Wearable Wireless

[faie]

Businessweek Online reports that wearable cellphones, which are already being sold in Asia, will be reaching US shores soon.

In the upcoming year, cellphones will be in forms that are cleverly disguised in watches, bracelets, jacket lapels, backpacks -- any imaginable place that will make gabbing a fashion statement.

Taking part in this cellphone evolution, several big players has churned out their versions of wearable phones. Nokia plans to begin selling its Imagewear line of digital necklaces and chokers in the U.S. at the end of June. The necklaces' medallions will store and display up to eight photos, snapped by a Nokia camera phone and uploaded into the necklace wirelessly via Bluetooth (see accompanying image).

Motorola has developed something it calls the SmartButton. The user pins the device onto a lapel, then taps on it and, using voice commands, dials a number and holds a conversation. The button forwards requests to the phone, which is somewhere nearby. Motorola also is looking at flexible phones that don't poke wearers when they take a seat.

This trickle of wearable cell phones could quickly turn into a gushing stream -- and many electronics companies, chipmakers, and startups are betting that the technological tide will carry them into the next stage of cell-phone evolution.