In an on-site interview at the TED conference in Palm Springs, California, Mashable discussed the future of mobile technologies with Henry Tirri, Senior Vice President and Head of the Nokia Research Center. While the interview covers a number of topics, Tirri did admit he was bullish on the wireless health opportunity:
"I think there’s a natural continuum from biosensors — we already have heartbeat sensors connected to a wireless device and measuring you for sports and wellness purposes," Tirri said. "So again, if you talk about the five to ten years era, the questions there are more related to the sensors. In some areas, the sensor development is slower than one would think. Mechanical sensors are faster, but chemical sensors are much slower, so even in the five to ten year domain, certain things are not so easy to do."
Tirri does not believe that wireless health sensors will become a mass market during the next five years, but he said he would be surprised if they don't become widespread over the next ten years. Those market projections are about right: We typically hear five to seven years for mass market deployment from the wireless sensor makers and their partners. As Tirri points out: It takes about that long to get the manufacturing process down and to get the price point cheap enough to enable consumer adoption.
"I do believe health and wellness-related things will become part of our life, and may probably also merge with augmented reality too," Tirri said. "Your body state will be communicated to somewhere, or you can start getting metadata and remote analysis on yourself."
Read the full interview over at Mashable
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