Webelow Wear

Hitachi celebrated its 100^th birthday this week and held a mini exhibition in Tokyo to demonstrate a few of their up-and-coming accomplishments. Most notably is the next generation of pedometers: The Life Microscope.  Yes! Another wearable tool to demonstrate how incredibly lazy you are.

This is not your office-mom’s pedometer; using accelerometers, this watch-like wearable monitors a myriad of activities and can distinguish amongst them. From sitting at a desk, to playing video games, the data collected through the Life Microscope is easily sent to a software system that can be used to analyze daily actions. Sounds like a cut-and-dry success, but because the device is worn around one’s wrist, one could trick the device into thinking the whole body is moving. This is not for tricky lazy people, but can help health nuts and doctor’s maintain accurate records on daily activities.

While there are a few working prototypes, there is no info on when it will be available for purchase and how big the price tag may be. Competing with Phillips’ DirectLife and Fitbit, The Life Microscope will probably run you about $100.

Via [AkihabaraNews]

More pictures after the jump.

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Take your studio with you.

This is pretty cool.

The Square Band is a portable square wave synthesizer and is worn like a watch. The band includes eight tone buttons of varying octaves and a light sensor to change the pitch. Using a flexible solar panel, the band is recharged while worn and is powered for that a-ha moment of creativity.  It costs $35 with battery ($30 without) and there are only 4 in stock! But don’t fret – for you DIY’ers out there the creators are taking names for a potential DIY Kit.

Click here to hear a sample of the sounds. The first sample is a run through of each button and its corresponding tone in a controlled environment. The second sample is the tone of each button being pitch shifted via the on-board light sensor.

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ThinkGeek has done it again. Another wearable revolution – sort of.  The BeerBot Bottle Opening Shirt is exactly what it sounds like: a screen printed shirt with a bottle cap opener and it can be yours for $20.

Useful, creative and Bender-influenced. Our vote: great gift for the newly 21.

Via [Geekologie]

Beat On the Block Drum Gloves Complete Set

Website Interface

Arnoud den Besten, Kristo De Pooter, Sam Vesters and Thomas Leterme are students of the Artesis University College of Antwerp who have recently added to the long line of wearable gloves with their latest concept, the The Beat on the Block Drum Gloves. The prototype, made of micro-switches connected to a computer, a backpack with speakers and controls to change the instruments, was created with the intent of bringing together the immigrants and native teens of Belgium. The Gloves, according to Besten the gloves make it possible “…for the youth worker to make contact with immigrant youth who are on the street”.

That is, it is a way for two circles of life – which may normally never cross – to meet, share and grow together by creating music, uploading to the Drum Glove website and building on what others have contributed.  A sort of social networking music making site. While it is still under development the goal of the designers is get people creating and working together.

Check out the designers video of real drummers trying out the Drum Gloves.

Drum gloves from Arnoud on Vimeo.

Yeah – it’s a little hard to see, but trust us wearables are so in!

Check out the video for the MJ Tribute at the 2010 BET Music Awards.  It was pretty awesome but got AWESOMER when the MJ dancers came out  in what looks  like either LED Lights or EL Rope accented outfits.  Their moves were punctuated by coordinated moving lights jumping from pant leg, to hat to tie.

It was – you guessed it-awesome.

WW’s vote: AWESOME!

Yeah, it’s gone. Sorry guys.

We are a society of dieters and gadget addicts. Want to combine the two obsessions?! Well, BodyMedia, Inc.  has the products for you. Established in 1999, BodyMedia produces wearable body monitoring systems to help users lose weight. The products not only monitors useful data such as Total Calories Burned, Total Steps Taken, Total Time Spent In Physical Activity  and Sleep Duration, but it also stores and manipulates the data on and online monitoring website.

The  duo will run about $300.

Our vote: smart, useful, a little pricy.

After the jump check out Chris Kasabach, co-founder and director of BodyMedia, at the The 2008 University of Southern California Body Computing Conference.

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Valérie Lamontagne of Electromode has a fabulous DIY LED Dress on sale for $250 Canadian Dollars. The symetrical or asymetrical designs use sensors that respond to changes in light, temperature or acceleration and activate a series of lights on the dress.

The kit includes:

• Dress pattern and graphics printed on 100% cotton
• Lining pattern and circuit guides printed on Polyester Blend
• Conductive zipper
• Programmed lilypad arduino
• 15 LEDs
• Conductive thread
• Batteries and charger included

We think this is a great project for students or rising enthusiasts to have hands-on experience in inetegrating werable technology into clothing.  This will inspire and hopefully motivate those DIY-ers to create other innovative wearable designs.

Via [FashioningTechnology]

Franwell is a technology company dedicated to the development of leading edge products and services with a focus on supply chain solutions and RFID integration.  With a long list of products, they have added a very wearable design to their resume: the rfid>Sleeve.  A wearable RFID system that consists of a reader and an antenna enabled by Bluetooth or wifi, the rfid>Sleeve is designed to be worn on the lower arm and automatically scans RFID tags on products, cases or containers as the user handles them in their normal workflow.  This simple innovation that will clearly be useful for shipping  and supply chain applications, but what if the technology was expanded to other industries? Imagine going shopping with this cool gadget? Or working in the facility management industry and gathering information on buildings and the offices/apartments within each building?  Pretty cool stuff we say. Pretty cool indeed. 

Via [RFiD Technology]

According to the American Music Therapy Association(AMATA), music therapy is the clinical and evidence-based use of music interventions to accomplish individualized goals. These goals can range from bettering social interactions  amongst the menatlly handicap or austic, to reducing stress levels among terminally ill patients.  After reading Talk2MyShirt’s posting on the Bio Circuit Vest we did a little research and found the subject absolutely fascinating…and opportune for the wearables community.

The vest,  created by two students at the Emily Carr University of Art + Design, monitors your heart rate and based on that information plays music to “match” your “mood”.  That  is, if you’re super calm and chilled-out-man it plays chill sounds. Inversely, if your excited and heart rate is high, the vest  plays a cacophony of sounds through the  speakers connected to an MP3 player.  Arguably,  the vest does have a therapeutic aspect but – we think – can be repurposed specifically for the use of music therapy.

Imagine a crying baby, a person with autism or a terminal patient wearing this vest/sweater/wrap (or however it’s to be packaged) being instantly soothed – at least momentarily – by classical music  from the embedded speakers playing as the wearer’s heart rate increases past a certain “calm” zone.

Simple and effective. 

Have any other ideas on how this product can be used (or altered)? Let us know!

The wearables industry never ceases to be amazing; from electronics to biometrics the advancement in the industry is ever growing.  Contacts have been used as a drug delivery vehichle for a variety of eye problems, but current technology makes it so that some of the drugs are lost due to systemic circulation. Less than 5% of drugs delivered via eye drops reach cornea. The rest just kind floats about in  your eye and can cause negative side effects.  Anuj Chauhan, a professor of chemical engineering at the University of Florida, has developed transparent particle-laden contact lenses that deliver drugs at therapeutic doses for 5-30 days. This, according to Chauhan, can lead to a huge increase in the fraction of the entrapped drug that enters the cornea.  So where…*ahem*…when can you pick up these wearable lenses? In about eight years time.

Via [Inhabitat]