Wearing IT Out: The Growth of the Wireless, Wearable World.
Always-on, wearable, wireless computing and communications devices will become a dominant channel for retailers and service providers. The widespread adoption of such devices will reshape multiple industries.
During the next decade, a number of technologies will coalesce to drive the widespread availability of always-on, mobile computing and communications devices, or "wireless interactive devices" (WIDs). WIDs will evolve from personal digital assistants (PDAs), Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) telephones and other form factors. The increasing price/performance capabilities of WIDs will combine with improvements in wireless access and user interface technologies (e.g., speech recognition and wearable displays) to provide inexpensive lightweight devices that will be broadly adopted and frequently used.
Gartner Strategic Planning Assumption:
By 2007, more than 60 percent of the European Union and U.S. population aged 15 to 50 will carry or wear a wireless computing and communications device at least six hours a day, and by 2010, more than 75 percent will do so (0.6 probability).
