wearable electronics

Apple has announced the next-generation Apple Watch Series 8 as well as an upgraded Apple Watch SE, its entry-level wearable. The watches feature new temperature sensing tech, Crash Detection, international roaming and more detailed health tracking.

Wearable electronics could soon be powered by dead microbes. New research out of UMass Amherst has demonstrated a biofilm that generates electricity from sweat, harnessing the corpses of dead bacteria – and it's at least as effective as a battery.

One of the best ways of tracking an infant's neurological development is to observe their movements as they play. A new "smart" jumpsuit is designed to do so automatically, providing consistently accurate data via machine learning technology.

Last year, scientists at Northwestern University announced a transient pacemaker that dissolves when no longer needed. They've now improved the device, and incorporated it into a linked suite of wearable sensors.

Although there are various systems that detect quadriplegics' head movements, most such setups are limited to the control of wheelchairs. Such is not the case, however, with the MagTrack system.

If you were heading off into a wilderness area with no cell coverage, you might worry about how you'd summon help if you got hurt or lost. Well, the O-Boy satellite-connected rescue watch was designed with just such concerns in mind.

It's important for people with conditions such as depression and anxiety to know when they're becoming stressed, so they can initiate coping strategies. An experimental smartwatch could someday warn them, by detecting a stress hormone in their sweat.

Presently, OLED screens are manufactured by trained technicians in large high-tech factories. Now, however, scientists have managed to 3D print a flexible OLED display, paving the way for small businesses to one day be able to do the same thing.

MIT engineers have produced the world's longest flexible fiber battery. The rechargeable lithium-ion battery is only a few hundred microns thick but 140 meters long, and according to the team could be produced at lengths far greater than that.

An experimental new material could help rehabilitate the injured and allow the nonspeaking to "speak," among other potential uses. It's also highly elastic, electrically conductive and self-healing – and it's known as CareGum.

Nicotine is one of the more harmful compounds in electronic cigarette vapor, so non-vapers should avoid breathing it in whenever possible. A new skin-worn sensor could help, by monitoring airborne nicotine levels in the wearer's immediate vicinity.

Currently, if you wish to track the electrical activity of someone's muscles, you have stick electrodes onto their skin. An experimental new technology, however, simply utilizes conductive fabric that's incorporated into washable pieces of clothing.