Wearable Techwear is Our Past. Present. Future.

Monday, November 10, 2014

Google Glass Question It!


Damien Pfister was a guest speaker at my college that came to discuss Google Glass and I found his take on Google Glass is indeed an eyebrow raise and should be considered when looking at wearables for the future; before we have terminators coming back from the future [haha too old of a joke, perhaps?]...anyhow…lets lay out some basics from this lecture.

  What is Google Glass? Google Glass is an optical head mounted display that carries cameras built in that allows users to project internet “stuff” on to the screen.

  Where can you see it be used?

+ Help surgeons to do complicated surgeries 
+ Monitor police and their work will reduce police brutality
+ and many many other uses



  What did Damien Pfister question or critique about this video? 

+Shows what things we can do with glass, but there might be intervention of someone feeding this guy some lines 
+Creates a vision with masculinity 
+Women like to feel their phones and that's the reason they like Blackberry 
+Restoring masculinity of Google Glass 
+Hands are not hands-free because you have to hold your ear to hear the speaker

+Eyes and ears are not free, but it adds a layer of sensory to our natural world 
+Visual stimulation capture the attention both at the same time


  What did you think of this video or is he just trying to sell Google Glass?

  Where did my thoughts go?
Damien brought my attention on how I look at wearables. I used to look at them from an A to B concept I want them and want to use them or how to use them? Now I think about how it will impact society and how we should prepare for what is to come in using them. I can’t imagine what the world would look like if everyone started to drive around with Google Glass on their eyes, how will we stop this? We can barely stop texting and driving! On the other hand it will create a world where advertisements can be tailored even more and see relevant ads everywhere we go. We will be able to tailor our way in our own world and see what we want to see. On the flipside of the coin, we could miss what’s really going on with these augmented reality super powers. An example is if you have a problem seeing a homeless person on the street and just want to somehow delete them from your eyesight, you can detract them from your view. Could you imagine what other customization ways of vision we could come up with? What are we losing? connection to what’s in front of us. What are we gaining? connection in the virtual world with people you could only imagine in your dreams are readily available to meet via the web. As we go through this wearables journey I’m sure we will cross paths with some of these concepts. Or have we already?

Keep a Questioning Mind and Strong Critical Thinking Eye,


Monday, November 3, 2014

It's Haute-tech the Sound-on Dress


Jump into the beautiful night where it's as dark as a black panther's fur and among that night envision a young enchantress wearing a flowing white-luminous dress. She steps onto the dance floor and smiles because you now have entered into her little secret. She starts dancing with a man and the show begins as her dress responds to the salsa music playing off of the iPhone with the sound, volume, and rhythm. The excitement of the dance is reflected not only by the dancers, but upon the haute-tech dress. That's what I think of when looking at this dress, however

Create your own world with this "Sound-on dress." Where is your scene? How do you picture it? Is the story beginning with your first prom and wowing your friends with this interactive dress? Or are you simply taking a walk around a city letting the life around you create your dress' story? 

"The STEMplusD 1.0: Sound on" dress consists of:
Alta Moda Design Technique [Haute Couture standards]
+ Hightech Fashionable
+ Washable
Reacts to sound, volume, and rhythm 
+ Connected to an Arduino Mega 2560
+ Flexible 
+ Conductive threads
+ 600 LED lights
+ 150 yards of spaghetti straps with conductive thread inside
+ 20 panels pattern
+ Translucent film over LED/Conductive fabric 
+ microprocessor and some sensors

I mention STEMplusD, but what does it stand for?
Science
Technology
Engineering
Mathematics
Plus
Design

The correlation is that the dress derives from the STEMplusD project [October 20th 2014 it was released], it is set on the island of Puerto Rico at "The International School of Design and Architecture (EIDA), of the Universidad del Turabo (part of Ana G. Méndez University System), is the first school in Puerto Rico totally focused on design." (Press release) The designers consists of Cristiano Carciani, professor and coordinator of Fashion Design Program at EIDA, Arch Aurorisa Mateo Rodriguez, dean of EIDA and Carlos I. Silva Caraballo, director of EIDA's FabLab. They share the common ground of wanting to support professional, academic and young designers interested in exploring the STEM world through the eyes of design, the translation of using scientific/technological research, innovation,  sharing the culture of Puerto Rico's intellectual and technical resources, embedding technology while overcoming challenges and the desire to hit the marketplace in wearable techwear.

