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.
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Statistics & Forecasts
IDC says that AR and VR device shipments will reach 99.4 million units in 2021, up nearly 10-fold from the 10.1 million units shipped in 2016 (CED Magazine)
Technavio analysts forecast the global VR gaming market to grow at an impressive CAGR of over 67 percent during 2017 to 2021 (Business Wire)
CCS Insights suggests that 43 million smartwatches will be shipped in 2017, with sales doubling over the next four years to 86 million units in 2021 (CCS Insights)
eMarketer report suggests by 2020, only one in five US adults — 54.9 million — will use a wearable device on a monthly basis (eMarketer)
Canalys: Smartwatch market will grow 18 percent in 2017 (28.5 million units shipped), placing the total value of smartwatch shipments at $10 billion USD (Canalys)
Funding, Acquisitions & M&A
Dirac Research raises $4.8 million to build superior VR audio (Upload VR)
DAQRI acquires team from physics think tank (PR Newswire)
Alibaba backs AR navigation startup WayRay in $18 million round (ZDNET)
CarePredict receives investment led by Las Olas Venture Capital (MobiHealthNews)
Device announcements
First all-in-one VR headsets using Qualcomm VRDK expected in second half of 2017 (Road to VR)
The first Intel Alloy-powered VR headsets will be released this holiday season (Upload VR)
Tag Heuer launches $1,600 modular Android Wear smartwatch (MobileSyrup)
Montblanc enters the smartwatch space (Forbes)
Swarovski’s Android Wear smartwatch delayed indefinitely (Wareable)
Major milestones
AccuWeather app hits the Samsung Gear VR (AccuWeather)
Swatch is working on its own OS (MobileSyrup)
YouTube is increasing the quality of its VR videos (Upload VR)
Original Huawei Watch to get Android Wear 2.0 (9to5 Google)
Fossil is updating its Fossil Q smartwatches with Android Wear 2.0 (MobileSyrup)
NVIDIA releases VR benchmarking FCAT tool (Engadget)
Microsoft expands HoloLens readiness program to Europe (Windows Central)
Rumours
Patent suggests Google is thinking of turning smartphone boxes into VR headsets (Upload VR)
iPhone 8 AR concepts hit the web by designer (9 to 5 Mac)
Apple patent hints at remote controlled iPhone VR headset (Wareable)
Apple patent suggests Watch Activity tracking will extend to cycling (Patently Apple)
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