W|W: The Wearable Weekly – Wearables Meet Basketballs

Welcome to The Wearable Weekly, your trusted guide to all things wearable tech. If you only have time to read one thing about wearables this week, this is it.

Industry Highlights

VR gets its game on: Where last week we reported on a flurry of VR activity in the media sector, this week it was the sports worlds turn. The NBA marked a huge milestone this week in live broadcasting the Warriors-Pelican game in VR. Iowa State and UNLV both reported they are now using VR for recruitment. And the Sacramento Kings made a major investment in VR platform VOKE, taking an equity stake in the company.

Wearable adoption on the up and up: Although Apple remained mum on its Apple Watch numbers in their recent earnings call, Quartz did some back of the napkin math, purporting the tech giant has now sold over 5 million watches. Apple’s traction is echoed in Strategy Analytics’ recent report that puts Apple in first place with 74% marketshare of global smartwatch shipments, which they say grew 510% annually, hitting a record of 6.1M in the third quarter of this year. But it was an eMarketer report this week that illustrated the real growth potential of wearables, with one third of the adult US population expected to be a wearable user by as early as 2019.

Statistics & Forecasts

Almost two in five internet users will use wearables by 2019, says eMarketer (eMarketer)

Global smartwatch shipments grew 510% annually, hitting a record 6.1 million in third quarter of 2015, with Apple Watch in first place with 74% marketshare, says Strategy Analytics (PR Newswire)

Worldwide wearable shipments for 2015 will be around 84 million units, says CCS Insights (Forbes)

Global Smart Wearables for Sports and Fitness Market Is Anticipated to Reach $14.9 Billion by 2021, says Market Store Research (Digital Journal)

Apple has probably sold more than 5 million watches so far, says Quartz (Quartz)

11% of Apple Watch wearers sleep with the device according to Wristly survey (Business Insider)

75% of Juniper survey respondents chose either Apple or Samsung as most popular smartwatch (CNET)

1 in 5 customers are prepared to pay more than $175 (~£115) for any sort of wearable device, says Junpier survey (Android Authority)

Device Announcements

Razer now taking preorders for its Open Source Virtual Reality development kit (VentureBeat)

HTC Grip delayed again to early 2016 (MobileSyrup)

India getting Apple Watch on November 6 (CNBC)

Baublebar and Jawbone collaborate on wearable tech bracelet (Fashionista)

Second generation Moto 360 now available in Canada (MobileSyrup)

EE launches world’s first wearable 4G streaming camera (TechRadar)

Funding, Crowdfunding & M&A

Sacremento Kings take equity stake in VR platform company VOKE (NBA)

Envelop VR raises $4M in a Series A round led by Madrona Venture Group (Geekwire)

AuraVisor, the first untethered cross-platform virtual reality headset launches Kickstarter campaign (Telegraph)

Major Milestones

Oculus released Social Alpha (Engadget)

AR leader Blippar launches Blippar Lab to explore innovative uses of AR and VR (VentureBeat)

MasterCard rolls out new Commerce for Every Device platform with Nymi, Ringly and TrackR as first partners (MobileSyrup)

First Apple Watch app, CaféWell Concierge, powered by IBM Watson debuts (Fortune)

NBA broadcasts Warriors-Pelicans game live in VR (Re/Code)

Mark Cuban’s Sports Media And Technology Center partners with Biglook360 to bring first VR broadcast for College Basketball to Samsung Gear VR (SportTechie)

Iowa State using VR for football recruitment (The Gazette)

UNLV partners with EON Sports VR to use VR for recruits (Review Journal)

Apple Music and U2 partner on virtual reality music video (Apple Insider)

German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases identifies VR as a way to gauge risk of Alzheimers (Digital Trends)

Rumours

AR startup Magic Leap in talks with Alibaba on major investment round (Re/Code)

Nokia amendment to its articles of association suggest company is gearing up for wearable launch (Phone Arena)

Title Image: NBA.com