Are Wearables The Future Of Authentication?

CIO Magazine has an interesting round-up piece that looks at the enterprise impact of wearable technology, which you can read here.

Google Glass POV
Authentication may be the killer enterprise app for wearable technology like Google Glass, according to Forrester Research.

 

Much of this is what you’d expect: FitBit, Google Glass and the (coming) tsunami of smart watches that will soon wash over us. The Cliff’s Notes version is that adoption of wearables will be rapid in verticals that are positioned to leverage the technology early on – such as healthcare and retail. But the piece argues that enterprises risk ‘missing’ the wearable wave in the same way that they ‘missed’ (or at least didn’t plan for) the mobile computing revolution. What might planning entail? Pilots, apparently – maybe of Google Glass or a competing technology.

[Read more Security Ledger coverage of wearable technology. ]

An interesting side note concerns a possible enterprise ‘killer app’ for wearables; authentication. The article quotes Forrester Analyst J.P. Gownders saying that wearable technology, with integrated biometric authentication, will “not only be used for physical access to facilities but, eventually, for payments as well.” Authentication, Gownders predicts, will be a “tipping point for wearables.” 

Though in their infancy, wearable technology like Google Glass and its successors will challenge a wide range of established norms – social and technological. Companies like CrowdOptic are already forging ahead with technology and services that leverages the intimate connection between wearables and their wearers – such as “attention-based marketing.”

As has been noted, the devil is in the details of the wearable technology. Unlike external devices – pagers, mobile phones, smart phones – wearable tech is more intimately connected to ourselves: in constant contact with our bodies and notifying us with vibrations and sounds in ways that it may be difficult to ignore.

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