Wired has a story today on Project Jacquard, a Google lab effort that aims to spur development of wearable tech you’d actually consider wearing—both functional in useful, discreet ways and not terrible looking. The man behind the project, Ivan Poupyrev, explains it while wearing a tailored jacket that lets you answer your phone by swiping down your arm.
[Project Jacquard] aims to bring conductive yarns to every garment and fabric on earth,
and then to integrate touch sensors, haptic feedback, and more right
into your jeans, car seats, curtains, everything. “If you can weave the
sensor into the textile, as a material,” Poupyrev says, “you’re moving
away from the electronics. You’re making the basic materials of the
world around us interactive.”
The lab has succeeded in creating fabrics that are conductive in ways that could let your clothing communicate with your personal tech items, and is currently working with Levis on potential applications. I’m a little skeptical of being even more digitally connected to the world—at least I can put my phone down when I want to tune out, it would be less socially acceptable to take off my pants.
–Pete
