A new technology can enable smartwatches to automatically recognize what objects users are touching like laptop, riding a motorcycle or creating new opportunities for context-aware apps. Developed by Carnegie Mellon University and Disney Research, the technique called 'EM-Sense' takes advantage of the body's natural electrical conductivity to detect whether a person is touching an electrical or electromechanical device. This technology is based on the distinctive electromagnetic noise emitted by such devices and automatically identifies the object. "This could be a great feature for smartwatches, making them much smarter than before," said Gierad Laput, PhD student in Carnegie Mellon's Human-Computer Interaction Institute (HCII). A smartwatch equipped with EM-Sense would have a much more detailed understanding of what the user is doing than is possible with common mobile sensors, such as accelerometers or pulse monitors. The smartwatch, therefore, could automatically start a timer when the wearer begins using an electric toothbrush, unlock a keyboard without a password when users touch their laptops, or play the latest news when breakfast is being prepared. Linking a smartwatch with a smartphone or other mobile device would expand the possibilities even further. "We are now able to gain a greater contextual understanding of user activities by recognising what objects they are interacting with," added Alanson Sample, research scientist at Disney Research. EM-Sense is able to differentiate between scores of objects based on the ambient electromagnetic noise they emit. The human body serves as an antenna for EM-Sense. From any body part an object touches, its distinctive electromagnetic emissions propagate through the body to an electrode worn at the wrist. Kitchen appliances, power tools, electronic scales and door handles with electrically triggered locks are among the items that can be detected and identified. It's even possible to differentiate between different models of cell phones. The researchers discussed the technology at 'UIST 2015', the ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology in Charlotte, North Carolina.

LVMH’s Tag Heuer became on Monday the first Swiss watchmaker to offer a “smartwatch” to customers that combines Swiss design with U.S. technology, seeking to tap a growing market for wearable devices amid flagging sales of traditional watches.

Co-developed with Google and Intel, the “Tag Heuer Connected” will cost $1,500. One thousand units are immediately available in 15 stores across the United States, with Britain, Germany, and Japan following in the coming days.

With its titanium casing, black rubber strap and digital watch hands, it is designed to look like a classical watch. But Connected houses an Intel Atom processor beneath its touchscreen that lets wearers connect to the internet, stream music and run applications via Google’s Android Wear platform, from existing favourites such as Google Fit and Google Maps to customised lifestyle and sports apps.

The watch, which electronically tethers to a phone, responds to voice commands and finger swipes. It can give the weather, set up a calendar reminder or tell the wearer how many steps she or he has walked that day, for instance.

The Connected will compete in part against Apple Inc’s Apple Watch, which has breathed life into the smartwatch category. With prices of $350 to $17,000 it competes with some traditional luxury timepieces.

Tag Heuer Chief Executive Jean-Claude Biver described the Connected watch as a way to get new customers and warm them up to traditional watches. “The Apple Watch will never be eternal,” Biver said at an event in New York. “Our watch will. It’s a big advantage.”

Customers can swap their smartwatch for a mechanical one at the end of a two year warranty if they pay $1,500 more, a strategy Biver said allows the company to protect its traditions and cater to younger clientele who might be tempted by Apple.

Asked about potential sales of the new product, he said: “I don’t really know … I only have the gut feeling that we’re just at the beginning, and that the first (connected) watches are like the first phones we had twenty years ago.”

Makers of traditional Swiss watches have largely stayed on the sidelines of the emerging smartwatch market. But the industry needs a boost. Swiss watch exports posted the biggest drop since 2009 in the third quarter, with a 14.5 percent slip in the 200-500 franc category fuelling concerns the Apple Watch might be taking market share.

Bank Vontobel analysts in October forecast low to mid-market watches would be affected by sales of smartwatches and other wearable devices, and 30 percent to 50 percent of quartz watches would include some smartwatch features in the long term.

Switzerland’s biggest watchmaker, Swatch Group, has some connected products at its Swatch and Tissot brands, but has rejected making a “telephone” or “computer for the wrist,” as Chief Executive Nick Hayek told a paper in August.

Swatch has also eschewed big tech partnerships, which Biver said were needed to launch a smartwatch such as Connected. “If you want to offer a smartwatch as sophisticated and complete as the Apple Watch, that is practically impossible for a Swiss company alone,” Biver said. “We cannot develop microprocessors to that level.”

“Many Swiss watch brands are not keen on partnerships. We were keen because I believed that my price range could be hit by the competition of smartwatches,” he said.

The Tag Heuer Connected is, at least initially, being produced at Intel manufacturing sites. It comes without the coveted “Swiss Made” tag, but with the label “Intel Inside” and “Swiss Engineered” on the watch case.

The partnership with Intel and Google was announced in March. Biver said the partners shared development costs, but gave no details.

Apvrille showed how it was possible to access a Fitbit's Bluetooth connection and, in a mere 10 seconds, infect it with a malicious packet that later could be used to infect a personal computer, a feat she demoed earlier this month at a hacker conference in Budapest.

Because of Bluetooth's range -- a maximum of 30 feet or so -- an attacker would need to be in close range of the Fitbit band in order send the pernicious packet to it, noted Derek Manky, a global security strategist for Fortinet.

"The Fitbit would receive the information packet, store it, and then at some point later, when the user connects the tracker to a PC, that stored information would be sent to the PC," he told TechNewsWorld.

Another barrier to turning the conceptual attack into a real one is the size of the packet involved.

"We're dealing with a maximum of 17 bytes here, which makes it much, much tougher to pull off a real-world attack," Fortinet's Manky said.

Fitbit did not respond to our request to comment for this story.

However, the company called the security issues false and said that Fitbit devices could not be used to infect users with malware, according to multiple reports.

Fitbit carefully designs security measures for new products, monitors the landscape for new threats, and rapidly responds to identified issues, the company reportedly said.

"To some extent, the researcher is making a mountain out of a mole hill," remarked Lee Ratliff, principal analyst for low power wireless at IHS Technology.

"She had to do a lot of serious reverse engineering on this," he told TechNewsWorld. "I can understand the motivation for a researcher to do that, but for a hacker trying to make a profit, it's not clear there's any way to profit from this."

Any attack attempt likely would be ineffective, Ratliff added, because most people don't use their fitness bands with their PCs.

"I use my fitness band to connect to my smartphone, and I would guess the vast majority of people are the same way," he said. "So if the exploit doesn't work on the smartphone, that minimizes the impact of it."

Will news of the hack have an effect on Fitbit's business? "I would guess no," Ratliff said. "The average consumer will not become aware of this hack."

Moreover, "there's been no demonstrable damage from the hack. It's a theoretical thing at this point," he added.

That doesn't mean that makers of wearables and devices that connect to the Internet of Things should ignore the security issues Fortinet raised, however.

"There are so many manufacturers making electronic items out there, and so few of them employ security experts," Ratliff said. "In most cases, it's a general engineering staff trying to put together a security solution for a product. That's why this issue will come up again and again -- not just for wearables, but for any kind of IoT application."

Security doesn't appear on the radar of many device makers until late in the development cycle, noted Amit Sethi principal consultant for mobile security at Cigital.

"Quite often, security is left as an afterthought in many IoT devices," he told TechNewsWorld. "The focus is on minimizing cost and maximizing battery life."

Machine-to-machine communication can be a ripe attack vector for bad actors, as Fortinet illustrated with its proof-of-concept attack on Fitbit.

"Communication between devices -- machine to machine -- is where a lot vulnerabilities lie today," Manky said. "Moving into 2016 and beyond, I expect more of these attacks to start developing in the wild."