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Glimpse of the Future: Glide Previews Smartwatch Video MessagingGlide, the Israeli startup whose popular live video messaging app makes video chat incredibly fast and easy, recently displayed the first prototype showcasing the future of video communications on a smartwatch. Through a live demonstration at the 2015 International CES, Glide illustrated how video messaging on a smartwatch will change the way people communicate with friends, family and co-workers. Running a custom version of the Glide app on a pre-release Android smartwatch, complete with a front-facing camera, microphone, speaker, and both 3G and WiFi (News - Alert) connectivity, the company became the first in the world to demonstrate live video messaging from the wrist. With this smartwatch running Glide, people can watch incoming video messages live and effortlessly respond with a single tap on the screen to record or play a video. Less than a second after pressing record, recipients can watch the video message on another smartwatch, smartphone or tablet running Glide, even as it is still being recorded. It is essentially a video walkie-talkie on your wrist, complete with full message history and auto-playback. Dick Tracy would definitely approve! "We are confident smartwatches will fundamentally transform the messaging space," said Ari Roisman, CEO and co-founder of Glide. "Whether email or messaging, the majority of social interactions on mobile devices today are already asynchronous. It's much easier to send somebody a video message than to schedule a phone or video call. Video messaging on smartwatches will deliver the ultimate convenience in personal communications, eliminating the need to repeatedly reach into one's pocket to pull out a smartphone. Smartwatch users will simply tap and talk from their wrists." "The biggest pain point on today's smartwatches is that notifications aren't actionable," continued Roisman. "I can receive a message or an email on my wrist but how do I easily respond? The screen isn't large enough for a keyboard and dictation is slow and inaccurate. 'Tap and talk' messaging is the future because it's fast, easy, natural and accurate compared with text-based input or dictation." "A very small portion of what we communicate is through the actual words we choose, while most communication is expressed through our tone of voice and body language," added Roisman. "Messaging on a handset is richest and most accurate when we use our voices and faces instead of our thumbs. On a smartwatch, there's little room to type even if we wanted to! We are confident that messaging habits will evolve as smartwatches improve and start to see mass market adoption in 2015." Glide recently secured $20 million in Series B funding that will allow the company to engineer live video messaging experiences for leading smartwatch platforms, such as Android Wear and the Apple (News - Alert) Watch. Glide will also continue to focus principal efforts on further development of its popular Android and iOS apps, both available for free at http://glide.me. About Glide Founded in May 2012, Glide is the brainchild of Ari Roisman, Jonathan Caras and Adam Korbl - three young entrepreneurs who live thousands of miles away from many of their friends and family. Frustrated by the difficulties keeping in touch across time zones, the trio created a new way to communicate instantly using video. Glide is available for free on iOS and Android (News - Alert). For more information, please visit http://glide.me or find Glide on Twitter (News - Alert) (@GlideApp), Facebook (News - Alert) (https://www.facebook.com/glideme) or Instagram (@theglideapp). Glide's press kit can be found at http://bit.ly/GlidePressKit.
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