold by 2017.
Bahr believes Wearables DevCon will give developers the practical, how-to knowledge they need to produce the innovative software powering wearable computing devices.
“This is the first event focusing on how to actually build the software, taking developers on deep dives into wearable SDKs,” Bahr said, “and give them a leg up in bringing apps to market, fast.”