I believe that this experience will achieve the haute-couture, technology and design merge to create a new avenue wave of wearables and gain new ground of where modern fashion will be headed. Be part of this inspirational adventure and feel free to keep following up on this prototype and group
through their social media pages:

            Web Page
            Facebook
            Twitter
            Google+
            Pinterest










Best Wishes and Excited to Follow this Project,
@DameofTechWear

Permission to display photos given by Luca Bagnaschino 







Saturday, October 25, 2014

3D Jewelry using Source of Energy Ourselves

I've been stumbling around the net and have been roaming my eyeballs over a few articles about jewelry being in the what-we-call-for now "wearables" department and when suddenly...flash I glanced at my Facebook and found something else to talk about it's an example of an industrial designer who will blow your mind or at least she did with mine! I know I'm so dramatic anyhow...

 Naomi Kizhner, an Israeli graduate student, toyed with idea of using the energy within ourselves when designing her jewelry line. Imagine having a piece of jewelry with prongs like structures at the end to probe into our veins to create energy to power our world if we ran out of it or just because we wanted the energy. Her jewelry line caught my eye because I like the idea of how her design takes on a problem and applies a minimalist solution approach to it. I remember giving a glimpse of one of her jewelry pieces to someone next to me in my class and their eyes widened with shock yet curiosity. And that's what Noami wanted, she wanted to stirrup some thought on the fact that we could someday develop her ideas, but would we want to?

Some would say invasive
 Some would say this is creepy
    I say it's thought provoking and cool.
       Why deny something that is interesting?
            Look at people watching American Horror Story same shit, don't you think?
                Yet criticizing someone for coming up with a design that invokes the idea of using our energy as a source. Yep...sure is creepy.
(side note I really like American Horror Story too!)

Lots of Wearable Fun To Come,
@DameofTechWear
wearable tech engager...


Check out below the jewelry piece, "blood bridge" made out of gold and 3D- printed biopolymer. Oh and of course Naomi Kizhner's  crazy cool energy addict video!








Attribution:

Naomi Kizhner

Dezeen

Techie Tonics


Thursday, October 16, 2014

Wearables Word Search



Hey
I thought it would be fun to generate a word search puzzle for wearables. I thought it would be something different and something fun perhaps maybe even something easy to do. Bring out your inner child and go at it. Let me know how it goes!
This is to all my blog readers thanks for supporting me so far hope to keep it going!

Best Wishes,

Top Three Contests on Wearables

1. 2015 PLT Labs Application Innovation Contest

Press Release 
Application 

Calling all you inventors and innovator of the wearables tech world. Here is a contest for you. Contestants from 33 countries are able to compete for a total of $85,000 in cash prizes. Innovators will have access to Plantronics  APIS, SDKs and other product concept prototypes so they may be explored to new potentials in the following models:


  • Business Applications for Mobile Devices Applications
  • People with Limited Mobility
  • Personal Applications for Mobile Devices






2. Techsurge Startup Challenge


This is a spectacular challenge for those who have tartups in the IT and Electronic scene. Fancy yourself a chance at a custom business development program and top of the line digital infrastructure and smart grid? Does a grand prize of $100,000 in seed financing? Best part of all is even if you don't win being part of the program will benefit your startup and whomever is involved. The length of this challenge is 3 months and the program is individually designed to aid and mature your startup company. In that case you will still be able to accelerate your business potential!








3. Techsurge Startup Challenge

Register


 The WT Innovation World Cup is the worldwide leading competition in the area of wearable technologies. Get inspired to design the next big wearable products!
In the following groups: 


  • Sports & Fitness
  • Healthcare & Wellness
  • Safety & Security
  • Gaming & Lifestyle and special prizes “Smart Clothing” and “blukii® App 2.0”
  • $5,000 cash prize for the ‘WT Innovator of the Year’
  • ‘Smart Textiles’ and ‘blukii® App 2.0′ Special Prizes
  • Placement on the ‘Hall of Fame’
  • Opportunity to present your innovative solution at WT Conference in Europe
  • Speaking opportunities at international conferences
  • Dedicated on-line and off-line marketing activities to promote the finalists, the category winners and the ‘WT Innovator of the Year’
  • Access to the worldwide network of Innovation World Cup Series, opportunity to connect with important market players at a very early stage of product development
  • Business Acceleration
  • Software Development Kits provided by our partner STMicroelectronics at a discounted rate (up to 100%). Learn more about the SDKs here.
  • NUCLEO F401RE STM32 Nucleo development board for STM32 F4 series – with STM32F401RE MCU, supports Arduino
  • X NUCLEO IDB04A1 Bluetooth low energy expansion board based on BlueNRG for STM32 Nucleo
  • STEVAL IDB003V1 A BlueNRG IC based Bluetooth® Smart USB dongle" (Bizplan)

If you have any competitions, contests or challenges that belong on my list right now feel free to let me know!


