“Given the option to choose between fashion and technology, women barring those few exceptions will definitely stumble on the former, until the latter provide them an opportunity to flaunt their style. Keeping the contemporary trend in mind, Chinese designer Fandi Meng has come up with a stylish sound headset only for women, which looks more like a fashionable pearl earbob than a gadget. Hailed as ‘Volution,’ the headphone features a pearl that shines aureole, after you receive a call, and needs to be tapped or touched to start your chatter.”
Fashionable Technology: The Intersection of Design, Fashion, Science and Technology by Sabine Seymour
Design + Fashion + Science + Technology
Fashionable Wearables: ‘designed’ garments, accessories or jewelery that combine aesthetics and style with functional technology
Design considerations: Body, ergonomics/ wearability, functionality, technology, materials, energy, recycle
Degree of Body/Tech Integration:
Hand-held
Wearable (Garment as container)
Physically embedding
Electric/ Scientific
Implanted
Reasons for Acceleration in Wearable Tech: processing power, minaturization, wireless tech, material science, alternative energy
History of Wearable Tech
- 1960 Cyborg (Clyne)
- 1966 First Wearable Computer (Thorpw & Shannon)
- 1972 Algebraic Calculator Watch (HP)
- 1979 Walkman (Sony)
- 1981 Backpack-Mounted Computer to Control photographic Equipment (Mann)
- 1987 ‘Terminator’
- 1991 ‘Ubiquitous Computing’ (Weiser)
- 1994 Images from headmounted display to the web (Mann)
- 1997 Smart Clothes Fashion Show
- 1997 First IEEE Intern: Symposium on Wearable Computers
- 1997 Firefly Dress (Orth)
- 2000 Airplane Dress (Chalyan)
- 2003 Analog Jacket (Burton)
- 2003 Luminex
- 2005 Adidas_1
- 2007 Nike+
“Elevate the cyborg”
fashionabletechnology.org
//ETH is the MIT of Europe
Alternative forms of communication become necessary when conventional techniques (voice, body language) are compromised due to variety of circumstances.
This super cool technology is still in its infancy though moving fwd due to grant money and such. Basically, the idea is to have a person use their tongue as a mouse and the teeth as keyboards, eventually. By tracking the movements, even on a basic level, the technology allows a person who may not have been able to communicate in any other way to now answer basic yes/no questions.
There has been movement to utilize eye movements but it was found to be costly, slow and likely for mixed signals. (We certainly dont need any more mixed signals!)
BTW, I dont exactly know the segue for this except some neuron in my head connected the movie Le Scaphandre et le papillon (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.) Various assistive technology techniques are used to enable this former editor-in-chief of Elle magazine to write a book, despite his movement being limited to only his head and left eye.
Step 1:
Step 2:
Almost done. Super psyched to start tracking my runs again.
How do I explain to my FB Mini Me that I have actually been running?! (its just I haven’t gone w/the accelerometer since a few weeks ago.)
Continue reading ‘Mini Me (w/Nike +)’
i wanted to post a photo but forgot to upload this am.
anyway, super-psyched.
prob going to finish tonite and then i can get back into (almost entirely) automated system of running data tracking. wheeeeeeeeeeeeee…
So this is kinda working out with MapMyRuns (operative word being “kinda”) however, I still feel like its not entirely accurate for some reason. Also, I still dont know why it sometimes writes New York, NY and others, Brooklyn, NY.
The good news is that I think I figured out a way to change the battery on my Nike+. Wheeeee. The water-logged one is def dead but I have an older one that the battery just died so going to try and revitalize that and use it again.
This whole manual tracking thing is really messing up my process anyway. I just want to sync and automate. Done.
“Someday you’ll be glad you know how to sew (knit, crochet, quilt, embroider, etc.)” she said, to the disgruntled child (aka moi) who would’ve much rather been out in the backyard, climbing trees.
Well… looks like those kinds of skills actually do come in handy, like if you happen to be into soft circuitry and stuff.
More fun w/embroidery
I tend subscribe to the thought of leaving the past where it is- in the past. Its just “water under the bridge.” And “tomorrow’s a new day.” Whatever. Do what you can and then move on. Right? Now if only my Nike+ iPod would agree with me!
It has been a couple of years now, that I have been running with my iPod, adding the Nike+ around the end of summer 2007, and have just recently begun to run again (you know, when the temperature is actually >40 degrees.) Sometime during the winter, I had lost my sensor and since then have acquired a new one. Everything seemed to be working fine- it logged my workout and uploaded the data to iTunes just like before. Only this time, my new workout data would not upload to Nikeplus.com automatically via iTunes. (Something to do with the multiple sensors and version upgrade is probably the issue and I think I found the answer on Apple Forum today.)
You are probably thinking, so what? Really, how important is that for your data to be uploaded instantaneously and for it to be accurate and available online? It depends. Who’s looking at the data? Apparently, everyone on facebook can currently view my old running data via the Facebook Nike+ App that I added the other week, which (coincidentally) doesn’t currently display the date of the run. For all they know, this was the data from run I did last night (which, btw, has improved to average 8min/mi.)
<sigh> Okay, I know my Facebook friends will not judge me on my running capabilities, however, the fact that this data is on view does, in fact, increase the priority of this issue.
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