Gadgetory

this episode of Android Weekly is brought to you by domain.com so let's talk about wearables beyond the watch in the near future I'm talking the next two to three years will we have smart clothing smart contact lenses or are we just gonna go Aalborg and start injecting ourselves ever since wearable technology burst onto the scene the landscape has been dominated by wrist-worn devices we've had wave after wave of fitness trackers and the SmartWatch category is finally getting competitive but the term wearable covers a whole lot more than our wrists and we're not talking just about smart glasses either finding ways to weave small electronic sensors into clothing could enable t-shirts or jackets to perform the same sort of functions that fitness trackers and smartwatches are handling right now it could also lead to new methods of control imagine tapping your armchair to change the channel sweeping or sleeve to take a call or even crossing your legs to pause the music you're listening to okay that last sentence was written by Simon Hill and that was just weird can you imagine I don't think it has a leg to stand on Google's a tap advanced technology and projects division showed off project Jack warred at i/o this past year with the aim of bringing touch sensitive clothing to the mainstream the demo revealed how it might work it's a highly conductive yarn that can be weaved into clothing or any other material it can create gesture sensitive areas that could be invisible in the finished garment but it requires embedded electronics to work the idea here is to miniaturize these two button size and then they'll link up to clothing to your smart phone or any other device wirelessly via bluetooth at least at the moment the smart move here on Google's part is to go directly to fashion brands with the technology and work with them on delivering it in garments one of the major problems for wearables so far has been that tech companies don't necessarily know how to make something that people want to wear from an aesthetic point of view apparently Levi's is already on board and that's the kind of brand that could give some like there's a big push into the market the yarn is apparently washable and there's no issue making the electronics waterproof but doesn't make sense to have a complete set of electronics in each item of clothing what would be the added cost what would happen with repairs can it be recycled it may make more sense for fabric to be part of the clothing but the electronics to be a separate component that's plugged in when needed these are all issues that have to be resolved Google also showed off projects solely at i/o which is a way for our wearables to track micro gestures it could empower us to make tiny hand gestures to activate features it uses radar to track our hand movements so you could perhaps make a gesture like turning a volume dial down in the air and actually turn down the volume now at the moment all these wearables are limited in scope the expense for a single item of clothing that has limited capabilities is definitely off-putting but perhaps if we reach a platform standardization for wearable clothing will really see some movement if Google can get fashion designers interested using Jack warred and get developers interested in creating apps for it then it could be uniquely well placed to drive a whole new ecosystem but the next question is who would actually buy this stuff there are some clever ideas for how wearables might improve the life for people suffering from various conditions Google's smart lenses for diabetics are a particular interesting example for sports pros the fitness tracking wearables offer some benefits in terms of comfort and accuracy over existing technology they're sure to serve a niche demand but do the rest of us really need this kind of technology there are still questions about how you'd care for its smart garmet how to power it or even how safe it would be the potential is very exciting but that's all it is for the moment so what do you guys think will be the next leap forward in the world of wearables I'm gonna point out some recent history when you're looking at you know a great leap forward in innovation let's talk about the first real smartphone like the iPhone now there were smart phones before that but they sucked when the first iPhone came out it was really really limited in features it didn't even have an app store or an app ecosystem to speak of there was just a few native apps directly from Apple it was so and features but because those core core functions were so strong it really took off and created a whole new category someone is going to do that in the wearables market and it needs to be something that is subtle unobtrusive and does one or two things really really well what do you think it's gonna be so a lot of you gave me great critical feedback on my own site undivided company comm that's the work that I do when I'm not doing this work here 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a whole other show and they think that I'm putting on a creepy voice but this is my voice this is honestly how I sound both on camera off and it's my normal voice I've never heard someone say before that my voice sounds creepy but apparently to some of you it does so I just wanted to you know answer that comment that comes once or twice every show you don't forget about my brother's an Android who are working hard to be your source for all things Android I should see you later this week on Android Weekly