Google Glass dominates wearable tech session at DEMO Fall 2013

Three of the four demonstrators in the wearable technology session employed Google Glass, even though none of them know when it will be commercially available.

Despite the uncertainty regarding when Google Glass will be made available to the public, entrepreneurs are betting their livelihood on the head-worn device.

Three of the four demonstrators that composed the wearable technology session at the DEMO Fall 2013 conference displayed technology based on Glass.

Pristine joined the growing market for Glass in the healthcare field, introducing a streaming video solution that allowed remote users to watch and interact via audio during healthcare procedures. Surgery was the example given on-stage, and the technology allowed for a remote user to call in, watch the surgery in real time, and consult the surgeon as he conducted it.

The company claimed the technology is HIPAA-compliant, and aims to replace expensive, unwieldy solutions that enable streaming video for medical procedures. The cost for current technology can run into the tens of thousands, whereas Google has suggested a $300 to $500 price range for Glass when it becomes available to consumers.

Aside from the uncertainty around Glass’ release date, Pristine CEO Kyle Samani told panelists that the company has had trouble finding real-life settings in which it can test the technology. Testing in a hospital setting would require collaboration from across the facility – from physicians to patients to IT.

Fortunately, Pristine may have plenty of opportunities to find testing environments as Google bides its time developing the technology.

Another demonstrator, GlassPay, may also benefit from some extra time to develop its technology – a Glass-based technology that allows shoppers to make purchases by scanning barcodes on products.

The only catch, so far, is that GlassPay only allows purchases to be made with the digital currency Bitcoin. Although the demonstration functioned as intended, one noticeable flaw was that the display only showed the price for retail items in Bitcoin value. So a set of towels were shown to retail for 0.1 BTC, leaving the user to calculate the equivalent in USD. Not only will users need to have a Bitcoin Wallet in order to use GlassPay, they’ll need to keep up with the exchange rate on their own if they want to know the dollar-value of their expenses.

Later on in the Glass Pay demonstration, though, GlassPay CEO Guy Paddock explained that GlassPay is currently limited to Bitcoin only because it’s much easier to make quick online payments with Bitcoin than with cash. He expressed interest in integrated Google Wallet later on, which would open up a larger market.

In retrospect, the Bitcoin integration worked to Glass Pay’s advantage, for the purposes of DEMO at least. The company was only given a four-minute window in which to demonstrate its product, and Bitcoin involved much less risk of a verification issue on-stage. Similarly, Paddock also explained that a GlassPay app is already available for Android devices. Google Glass, however, attracts much more publicity than smartphone payment apps, landing GlassPay in the highly publicized wearable technology category.

Another Glass-based app, People+, relies more on the Glass technology. Calling the product a combination of LinkedIn and Wikipedia, the demonstrators showed how People+ could browse through information on a given person, drawing from multiple online source, while focusing the Glass camera on him.

It’s an early iteration of an app that seems perfect for facial recognition technology, depending on how well that might work on Glass in the future. When that might happen, and how such technology will be received by the general public, still remains to be seen.

Only one demonstrator in the wearable technology session didn’t employ Google Glass, but may have had the most impressive demonstration. Skully showed off its high-tech motorcycle helmet, which is equipped with a heads-up display that projects GPS navigation and playback from the rear-view camera and voice commands for phone calls or controlling music.

The rear-view camera may have been the most impressive, giving a panoramic view of everything located behind a motorcyclist and eliminating the need to check blind spots. The rear-view camera’s technology recognizes the horizon behind the driver, meaning that the road will always be in view, and flattens the video playback to provide depth in the video playback.

Unlike Google Glass, the Skully Helmet has a spring 2014 estimated release date, and the company is preparing an SDK on which developers could build their own apps for the device.

The only potential competition it may face could be when Glass becomes available and users could simply wear it underneath traditional motorcycle helmets. Fortunately for Skully, that likely won’t be an issue for a few years.

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12 best places to land a tech job

Tech skills are increasingly in demand across the U.S., and you may not need to uproot to find a new opportunity, as growth is not limited to the usual job markets. Here’s a look at where tech job growth is highest, based on data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, as well as interviews with Shravan Goli, President of Dice Holdings, Tim Johnson, vice president of sales at Mondo; and Matthew Ripaldi, senior vice president at Modis.

