Freescale Launches $149 Android Wearables Platform

At CES, the company announces Warp, an open-source electronics board it hopes developers will embrace for a wide range of wearable computing projects.

Freescale Semiconductor, a maker of small, low-power processors, has announced an effort based on a $149, Android-powered, open-source electronics board to try to help hardware developers build its chips into wearable computing devices.

Wearable computing has become the hot thing as companies seek to claim new territory in the tech market. The starting point is fitness devices, but smart watches like the Qualcomm Toq and eyewear like Google Glass offer more general-purpose possibilities, too.

At CES 2014, Freescale announced hardware called Warp (Wearables Reference Platform) that designers can use to get started with wearable computing devices. It should ship in the second quarter