wearable technology

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

Here's a high-tech dress that's tailor-made for the red carpet.

Emily Steel, a student of industrial design, digital photography, and fashion at New Zealand's Victoria University of Wellington, has stitched together a garment using slide film, LEDs, and a LilyPad Arduino, a set of sewable electronic components. … Read more

Fitness technology is hot. Wearable technology is hot. It was just a matter of time before the two got together and had a love child. That baby is Move, a prototype technology garment that tracks your movements.

This isn't the first time we've checked out an imaginative tech fashion product from Jennifer Darmour of Electricfoxy. Her Zip jacket integrated a volume control into the zipper.

Built-in electronics in the tank top not only collect data with stretch-and-bend sensors, but also give a little physical nudge when your body position needs a correction. It's kind of like having somebody politely telling you not to slouch.… Read more

Is wearable technology going to be the next big thing?

For Microsoft, it may be the next step in gaming. Patent Bolt discovered a new Microsoft patent application detailing how a compact display system will work on goggles, helmets, and other eyewear.

According to the application, the company has been working on a gaming helmet accessory for its Xbox console, as well as a pair of glasses to be used with smartphones and other portable devices, since the third quarter of 2010. … Read more

Google is reportedly designing eyeglasses that could display information on the world around us.

The high-tech specs purportedly would tap into Google's cloud-based location services to convey details about the user's surroundings. The visual information would then appear as a 3D augmented reality computer display.

Known as wearable head-up displays (HUDs), the glasses are reportedly in the late prototype stage, says tech news site 9to5Google. Based on information from one of its sources, the site describes the glasses as similar in appearance to conventional eyeglasses but with a few buttons on the arms. The actual display technology is … Read more