17 ms·

Project Jacquard

531 points by yla92 11y ago

diminish 11y ago
I'm having a hard time to understand if it's some kind of joke or a true project. Could someone explain what's it all about? It's also interesting that the parent path https://www.google.com/atap https://www.google.com/atap redirects to project tango, https://www.google.com/atap/project-tango/ https://www.google.com/atap/project-tango/
- amaks 11y ago
  Just watch the ATAP keynote on Google IO 2015 web site.
devindotcom 11y ago
It's a neat idea, and one I think people won't be able to appreciate until the killer app hits, possibly in fitness or high-end suits. As far as I'm concerned, it's just neat research being backed by Google with no obvious ulterior motive, and that works fine for me.
- freyr 11y ago
  Google's business is targeted advertising. Its competitive advantage is knowing more about you than other advertisers. Obviously, embedding clothing sensors could collect and deliver tremendous amounts of information about a person and their habits. It's aligned with Google's interests in an obvious way, and it would be naive to think this is lost on the decision makers at Google. That's not to say it's bad. Google's ATAP program is modeled on DARPA, which has funded many military-oriented research programs that have delivered advancements that extend beyond military applications. Yet all DARPA programs have some obvious or non-obvious military value. I imagine ATAP works the same way, funding ambitious projects that have high potential value for Google's primary business, but also have potential for broader impact.
  - Navarr 11y ago
    I'm not sure there's any sort of technology that does not somehow benefit Google's model. Perhaps Encryption? Then why does ATAP have Project Vault?
    - MichaelGG 11y ago
      Strong, usable end to end crypto is probably not very feasible. But doing user friendly crypto makes people feel secure and gets them sharing more online. The NSA stuff could only have hurt Google, so it's obviously in their own interest to make sure they control the connection fully to the end user.
  - btian 11y ago
    That's bullshit and you know it. Google is a large company with many businesses. How is Google Cloud Platform related to advertising? Nest? Liftware? Google Docs? Fact is advertising is cyclical, and Google is aggressively diversifying away from it.
    - freyr 11y ago
      > Google is a large company with many businesses. Yes, many tiny, unprofitable "businesses" that contribute little to nothing to Google's bottom line, except through direct or indirect support of the advertising business that generates the vast majority of its revenue.
      - cromwellian 11y ago
        You have it exactly backwards. Google's Ads business throws off massive amounts of cash to spend on R&D diversifying away from Ads. The Ads business is maxing out, you cant generate 20% revenue growth per year by continuing to have a 97% ads business model. This "oh, but they're going to use it for ads" meme is pure lazy and sloppy thinking.
        deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
- ngoel36 11y ago
  A start for fitness is already here - it might not be the "killer app", but it has the potential to become so one day - liveathos.com
TeMPOraL 11y ago
Here goes my dream of being the first to create a CPS suit from Continuum. It's actually a weird feeling - on the one hand I love the progress we have; on the other hand, I feel sad that I can't get to be a part of it. It also seems to me that any cool idea I have tend to become a mass-market product before I can get around to start prototyping. Yeah, I know, the real world. Real world sucks :(.
- nine_k 11y ago
  So you basically say you keep predicting ideas that large corps put to market? Enjoy your savviness; it could also help you get a nicer job.
  - Swizec 11y ago
    I was convinced that self-driving convoy trucks where they just follow the leader were already a thing for like 20 years. Downright certain of it. It just seemed so obvious and relatively easy to implement. Then bam, a few months ago, someone makes a big deal out of making that a reality. I was very confused.
    - smacktoward 11y ago
      > It just seemed so obvious and relatively easy to implement Most new things seem obvious and relatively easy to implement until you try to actually implement them.
      - TeMPOraL 11y ago
        Most new things are easy to implement if someone is willing to put a concentrated effort into them and support it with resources. For example, it took only 12 years from the first artificial satellite to putting a man on the Moon. The real bottleneck here is the market; you need to wait for it to be ready in order to get the required resources and a pressure for concentrated effort. Apparently, the market became ready for self-driving cars only recently.
