Google Planning Touchscreen Controllable Intelligent Clothes
Whenever you're thinking about wearables, your mind flies to VR or AR glasses, smartwatches or those little annoying fitness bands which keep making me feel guilty for not exercising enough. However, Google is trying to change all that and create intelligent clothing. Project Jacquard is an ambitious initiative which aims to create clothes that could be controlled through touchscreens. What I'm actually curious about is what exactly you will be able to instruct your clothes to do: hide your belly and make your shoulders look broader?
The idea for smart clothing isn't actually a new one. Intel came up with a T-shirt capable of measuring your heart-rate and sending this information to your smartphone. Furthermore, another company named OM Signal created sensor-packed garments which could track your vitals, but up to this point, customers had no control over the clothes themselves.
Unfortunately, at the moment, there are no specific details on Project Jacquard for me to share with you. As far as I know, the technology will be based on specially developed conductive yarns which respond to gesture controls. These materials can be used to fashion large (touchscreen like) interactive surfaces that can be embedded into various garments. Furthermore, to make sure that they won't mess up with the design, Google partnered with the popular brand Levi, which will help them embed the technology into clothes you would actually want to wear.