From,
@DameofTechWear


#techwear #wearabletech #wearables #digitalfashion


Attribution
IdeaConnection
Bizplan

Sunday, October 12, 2014

#Wearables Who wants some Raspberry Pi and Adafruit?



Okay so my title is a bit silly, but I am so glad that I stumbled upon the Wearit Berlin Event because it has opened my eyes to many new concepts, ideas, and new love for #wearables #techwear. Now I'd really would like to open your world up with this company called Adafruit ever heard of  them? I've been exploring there website and it could take several hours to figure out what DIY electronic wearables project that I would like to try out first. The company was founded in 2005 by MIT engineer, Limor Fried. This NY base company is flourishing in open source electronic kits for people to do at home.  In addition to getting down with Adafruit it's all about that Raspberry Pi, which is from my understanding two concepts: an educational charity foundation based in UK and it is "a low cost, credit-card sized computer that plugs into a computer monitor or TV and uses a standard keyboard and mouse...it's capable of doing everything you'd expect a desktop computer to do." (Raspberry Pi Foundation) This device will enable a user to be able to make there own wearable electronics and more.

Here are some examples of Adafruit tutorials:

1

2

3



There are approximately 607+ tutorials. When I have sometime I'd love to make my sneakers light up! Join Adafruit network and the Raspberry Pi Foundation. Hope this was a nice intro to this concept as I read more I will post more on this subject matter.

Virtual Wave From Me to You,
@DameofTechWear
#techwear #wearabletech #wearables #digitalfashion






Attribution:
Adafruit Youtube
Adafruit Learning System
Adafruit
Raspberry Pi Foundation



Wednesday, October 8, 2014

Top Ten Kickstarter Projects aka #wearables

This isn't a particular order, but I find these very fascinating. Let me know what you think of them?




Rollerblade to a newer dimension. I can picture myself using these around campus or in a city. I'm all about not wasting my money on taxis and use that money for other materialistic consumption. The only thing I would like them to be is waterproof, but that will come with time. On the other hand I rather skate in nice and sparkling weather. What do you think of these rocket skates?




Love this & the artist!



Why doesn't my smartphone do this?

 

Costume!


 

A start to adding technology to our wardrobes. Easy accessible & different
 
All I have to say is YES.

 
It reminds me of lite brite, but more advanced. I would think it would be fun to get a kit and build
your own

!
 

I would use this because I always have my cellphone out and it would be nice to be just aware to check it and not have to constantly check it!
 


Safety first I think it is necessary to feel safe in this world of so many veichles on the road.


 

I can picture using this remote to link up with smart-watches, future techwear outfits, and live concerts in all sorts of areas. I think this product can be pushed further into the wearables spectrum.


Check out this website kickstarter. It is full of wonder and live projects. One day maybe I will use kickstarter for one of my ideas. Trust me I have a million of them once you get to know me.

Always Yours,
@DameofTechWear
#techwear #wearabletech #wearables #digitalfashion

Sunday, October 5, 2014

Techwear Festival: Wear it Berlin Event [October 11th-12th 2014]

"Wear It is the first festival for wearable electronics and arts in Berlin. Use for this year´s festival." @WearItBerlin this is from there twitter website.




If only I knew about this event earlier and/or had the money to go to Berlin, Germany to the Betahaus Berlin Venue. Nevertheless, I'm still pretty excited at what I found out about this event. Thomas Gnahm is the founder of this festival and Trafopop. Trafopop from my understanding is a creative-wearable-tech-wear-enthusiastic gang that share the love of combining technology and riding bikes. It is certainly more than just bikes and technology. His gang use old and new technologies to create the work while riding at night. They might be sewing and using open source codes to build their product-clothing lines. I think his digital-wearable-bike gang can build communities around the USA as well because Our world is working on #sustainability, #health, and the love for #bikes. I find him very inspirational and hope to push forth my passions in life to give back to communities, have a helluva-ton of fun and why not make some dollas on the way. Maybe this will be something I will be doing for halloween! Anyhow lets get back to the fantastically-electro-wear-tech showcase that this gent has created to invite world innovators to come together to do the following:

The Wear It expo is the start of the transition of technology and wearable artwork coming to life. I can picture that their will be many more events,demos, and exhibits in the near future because once society becomes more technology savvy we will want to be incorporating wearables in our life everyday or at least me! 