- 11y ago
ohitsdom 11y ago
If you're interested in this kind of thing, Becky Stern with Adafruit is a pretty great source for DIY wearables. Lots of tutorials and a regular Youtube series that keeps you updated on the latest products and tools.
sologoub 11y ago
Reading this on the heels of talking with a colleague about (relatively near) future of TV advertising when marketers will know how many people are in the room (and possibly who these people are) and can deliver hyper-targetted ads, my initial reaction was "oh, crap... my couch will now know I'm sitting on it, for how long, etc... my t-shirt will know the last time I wore it and where..." This future is inevitable and all the AMAZING use cases such advances bring, but I can't help but wonder how we can keep these operating for the "good" and not the "ugly" of tech and monetization.
- javert 11y ago
  Don't use bad tech. Some people will, but that's their loss. As long as it's a free society, we'll each individually have the choice to stay away from bad tech. Paying one of my local telco monopolies too much money to watch TV full of ads is already a losing value proposition for me, so I don't have cable TV. I sure as hell am not going to get a TV that is connected to the Internet and has a microphone, much less shares information with advertisers. Same thing for a couch.
  - smacktoward 11y ago
    The problem arises when the bad tech crowds the good tech out of the market altogether. I would like to have a smartphone that doesn't spy on me. I can't, because nobody makes one. So my personal preference doesn't matter; my only choice is between either accepting the spying, or not having a smartphone at all. Now I get to look forward to enjoying this exact same dilemma when I buy furniture! Hooray.
    - javert 11y ago
      > The problem arises when the bad tech crowds the good tech out of the market altogether. That's not possible in normal market dynamics. When only shitty products are available, someone will start competing at the high end. The reason it doesn't, and won't, happen with smartphones is because the telcos have [government granted] legal monopolies. And they function as government bureaus. Look up what happened to the CEO of Quest. [1] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Nacchio http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Nacchio
michaelmior 11y ago
In case there's a chance someone doesn't know, the name comes from the inventor of the first programmable loom. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacquard_loom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacquard_loom
- agumonkey 11y ago
  Watching the results at the bottom I was thinking, this is the first programmable renderer.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    Which leads to the question - does it have a demoscene?
- mkempe 11y ago
  It really bothers me that Google hijacks Jacquard's name for their own project. In the future the Google search engine will bury Jacquard's innovation in /dev/Internet/dustbin With decency, they could at a minimum have acknowledged his existence, creations, influence, and inspiration.
  - mkempe 11y ago
    Oh, downvoted! Love to you too. Joseph Marie Jacquard was a genius and Google should not use his name without proper acknowledgement. Shame on Google, and on downvoters.
    - Turing_Machine 11y ago
      How do you feel about Pascal, Ada, Erlang, Haskell, Python...?
      - mkempe 11y ago
        Both Blaise Pascal and Lady Ada Lovelace were honored explicitly when these languages were named after them. (I got my programming start with UCSD Pascal!) Their creators --Niklaus Wirth and Jean Ichbiah-- never dreamed of using these names without explicit tribute, since the naming was intended as a tribute. The other programming languages you mention I don't know as much about -- Python users do seem to be regularly paying homage to Monty Python, so I'm quite happy with their intellectual and cultural honesty. As for Turing, how could it ever be acceptable for someone to name a product after him and not explicitly mention him, his work, or his importance? I love computers, software, and the people who made it possible, from Jacquard to Turing via Babbage and their heirs, friends, emulators, and more. I include a number of Ancient Greek philosophers in the lot. We have a responsibility to honor history and our ancestors; Google should, too. It's not a difficult proposition. Not doing it is unbecoming.
msoad 11y ago
This is the missing part of Google Glass. For interacting with the Glass you don't have to touch the Glass itself. You can just perform gestures on your jeans.
- ubersync 11y ago
  I can't help but imagine how awkward that would be. If tilting your head repeatedly and talking to yourself was not enough, touching yourself all over the body will definitely make you look awkward!
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    If it's awkward, you've designed it wrong. Touch surfaces in your clothes can allow almost totally discreet operation. Just put them on your thigh, a little to the side, and you can operate them while standing or sitting without most people noticing.
