Tech

Intel goes for wearable-tech segment with ‘Jarvis’ headset

LAS VEGAS — Add Intel to the growing list of companies banking on so-called wearable tech to be the next breakout hit.

The chip giant unveiled “Jarvis,” a headset that acts as a personal assistant for tasks including answering the phone, making reservations and warning users when there’s a calendar conflict.

Jarvis, evidently, is from the UK and speaks with a noticeable British accent.

When an executive asked Jarvis to make dinner reservations at an Indian restaurant close to the Consumer Electronics Show here, the headset asked whether the exec also wanted to cancel a conflicting meeting.

He did.

“As we started to look at wearables, we asked ourselves: Why aren’t they everywhere?,” Intel Chief Executive Brian Krzanich said during a presentation late Monday.

Krzanich gave the audience a sneak peek at several new wearable technologies that Intel will launch this year, in addition to Jarvis.

The CEO also announced a contest for the best ideas on wearable tech. The winner gets a cool $500,000.

Krazanich also brought on stage a watch that can serve as a monitoring system. It knows where the wearer, say a child with a disability, is supposed to be at all times and can warn the end user, such as a parent, when the wearer didn’t arrive at school on time, for example.

The watch also notifies the end user of the wearer’s location when the wearer steps outside the boundaries of where he or she is supposed to be at the allotted time.

Intel is also seeking to make smart watches fashionable by partnering with the fashion industry, including the upscale retailer Barneys New York, Krzanich said.

There were a lot more products, including a infant onesy with smart technology to warn the parents, through a light display on a coffee mug, when the child is awake or hot or unhappy, the CEO said.

Tech companies have been seeking for the next breakout product as sales of technology flatten amid consumer saturation in smartphones and tablets, which have been the growth area of the last five to seven years.

Some 43 percent of households now own either a tablet or an e-reader, up from 6 percent in 2010 — when Apple started selling the iPad. And the number of smartphone users has jumped to 56 percent this year, up from 35 percent in 2011, according to data from the Pew Research Center.

In order to make wearables and other Intel-powered mobile products desirable, Kzranich said Intel is also offering free McAfee security software in all its products starting this year.