The speakers that are coming to this event include: Click Them Find Out More!

Kate Hartman 
                    + Art of Wearable Comm
Alex Murray-Leslie   
                        +E-shoe a High Heel Shoe Guitar
                  

Becky Stewart  
                    + GPS Shoe

Leslie Birch 

                    + Led Umbrella


Katharina Bredies
                     + Therapy device for Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.
Mika Satomi
                     +DJ Hoodie
 

Thomas Gnahm
                     +Trafopop


There is absolutely a lot more to write about however click some links, ask me questions, and feel free to contact me if you are going to this event. I would like to enlighten people about your experience and give my blog a sequel piece.



Much Love,
         @DameofTechWear
#techwear #wearabletech #wearables #digitalfashion
#wearit14

 

 



Attribution & Images:
Berlin Wearable Technology Article
Twitter Wearitberlin
Wearit Event
Facebook Wearit
Speakers Wearit

Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Top 5 Videos on Inspirational Bionic Wear






























These are my top inspirational bionic video's because of the emotional impact they had on me. I find it beautiful when technology can help a human to gain back what they have lost and create new meaning to beauty. There is something to say with the idea of integrating into a cyborg. I think we will be protected more and be able to enhance our performance level to better our world by becoming techno-craze-phenom-digital walkers.

My other thought on these videos is that I've realized that it  honestly takes that one event or person to impact your life in a big way. My advice to keep adapting and let that tragic or pivotal moment be the jetpack to your life, just shoot off to do amazing things.

What moments in time have changed your life? Do you know someone with wearable techwear that helped improve their life? I want to hear your stories!

Best Regards,

 @DameofTechWear
#techwear #wearabletech #wearables #digitalfashion
#techwear #wearabletech #wearables #digitalfashion












Saturday, September 27, 2014

Wearable Nixie the Bracelet Cam-copter

Is it a bracelet? No.
Is it a camera? No
Is it a helicopter? No









It is actually all three. 
This amazing invention is called Nixie, 
The creators are the team leader-Christoph Kohstall, project manager- Jelena Jovanovic, and team member Michael Niedermayr and hopefully will win in the Intel's Make it Wearable challenge.  They have my vote if they can get it to work the way they envision it.

I've been wondering when someone would come out with a camera that will be accessible, flies and snaps pictures when we don't have any hands to do it ourselves. I know that I'm always shuffling around to find my phone or digital camera and end up missing moments because of those few seconds I wasted to find what I need. I would sincerely enjoy wearing this drone bracelet and have it take off to capture moments that I want to capture and come back to me like a boomerang on my wrist. Picture the idea that if a family member is climbing a mountain or on top of the roof or want to get aerial view of someone fire hooping at a festivals. Maybe even capturing yourself watching your favorite band, but don't feel like taking out your cellphone. This science fiction like concept turned into a reality totally makes me drool!

I hope to see this drone to become more of a stylish look for guys and ladies a like to wear. Maybe even put diamonds in it to make it a high end desired look. I would want it in black and be able to put cool decals on it to customize it. I would also like a security feature on it so others can't use it. Maybe even an app to be connected to my drone. I can picture many possibilities and facets for this item.

What do you envision with your drone bracelet?

Tata,
 @DameofTechWear
#techwear #wearabletech #wearables #digitalfashion



Articles

Sunday, September 21, 2014

Monitor your Alcohol Intake through Tech Clothes

Drank too much and now throwing up everywhere like a grass sprinkler? Do you wish you hadn't drank that much in the first place or had a friend to warn you? Have you had sharpie drawn on your face and blasted all over social media platforms in all sizes and shapes?
Maybe it was funny the first time...
Well before any of you ever get to that point again let your clothes do the talking. What do I mean? There is a new tactic developed by South Korean artists (Younghui Kim, Sanghwa Hong, Kyungmee Kim, and Kwanu Park) and they invented a smart prototype clothing line called Metamorphosis. These prototypes come in two wearable forms that express different levels of alcohol as consumption increases: 





The Female Dress


-Kinetic movement
-Shoulders lift and deflate 
-Change color
check out the video(http://vimeo.com/104829287)




The Male Jacket
-Sensors in collar
-Collar lifts to the face















Both of these prototypes use a combination of alcohol sensors, led lights and miniature motors to activate the clothing. These smart clothes display art, beauty, and culture while mixing in technology to conduct a useful purpose. I believe that these prototypes are the start of the world of wearable techwear. Our culture will shift to making our clothes have more of a purpose other than preventing us from being naked. I think the trend is heading in that direction and more people will want to join in to the wearable techwear market because it will make a more convenient and accessible lifestyle so we can do more things that we love than worry about the small hassles in life. The only subject I will criticize on these smart clothes is there style. I think if these prototypes want to be successful they should adopt western culture when coming up with their next series.


