android Google's Android Wear may have a serious DRM problem

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It seems everyone has had an unfortunate run-in with digital rights management (DRM) at one time or another, and now Android Wear users are having theirs.

Early adopters of Google's smartwatch standard have found that paid apps simply don't work on Android Wear devices, according to Ars Technica.

Currently there are no standalone apps for Android Wear devices; apps with Wear features need to be downloaded to an Android phone, which then sends the relevant part of the app to the smartwatch using Bluetooth.

But apparently the encryption keys that get sent to your phone when you download a paid app from the Google Play store don't make it over to the smartwatch.

A strange oversight

That means Android Wear devices that receive app data from smartphones have no way to decrypt that data unless the app was free to begin with.

So one solution is for developers to make their Android Wear-compatible apps free, though obviously that's not ideal.

It's definitely still early in the saga of Android Wear, but this is a strange oversight that should definitely have been caught before now.

We've asked Google to comment on when the bug might be fixed, and we'll update here if we hear back.

• Your Android Wear smartwatch could become a neat home automation tool

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