WNA

Intel reportedly has paid north of $100 million to acquire Basis, which makes wristwatch health trackers. Basis has some 7 percent of the market, says TechCrunch, versus competitor Jawbone which has 21 percent. Wearables Insider has doubts on such a rumored deal.

Intel recently has shown its own reference designs at CES, including a Siri-like Bluetooth headset named Jarvis and a smart chip it dubbed Edison, which was shown with smart baby clothing and smart mugs.

At Mobile World Congress wearables were fashionable, including Sony’s SmartBand, Huawei’s Talkband, LG’s LifeBand Touch and Samsung three new wearable devices were shown.

Google is rumored to be considering a smartwatch as part of the next-generation Nexus release, as is Apple.

In 2013, Fitbits, Jawbone UPs, and Nike FuelBands accounted for 97 percent of all smartphone-enabled activity trackers sold at brick-and-mortar stores or through big ecommerce sites, according to NPD Group, which tracks the digital fitness device market. Currently, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments and STMicroelectronics, are providing the bulk of the sensors for wearables.

A recent report from BI Intelligence forecast a $12 billion market for wearable devices, led by wrist-worn gadgets.