- MrBuddyCasino 11y ago
  You mean, for those rare occasions when Google Glass just doesn't cut it to make you the nerdiest guy in the room, you can now get an extra-boost? Well, sign me up!
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    Like being a nerd is a bad thing :). Wear it as a badge of honour!
    - ryanx435 11y ago
      Lol no thanks
    - serf 11y ago
      This feels appropriate. Wired (1994)/Mondo 2000 R.U. A Cyberpunk? : https://i1.wp.com/craphound.com/images/R_U_cyberpunk.jpg https://i1.wp.com/craphound.com/images/R_U_cyberpunk.jpg Funny to think of a modern 'cyber-punk' extolling the values of paper currency. Guess Wired was off the mark a bit.
xngzng 11y ago
Appears to be still cooking in the lab. Similar to Ara and also Glass. Sounds like a research project that needs not answer the business question of how to make money. IBM, Microsoft, Apple likes to keep theirs secretive. Google likes to showcase.
- coherentpony 11y ago
  Advertising. Wearing a specific brand of clothing will impact what your Google search results contain. Edit: To the downvoters: Why? Am I wrong? Are you Google employees?
  - Dirlewanger 11y ago
    Yup, that's a fucking scary-but-very-likely thought.
  - cromwellian 11y ago
    I am an employee, but I down voted it because it's dumb.
- wldcordeiro 11y ago
  I prefer their method, it's nice to see what their R&D looks like.
- curun1r 11y ago
  While I think there's a lot of possible ways that this can make money in the future, there are some that are just so obvious that it doesn't really compare to other research projects that are more of a departure. The ability to control our digital devices using input devices built into clothing and furniture is just obviously compelling. Also, this isn't exactly new...Burton did something similar over a decade ago: (http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1934259_1934555_1934562,00.html http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,288...)
- sangnoir 11y ago
  Microsoft Research[1] is hardly secretive for things that are cooking in the lab[2] 1. http://research.microsoft.com/ http://research.microsoft.com/ 2. http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/news/headlines/hyperlapse-download_20150514.aspx http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/news/headlines/hyperlaps...
hharnisch 11y ago
This is really cool, but at first glance one of their images really freaked me out: https://www.google.com/atap/project-jacquard/static/img/making-clothes-intelligent-1.jpg https://www.google.com/atap/project-jacquard/static/img/maki... Who's hand is that!
- BinaryIdiot 11y ago
  > Who's hand is that! Someone's hand. It was someone's hand. Now it belongs to the fabric.
BinaryIdiot 11y ago
I hadn't thought about conductive threads. What a neat idea. The applications could be really interesting here. I'm not sure what would be initially compelling but I'm interested in seeing what people come up with using this tech.
chralieboy 11y ago
This is amazing for card counting. Discreet swipes to add/remove count and double tap to have your phone/watch buzz the current count. Maybe not the most ethical use of the tech, but sounds fun!
- mtrpcic 11y ago
  Yeah, this definitely takes "Android Wear" to the next level. Integrating pieces of your outfit into your phone/watch will allow for a lot of subtle little tweaks to every day life: * Leaving work but forgot your keys? The electromagnetic sensor in your pocket will vibrate your phone to let you know the moment you step out of the office. * No more "three tap check" for keys, wallet, phone. Every time you leave the house your clothes will check that for you. * Two-factor auth is a lot easier when you can authenticate by wearing special underwear * Feeling cold? Your clothes can probably detect that and adjust the thermostat in your car or home automatically (including heated seats!) Lots of cool ideas, but these ideas have been floating around for a while now. Every piece of wearable clothing I've seen that had integrated electronics has been both bulky and gaudy. Maybe a concentrated focus like this will bring it to the next level.
  - downandout 11y ago
    I don't see a single one of these applications actually being possible with this. The thread enables touch sensitivity on clothing; nothing more. There are no temperature sensors, RFID chips, electromagnetic sensors etc. It's interesting that even Google didn't post a single use case for it...I can't think of one off the top of my head either.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
    - heatwaving 11y ago
      The project Jacquard site describes some output: "We developed innovative techniques to attach the conductive yarns to connectors and tiny circuits, no larger than the button on a jacket... LEDs, haptics, and other embedded outputs provide feedback to the user, seamlessly connecting them to the digital world." https://www.google.com/atap/project-jacquard/ https://www.google.com/atap/project-jacquard/
mmanfrin 11y ago
I get annoyed with the business of Google on occasion -- I was very upset with the closure of Reader and IG, with choices they've made with Android; but I really appreciate the amount of unicorn ideas they push after.
shockzzz 11y ago
WHAT.
