Uh Oh, Wearable Tech: Pirates Are Ignoring You

Is wearable technology like Google Glass and Samsung's Galaxy Gear smart watch destined to be a short-lived fad? China's famously adept counterfeiters appear to think so, in what one expert tells CNN should be a "serious warning signal" for the tech industry. CNN reporters visited almost two dozen stores in a Shenzhen district famous for electronic knock-offs and were unable to find a single pirated Gear for sale.

"You won't find any copies of the smart watch here. I've never seen or heard of any," said a worker shipping boxes of counterfeit cell phones. "Thinking about it, I've never even seen anyone wear one." The lack of interest from pirates signals that the Gear has failed to generate any buzz, says an expert in global piracy, but it doesn't mean the smart watch is a "complete bust," rather "that it primarily speaks to a small group of gadget enthusiasts who will pay to get the real deal, rather than to the mass market." (More wearable computers stories.)