What do you think of these smart wearables? 

How will this shape our culture? 

Feel free to let me know what you think! @DameofTechWear
#techwear #wearabletech #wearables #digitalfashion





Articles Read:


Want to own

Sunday, September 14, 2014

Apple Watch To Get or Not?

To the Apple Users and Wearable Techwear admires:



James Bond, Dick Tracy, Batman, Penny from Inspector Gadget, Star Wars, Star Trek, Spy Kids, Men in Black, what do these characters, TV shows, and movies have in common? That's right they all had cool smart watches of some type or another. Can you believe that the smart watches that we have marveled through fiction are now our reality? After dedicating some time in reading articles about the Apple Watch I believe it's a perfect example of where humanity wanted to go all along. These wearable's will find their way in the market just like the path of the iPhone, iPod, and iPad. I will be discussing the following:


  • Features 
  • Market
  • Future Market
  • Will I?

Features

Price
$349 (Us)

Size
42mm (Men) or 38mm (Women/Children)

Watch Face:
Modify it to any display look you want



Time
Can be tailored on how you need it by adjusting daylight savings or time zone, cue you in on meetings/notifications, and moves

Inner Circle 
Stay closer with the people you care about

Tap & Audio Cues
Feel your messages and calls that come in, in unique ways.

Suggestive Feature
Watch will help you write texts or emoji

Phone
Watch has built in speakers, can be transferred to iphone or bluetooth and motion sensor to ignore calls by covering your hand with the watch

Mail
Will be summoned to the watch can be marked read or unread or move to trash

Apple Watch Wears among other Apple Watch Wearers
Send Sketchs, walkie talkie, tap love ones, send a heartbeat

Fitness Tracker
accelerometer- measure total body movement
Custome censor for heart rate
GPS and Wifi on your Iphone to track how far you've moved,
Move Ring- Three ring graphic that measures calories burned, minutes used, stand time
Apps that encourage working out through goal, reminders, and achievements
Only daily activity will be shown iphone can show more detail on activity

Apple Pay
Pay with watch

APPS
Calendar 
Maps 

Passbook 

Music 

Apple Tv/Itunes 

Camera Remote 

Stop watch/timer/alarm/world clock 

Stocks 

Weather

Pictures

Siri 
Iphone remote

Watchkit App
Glances, Actionable Notifications Watchkit apps

Market 

The market that they appear to be appealing  to for now is toward the fitness market because of the convenience that wearing a watch has for fitness people instead of carrying around their clunky phones while on a jog. They can multitask task faster by keeping up with their activity with the Move Ring graphic app, accelerometer, measure heart rate and be encouraged to do so with the apps on this product. Another multitasking aspect is being apple to pay for items with the watch and I can imagine if the runner is looking to grab a bottled water while running they can forget about their wallets and just use their watch. Fitness advocates can even make phone calls while on the go. 

Future Market

The potential market that this watch can go out to are nurses. I think there is a huge market for this field because of the features that the Apple Watch will incorporate on their product. I mean last time I saw my nurse practitioner I saw her use an iPad to deal with my information. How about instead of carrying around the iPad why not use the watch to take notes and keep up with their patients. For example identification, picture of patient and history mini file.  By having the watch it becomes a convenient and portable technology that eliminates the use of pen and paper. This could condense the need for printed forms. Pharmaceutical, contact and reference information can be transferred from one place to the next. Nurses can communicate among themselves and if they plan on taking longer with a patient they can contact another coworker to move onto the next patient with notes on that patient. This watch could eliminate the lag time between seeing a nurse and patient, less stress, more convenient, accessibility, and multitask.


Will I? 

I am very interested in finding out about this Apple Watch like everyone else and I don't think I'm going to be skeptical about it at all because it will all work out in the end. I think it represents a pivotal moment in time of where we are now compared to where we were with the release date of early 2015 coming up..why not try it out? Who knows maybe it will change my future and I'll be able to transport myself with it one day!

Thanks for taking a look at my blog. I would love to hear your good, bad, and ugly feedback on what you think about the Apple Watch.




Articles I've looked at:

NY Times What the Apple Watch Says About Apple

Why the Apple Watch is a Gift to the Swiss Industry

Apple Watch Unveiled

Apple Company

Dick Tracy Photo

Apple Watch Image