New Jersey
New Jersey tops the BLS list for job growth in computer systems design and related services, at 5.2%. That brings the Garden State into the top five in terms of tech workforce size, along with California, Texas, Virginia and New York, according to BLS data. The state is actively working to add tech jobs, Goli says, by offering tax breaks and grants to small and midsize tech businesses that create new positions. Also fueling growth is the ability of New Jersey tech companies to feed off neighbor New York’s talent base, Goli says.


Massachusetts
Massachusetts is second to New Jersey in tech job growth, at 4%, according to the BLS, and has created more jobs so far in 2013 than last year at this time. Like New Jersey, the state is actively working to attract tech business, Goli says. In addition to its many healthcare, financial services and education giants requiring tech talent, Massachusetts also competes with New York for the title of “Silicon Valley of the East,” Goli says. Along with startups, traditional tech firms maintain a Boston presence for proximity to the region’s universities, Mondo’s Johnson adds.

Missouri
BLS data shows 3.8% tech job growth in Missouri, which concurs with Dice’s observation earlier this year that St. Louis was top among U.S. cities in tech employment growth. This is due in part to an increased awareness of technology’s role in business and on employment, Goli says. “Incubation of tech companies through government support is happening more in some areas, whereas it’s done predominantly through venture funding in traditional states,” he says. For instance, the St. Louis IT Entrepreneur Network works to coach tech startups. Another driver is the number of large tech consultancies in St. Louis, Goli says.

Texas
Texas hosts a large tech workforce, and it’s about to get bigger, with 3.3% growth, according to the BLS. Dice attributes the growth to a diverse business landscape that includes cloud software companies in Austin; healthcare, financial and insurance powerhouses in Houston; the Federal Reserve Bank in Dallas; and defense contractors in San Antonio. Additionally, Ripaldi says, the energy sector continues to spur growth in Houston, and businesses are attracted to the state’s comparatively low cost of living. Texas also offers a very business-friendly environment, adds Johnson, whose firm plans to open an office in Dallas early next year.

New York
At 2.6% job growth, New York is fifth on the BLS list. Part of this growth is its succesful work to establish itself as the go-to tech startup community over its rival, Boston. “Boston was the Silicon Valley of the East Coast for a long period of time, but it’s faded as New York became a hotbed for startups on the East Coast these days,” Goli says. Even beyond the startup world, the tech workforce in New York is “large and growing at astronomical rates,” Johnson says.

Washington State
Washington has become a technology innovation center and is seeing 2.5% growth in tech jobs, according to the BLS. Spurred by ongoing tech developments from Amazon and Microsoft, the state is best known for focusing on the cloud and Web services. “Because of the big cloud push, an ecosystem has developed around these companies that feeds off one another,” Goli says. “We’re seeing a lot of growth that will keep a company like ours busy.”

Illinois
While Chicago is not renowned for its technology innovation, it hosts one of the larger tech workforces and is seeing 1.8% tech job growth, according to the BLS. A big factor in this growth is the number of large, mature companies in several industries that call it home. “You never hear it mentioned in regards to cutting-edge technology, as with New York or Silicon Valley,” Johnson says. “But there’s no doubt that technology is growing significantly in Chicago.” On Dice’s jobs site, Illinois tends to have roughly 4,000 open positions posted on any given day, Goli says.

Pennsylvania
According to Johnson, Mondo’s third fastest-growing office is in Philadelphia, after New York and California. “You would never assume that, but that’s the reality,” he says. Pennsylvania also made it to the last slot on the BLS list top 10 list, with 1.7% growth. In-demand skills, Johnson says, are more traditional in the region -- possibly due to the manufacturing and industrial businesses concentrated in both Philly and Pittsburgh -- including programmers, developers, project managers and help desk workers.

