The Future of Wearable Technology

Nowadays, Google is much more than just a search engine. They have a multitude of exciting projects going on, and under the parent company Alphabet, there are many different smaller companies that are working on bringing innovation and incredible concepts to different areas of the tech world.

Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP) is the group at Alphabet that is responsible for developing crazy, short term projects that focus on innovative technology. ATAP is headed up by the former director of DARPA, Regina Dugan, and each development team only has two years to bring a project from its concept to a proven product ready to be thrown into the market. According to Dugan, the ideal ATAP project combines technology and science, requires a certain amount of novel research, and creates a marketable product within a two-year time frame. ATAP has a lot of exciting projects going on right now, but we’re going to focus on the two that deal with wearable technology.

Project Soli

Project Soli is a gesture-recognition technology that uses miniature radar signals to detect touchless interactions from your hand. The team that is developing Soli says they envision a future where the human hand becomes a universal input device for interacting with technology. They’re creating a gesture interaction language that will allow people to control their technology using intuitive, simple gestures. I don’t know about you, but this is pretty exciting to me. Imagine the possibilities that will open up as this technology gets more advanced! Some of the gestures they have created include turning a virtual dial by rubbing your thumb and index finger together, pressing a button by pressing your fingers together, or sliding a virtual slider by sliding your thumb along the length of your index finger.

All of this awesome technology is bundled into a tiny chip about the size of a dime, so it can be incorporated into many different technologies, making the future applications from this technology countless. It will be especially useful for smartwatches, because of their limited space that is available for user-input. This will enable smartwatches to show more information on their small screens because they don’t have to account for a finger being pressed onto the screen.  

Project Jacquard

Project Jacquard is another user-input technology, only this time it is actually embedded into your clothing! They use conductive yarn to embed interactive fabric into specific areas of clothing. The other components of the technology are built to be as small and discreet as possible. Using wireless technology, the fabric transfers the captured touches to other electronics, allowing the user to control various applications and functions.

The team working on Project Jacquard is collaborating with Levi’s to produce their first piece of clothing that will have their technology woven into it. They recently announced that they will release a jacket in the spring of 2017 that will allow its wearers to control various applications, including maps and music, by touching an area on the sleeve of the jacket. Marketed specifically to urban bikers, this will allow them to control apps without having to mess with getting their phone out of their pocket.

The Future

Jacquard and Soli are paving the way for the future of wearable technologies. They are making interacting with technology more seamless, enabling consumers to effortlessly interact with their phones and other electronic devices. We are entering into a virtual world, one where you can control the volume by simply rubbing your fingers together, or skip to the next song on your playlist by swiping the sleeve of your jacket.