While some have viewed the merging of technology and physiology as fantasy, reality is showing that this is no longer just science fiction. On the contrary, the beginnings of this process are wellunderway. We are however, still in the toddler stage of this evolution.

Many people found the first wave of wearables came up short. Entry-level price points are high, and accuracy is not as great as it could be. It is no wonder that surveys show there is a 30% return rate and high product abandonment after six months.

But what does the future hold?

Search the internet, and you will find a plethora of articles attempting to predict where technology will lead us in the next few decades. One name that stands apart, however, is Ray Kurzweil.

Bill Gates calls Ray Kurzweil, the best person I know at predicting the future of artificial intelligence.

So who is this man?

He has received 20 honorary doctorates, been awarded honors from three U.S. presidents, and has authored 7 books (5 of which have been bestsellers).

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Ray Kurzweil is the principal inventor of many technologies ranging from the first CCD flatbed scanner to the first print-to-speech reading machine for the blind. He is also the chancellor and co-founder of Singularity University, and the guy employed by Google to direct its artificial intelligence development.

While he hasnt been precisely right in every single prediction, his track record in making forecastsis stunningly good.

So what does the future hold according to Ray? It makes for exciting and scary reading.

All of this sounds incredible,but think back 10 or 20 years ago. Just like Rays predictions sound like science fiction today, the internet, the iPhone, Google would have seemed like science fiction not too long ago.

Rays predictions are a byproduct of the power of Moores Law.

Moores Law contends that as components get smaller, products gain efficiency and become more powerful. Moores law is part of a continuum of exponential expansion of computational power that extends back hundreds and hundreds of years. This means that in addition to accurately charting the progress of semiconductor technology from 1960 until now, it goes further. As before that there were other computing technologies, back to the abacus and beyond.

What this means is, that you can think of current wearables as the Osborne Executive portable computer strapped to your wrist.

The above image shows an Osborne Executive portable computer, from 1982, with a Zilog Z80 4 MHz CPU, and a 2007 Apple iPhone with a 412 MHz ARM11 CPU; the Executive weighs 100 times as much, has nearly 500 times the volume, costs approximately 10 times as much (adjusted for inflation), and has about 1/100th the clock frequency of the smartphone.

As devices become smaller, faster and more feature packed, jewelry like gadgets will increase. This will be followed by conductive fabrics or sensor-clad smart garments which we are already seeing.

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As hard as it is to believe, ultimately wearables will go much further, even going into ingestible technology. By the early 2020s, it is likely that we will start to rely on embedded devices technology that is physically implantedinto our bodies.

There is little doubt that human beings are increasingly merging with technology. Computers are no longer just for our desks and pockets. They are now proudly displayed on our bodies and will one day be merged with them. The innovations that will enable this are inevitable and already well underway!

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Wearables a glimpse into the future - Gadgets & Wearables