Florida
Florida does not make the BLS list for fast growth, but recruiters are seeing a surge in job opportunities. According to Ripaldi, the trend is attributable, in part, to large organizations elsewhere in the U.S. looking to affordable and desirable cities like Jacksonville when planning an expansion of their data centers or extension of their application development function. “We’ve had clients with large data centers in the Northeast realize that from a cost standpoint, they could get more in this market,” he says. “Then they discover some of the talent that’s already here or that they can attract to the area.”

Georgia
Atlanta, known as the business capital of the South, is “extremely hot” right now, according to Johnson, based on the combination of a healthy business environment, a low cost of living and a growing community of tech startups. “Technology is so engrained in business that if you’re in a market that’s good-sized and growing, technology jobs will be a big piece of that,” he says. Further, “forward-thinking technology entreprenuers are choosing Atlanta to set up shop,” Johnson says. “The cost of living is significantly lower, yet it offers everything you want in a big city, so it can attract talent.”

North and South Carolina
From Research Triangle Park and spreading out to Raleigh, Charlotte, Greensboro and Winston-Salem, companies in a range of industries (financial services, healthcare, technology, manufacturing and insurance) make up a strong market in which tech skills are in high demand, Ripaldi says. Like Atlanta and Florida, the cost of living in the Carolinas is attractive to both businesses and employees, and “talented resources are moving there and calling it home because there’s so much innovation happening in the area,” Johnson says.

California
With Silicon Valley, California is the renowned startup and technology capital of the U.S. The size of its tech workforce is hard to beat in terms of raw volume, but because it’s starting from such a large base, its tech job growth rate is slower than other states; in fact, it didn’t make it to the BLS’s Top 10 list. However, observers are seeing a quickening in the job creation pace. “The pace of tech hiring in California is something to note,” Ripaldi says. “Even though the technology companies there have been hiring for some time, it continues to spread.”

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IT Hiring Manager Seeks a Perfect Fit

Cynthia Nustad has served since February 2011 as SVP and CIO at HMS Holdings, which offers cost-containment services to commercial and government health-insurance payers. HMS specializes in coordinating benefits (verifying the right payers pay claims) and program integrity (making sure claims are paid appropriately).

Last year, HMS recovered $3.2 billion for clients and saved them billions more by preventing erroneous payments. As a company with significant investments in data, HMS relies on an IT team that is growing by double digits. Nustad describes how she hires IT staff members who fit the company's culture.

What's the culture at HMS like?

We bring solutions to the healthcare marketplace that reduce waste and inefficiency. It's an important mission; a nonpartisan group estimates that the U.S. healthcare system wastes about $750 billion a year. Through constant improvement and ongoing technological investments, we're addressing that significant problem and helping to improve the system for everyone.

What's the best way to ensure that new recruits will fit in?

We highly value our current employees and their personal and professional networks. We offer reward incentives for referrals from employees as a way to drive a shared culture. We also find that new hires are more successful when they were referred by another employee because there is an added level of accountability to the employee that made the referral.

How do you tell whether someone will rally around the company cause?

We share our company story and what drives our business and then see what the candidate offers in conversation about their experiences with the healthcare system. We might ask, "Was there a time when you were able to help drive technological development for the betterment of others?" We also ask whether they've applied cost-effective technology to solve business problems rather than installing technology for technological advancement. As a fast and dynamic company, we also ask about their ability to take action rather than wait for approval.

Do you hire from certain industries?

For the IT department, we hire from all industries, but because of our great need for deep data and analytics skills, we're especially interested in experienced hires from consumer companies. That industry has been investing in big data and listening to their customers for years. HMS can offer this highly sought-after talent a mission that focuses on making a difference in people's lives by creating value in the healthcare system.

Do you put each hire through an online assessment for interpersonal and cultural fit?

We use these tools more at the senior leadership level than middle management or college hiring. They offer some value, but I find the input of my peers and my team to be of greatest value. They know the culture and the team dynamics best and can provide me with the feedback I need to make a hiring decision. I'm not necessarily looking for unanimity, but the feedback also helps reinforce our culture. An online assessment tool can't do this. Generally, we like our talent-acquisition process to include panel interviews and peer feedback so that we listen to all inputs to find the best employee fit for our team.

Phil Schneidermeyer is a partner with Heidrick & Struggles, where he specializes in recruiting CIOs and CTOs for all industries.

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