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Innovation

Will human augmentation be a massive market?

Human augmentation---wearable robots and other technologies---could be a big market, perhaps $1 billion or more over the next five to 10 years, according to Gartner.
Written by Larry Dignan, Contributor

Human augmentation---wearable robots and other technologies---could be a big market, perhaps $1 billion or more over the next five to 10 years, according to Gartner.

That assumption, contained in a presentation outlining emerging technologies that technology executives should track, is a bet that 750 million disabled people across the globe will benefit from some extra help.

These robots will be able to recognize emotions, enable people to function better and generally be handy.

Gartner analysts Dale Kutnick and Ken McGee pointed out the human augmentation point and said "we have little doubt human augmentation will easily reach and surpass the $1 billion mark during the next decade" given the size of other markets. That projection is a little more optimistic than the $877 million market projected by ABI Research in 2020.

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This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com

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