Systems for additive manufacturing, or 3-D printing as it's better known, represent just a fraction of the $70 billion traditional machine-tool market worldwide. Yet given the likelihood that this technology will start to realize its promise over the next five to ten years, many leading companies seem surprisingly unaware of its potential, and poorly organized to reap the benefits, says the report.

According to a summary of research sources by Bill Siwicki at Internet Retailer, manufacturers shipped more than 4.6 million wearables in 2014, according to new data from Canalys. 16%, or 720,000 of those devices, run the Android mobile operating system.