Google recently announced that it is teaming up with Levi’s to make jeans with conductive fabric. They’re hoping that the end result with allow wearers to use their legs as touchscreens — perhaps swiping their thigh to accept a phone call.
Eventually, the broader idea is to use conductive yarns in other garments, and then to integrate touch sensors, haptic feedback, and more right into your jeans, car seats, curtains, etc.
Here’s how it works: The Google team—which came out of Google’s secretive ATAP lab, and code-named “Project Jacquard,” after Joseph Marie Jacquard, the inventor of the power loom—designed yarns based on a secret metallic alloy. They created a two-layer system that allows you to embed electronics in the middle, like the meat in a sandwich. That makes it easy to connect electronics to the connective threads themselves, without getting in the way of what the designers want to do.
Just like Apple is doing with its Watch, Google and Levi’s are marketing computerized pants as a way to stay connected to your digital life without having to pull out your phone.
It’s not clear when you’ll be able to pick up a pair of touchscreen jeans, as Project Jacquard is still very much in the prototype stage. According to Wired Magine, Google and Levi’s are “still trying to figure out the right application for the tech.” But it sounds like the digital revolution will soon be coming to a pair of pants near you.
Relevant source:
http://fusion.net/story/141560/google-and-levis-are-teaming-up-to-make-computerized-pants/
Curated from Fusion
