wearable technology

While anyone could dream up a spinning virtual GPS globe constantly updated with a slideshow of global Flickr photos emanating from a hat, competitors in Frog Design's contest for new wearable technology concepts had to keep their designs within the realm of feasibility.

The key requirement that keeps all the designs within reason is that they have to be able to come to market within three years. That doesn't necessarily mean they will come to market, but at least there's a chance.

The global design firm ran its internal competition for new wearable technology concepts last year and just unveiled the results (PDF). They include some fun and fascinating ideas that explore everything from communing with trees through technology to an urban compass that leads you into discovering unexpected parts of a city.… Read more

LAS VEGAS--Personal fitness company Fitbit has just jumped further into the wearable tech market. The company unveiled its $99.95 Fitbit Flex device, an activity tracker designed to be worn all day and monitor movement, sleep, and calories burned.

Design The Flex is similar to other competing products in the growing personal fitness category such as the Nike FuelBand, and Jawbone Up. Built to be worn all day long, the appropriately named Flex is a soft bracelet encased in a rubbery skin. The idea is that it's malleable enough to stay firmly wrapped around your wrist but be comfortable … Read more

LAS VEGAS--It seems that many companies want in on the wearable fitness tracker craze, and Withings is no exception. Its new Smart Activity Tracker is a small, light, 8-gram device that records user activity, sleep, and even measures heart rate in real time.

About the size of a USB stick, the Smart Activity Tracker can handle all the typical pedometer duties such as logging the steps you take, stairs climbed, and calories burned. What sets this gadget apart, though, is its heart rate sensor located on back. Just place your finger tip in the right spot and the Tracker will … Read more

Who needs an Xbox when you can just put on a sweatshirt and thrash your arms about? That's the idea behind Woven, a wearable gaming platform by two Dutch designers.

Christiaan Ribbens and Patrick Kersten, recent graduates of the Utrecht School of the Arts, embedded a sweater and pair of jeans with a small Bluetooth module, speakers, motion sensors, shake motors, a three-color LED screen, and other gizmos to create their concept gaming platform. A trio of LilyPad Arduino microcontrollers process the data and operate the LEDs (and are, incidentally, washable). … Read more

If you decide to wear this new Macy's fleece in public, fellas, don't be surprised when everyone stares at your left bicep. It's to be expected when you're displaying video on your sleeve (which is not to say your biceps don't warrant widespread public attention in their own right.)

Macy's teamed with designer Sean John (also known as Puff Daddy, P. Diddy, Diddy, and so on) and Recom Group, maker of the Video Name Tag, to create the media-enabled sweater. … Read more

As fashion fiend Tim Gunn likes to say, you can never go wrong with a classic black dress. And if it's fitted with 2,000 LEDs and broadcasts tweets in real time, all the better, right Tim?

Nicole Scherzinger took that fashion rule to heart when she showed up at a launch party for new British 4G mobile network EE last week wearing a haute couture gown that flashes like a light show on top while displaying scrolling tweets on the skirt below.

CuteCircuit, a London-based fashion company that designs interactive clothing, created the electronic dress especially for the … Read more

It's 2020 and you've a party to go to. What do you wear? If the techno-garments on display at the TechnoSensual exhibition in Vienna are any indication, you might strap on some backbreakingly high 3D-printed shoes and a dress that lights up when you blush, and top it all off with a feathered hat that reacts to medium-wave radio signals. (Or you could just go in jeans and your usual "I heart R2-D2" T-shirt, but what fun would that be?)

TechnoSensual -- which runs through September 2 at the MuseumsQuartier Wien art and culture center -- … Read more

It's always nice to encounter poetry in everyday life. But imagine wearing it -- literally. Lace Sensor Dresses by artists Anja Hertenberger and Meg Grant feature embroidered poems that are prerecorded and play aloud through tiny speakers sewn into the frocks.

Specific gestures trigger the poems to broadcast through the speakers, which are covered with decorative conductive lace custom-made with help from the Dutch Lace Factory Museum (and detachable in case something breaks or needs to be resoldered).

To play a poem about death and remembrance, for example, the wearer embraces herself by crossing her arms over her chest … Read more

SEATTLE -- It was an unseasonably warm June evening, the kind of day locals rave about because they come so rarely. At 6 p.m., I hopped on my bike for an evening spin.

My heart-rate quickly raced up to 157 beats per minute as I picked up my pace to 14 miles per hour up a gradual rise in the road. At the same time, my blood-glucose level dropped to 62 milligrams per deciliter, low, but not dangerously so for a non-diabetic. All in all, pretty solid data, given that the night before I slept six hours and 21 minutes, waking for brief periods 21 times during the night.

Welcome to my cyborg life. Google has generated tons of press in recent days with its Project Glass, computerized glasses that lets users take pictures and find information. But it's hardly the only company pursuing wearable computing. And while Project Glass won't be commercially available for another two years at the earliest, there are plenty of companies selling devices that consumers can slip into and strap on to collect reams of data about their daily lives.

To get a glimpse of that future, I strapped on a bunch of those gadgets. Here's what I learned.… Read more