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Talk to the hand: No, really, it's a glove phone

A British designer develops a glove that works like a phone. Yes, you talk into the pinkie. Why didn't Google think of this?

Chris Matyszczyk
2 min read
You have to glove it. BBC Screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET

I have had the impression for some time that Google has thought of everything.

This impression was mainly fostered by Google, which seems intent not merely on knowing everything I do now, but everything I will want to do in the future.

But then I saw this footage of a man talking into his pinkie finger and thought: "He must be British."

This did, indeed, prove to be the case. For Sean Miles of Designworks in the U.K. decided that the true joy of wearable tech was a driving glove that you can talk into.

At least that's what it looks like in this demonstration he gave to the BBC.

This is surely the most developed expression ever of talking to the hand.

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He listens to his thumb. He talks into his little finger.

I can just imagine millions of nerds and teenagers desperate to meld their inner Michael Jackson with their outer coolier-than-thou. They would surely pay fortunes to get their hands onto and into one of these gloves.

Sadly, this is not a commercial project. The Brits have often found commerce a touch beneath them.

Instead, Miles was approached by phone company 02 Recycling to create experiments.

His last was the highly hygienic shoe-phone.

Here, he said his biggest obstacle was making the technology work with the fabric of the glove.

He used a Bluetooth device, and the principles are as simple as the glove itself: the earpiece is in the thumb, the speaker is in the little finger.

Miles was simply trying to take an everyday object and convert it to technological use, rather than force even those who don't wear glasses to resemble people from a blissful future.

Soon, perhaps every item that we currently believe is merely clothing will suddenly have a simultaneous technological use.

Who can possibly wait for the the iEarring, the speaker-jeans or the massage underpants?