HUNTINGTON BEACH, CALIF. — With its new Watson Health business unit, IBM (IBM) is looking to leverage wearable and mobile app health data. The purpose, says the company, is to “help optimize consumer and medical devices for data collection, analysis and feedback.” But what will all of that look like? Big Blue on Monday said that the new Watson unit will work with Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), Medtronic (MDT) and Apple (AAPL); Apple’s customers can
T he smartwatch market is just getting started, but advertisers already are planning to place ads on your wrist. A new study from Juniper Research predicts that advertising spending on smartwatches will reach $68.6 million by 2019, up from just $1.5 million this year. Smartwatch advertising will be fueled by the launch of the Apple (AAPL) Watch, which goes on sale April 24 in nine countries, Juniper said. The emergence of an additional consumer screen will stimulate interest among advertisers, but most ad spending will be in ad hoc campaigns until a sizable user base is achieved, the research firm said in a press release Tuesday. “Brands will need to devise and implement new advertising formats designed to cater for the limited real estate on a smartwatch screen,” Juniper said. “Behavioral differences between smartphone and smartwatch usage are likely to provide a further challenge. With consumers…
Just as speculation about a possible Apple (AAPL) electric car had died down, Bernstein Research fanned the flames Tuesday with a new report titled “5 Reasons Why We Believe Apple May Indeed Be Looking to Build a Car.” Bernstein analysts Toni Sacconaghi and Max Warburton said that the reasons for an Apple car include the huge addressable market, the opportunity to make a differentiated product, its deep financial resources, its ability to find profitable niches and the emerging auto manufacturing capability in China. But after outlining the reasons why Apple could jump into the auto market, Sacconaghi and Warburton threw a wet blanket on their own thesis, saying that they’re not convinced Apple will take the plunge. “So are we convinced Apple is making a car? No, in part because Apple is typically very patient in bringing a product to market and will ultimately only do so…