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Key Technologies In Wearables

Batteries

The very first kinds of modern commercially available batteries were the cheaper zinc-carbon batteries (which were used in many early transportable electronics, such as the first flashlights) and the more expensive yet rechargeable nickel-cadmium batteries. However, modern wearable technology is built with the lithium ion battery, the first of which was created by a research team in Japan in 1985 and commercialized in 1991 by Sony. Ever since that particular technology hit the battery market, it has been the staple for any kind of rechargeable product, from portable computers to personal electric transport to even rechargeable batteries in the format of batteries based on chemical reaction. Lithium ion batteries differ from previous kinds by having a unique combination of characteristics. They work by having two separate metallic terminals separated by an insulator, which means that current can flow one way and be sent back in the opposite direction without much wear and tear on the battery infrastructure. They don't suffer from the "memory effect", are relatively safe to dispose of compared to their cadmium counterparts.

Touchscreens

The first touchscreen was invented in 1965 by E.A. Johnson at the Royal Radar Establishment in Malvern, United Kingdom. It was a capacitive touchscreen, which operated by sensing the change in current across a conductive surface filament and pinpointing the contact point based on the collected data from the sensors. Soon after, resistive touchscreens were stumbled upon by Hurst and his associated research team at the University of Kentucky in 1970. Resistive touch, which works via pressure cutting off flow from a circuit, is a much more versatile kind of touchscreen technology that is also cheaper to produce compared to capacitive touch, and has since its invention supplied the large majority of touchscreen demand.

Products utilizing touchscreen technology included Hewlett-Packard's HP-150, released in September of 1983, the Simon Personal Communicator, a collaborative project between IBM and BellSouth that became one of the world's first touchscreen cellphones in 1993, and Apple's MessagePad 100, which was Apple's first ever touchscreen device.

The progression of touchscreens into multitouch capable platforms in 2002 allowed for additional versatility and controllability in the devices that used it. Soon after this landmark, Microsoft's Surface came along in 2008, and Apple's first iPhone in 2007. Today, touchscreen technology is utilized in commercially available wearable technology products like the Apple Watch, Fitbit, and many others.

Microprocessors

Processors are the centerpiece of any computing device, the thing responsible for the actual execution of functions within the computer. However, it wasn't until the microprocessor was invented that one was able to get substantial processing power in a small package. The first commercial microprocessor was Intel's 4004, which was created in 1971 with the idea in mind of creating a single 2300 transistor chip that could handle all of a computer's basic function. The Personal Computer, created by IBM, released on August 12, 1981, and literally the first mass produced personal computer, used the Intel 8086, a microprocessor adapted from the 4004's design. Since then, the microprocessor has been central to many modern electronics, from thermostats to washing machines and beyond. Microprocessors handle a large majority of the calculations of the computer at rates in the billions of times a second with modern technology.