Pay with your watch, as wearable computers and contactless payments merge

After a few false starts, smartwatches and wearable computers are finally set to make their marks in 2014. PayPal, the digital payments company, has become an early champion of the technology, launching apps that work with many of the current hardware leaders including Pebble and Samsung's Gear. Of course, it is far from certain whether customers will ever want to pay via their watches, but companies are actively working on technologies that will make doing so as easy and seamless as possible. At the moment it is a bit clunky. When looking to purchase an item, shoppers have to find a shop that has the appropriate hardware and software installed, then either wave their NFC-enable device across the shop's reader, or get a wireless message from the shop relayed to their smartwatch. A trend in the making? Perhaps, but for the moment it's still easier to pull out cash or a credit card.