- shockzzz 11y ago
  y the downvtoz? dis proadukt iz amayzni
jedc 11y ago
I know the team at Knyttan (http://www.knyttan.com http://www.knyttan.com) which has awesome tech to enable industrial-size looms to do knitting on-demand. If Jacquard fabric was used on Knyttan-enabled looms, anyone (designers, anyone else) could effectively print/knit one-off pieces of connected clothing. The future is awesome. :)
smikhanov 11y ago
This is definitely not a joke. The guy in the video, Ivan Poupyrev (I'm super proud about graduating from the same university and department he has graduated from), is a world-class authority on UIs that are integrated into physical world. His website lists lots of English-language materials about him, here's one interview with him in Russian, for Russian-speaking HNers: http://vozduh.afisha.ru/technology/vy-budete-zhit-vnutri-kompyutera-i-vse-vokrug-budet-ego-interfeysom/ http://vozduh.afisha.ru/technology/vy-budete-zhit-vnutri-kom...
sebringj 11y ago
ah fuck i got rugburn on my finger again.
TD-Linux 11y ago
The most obvious problem is that capacitive interfaces like this detect on both sides. Which means rejecting false touches from the clothing moving on your body is going to be very difficult - unless it's integrated into outerwear or something farther away.
- avinashv 11y ago
  Not at all. The fabric can be woven to specifically avoid this problem.
  - TD-Linux 11y ago
    How? The most common method I've seen is to put a ground plane behind the sense wires, but that would require 2 layers of fabric.
    - Kalium 11y ago
      Many garments above casual streetwear have multiple layers. Your typical blazer has several.
brianpgordon 11y ago
It's pretty funny that this hits HN the day after this did: http://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/2015/05/27/what-heck-happened-to-google/ http://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/2015/05/27/what-heck-h... > It’s almost as if Page walked right into that corner office and flipped the switch marked “Fiscal Responsibility” from the “on” to the “off” position. At that point, Page abandoned Google’s second core philosophy, “It’s best to do one thing really, really well,” and started doing just about everything.
- jbhatab 11y ago
  Since when has google followed that philosophy? I always thought they were the mad scientist of tech companies and that was more Apple's cup of tea.
  - darkmighty 11y ago
    Yea, the counterexample is pretty much all of their products. Gmail, Translate, pretty much every product was either acquired or created through internal experimentation afaik.
- haberdasher 11y ago
  "an artificial neural network for machine vision (whatever that is)" -- I think you should probably get your news/insights elsewhere...
- copsarebastards 11y ago
  Well, the problem is, they're not actually that good at search any more. I find stuff in my email now by grepping my email on my server easier than I do by searching in my GMail account. PageRank, their core technology, lowers results for things that have DMCA complaints. Even if their privacy settings weren't scary I'd be moving away from their services.
ngoldbaum 11y ago
Reminds me of the wearable computers in Vernor Vinge's novel Rainbow's End.
pcarbonn 11y ago
Best application of this tissue : a head cover with electrodes to do electro encephalograms and read your thoughts. What a powerful source of info to target ads...
maresca 11y ago
This would be great to integrate into the leg of my jeans so I can change my music while riding my motorcycle. I'll be following this project.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
MyNameIsMK 11y ago
Dear Google, Please stop. I do not want you or your technology in my life. Thanks!
cpeterso 11y ago
How will these fabrics be disposed of? Can they be recycled?
abalone 11y ago
Sage advice from Peter Molyneux: "The bizarre thing is a huge amount of effort and time and money goes into researching the tech, like the Kinect tech and scanning the bodies, and there's always this one line that hardware manufacturers - whether it be Microsoft or anyone else - say and that's 'we can't wait to see what happens when it gets into the hands of developers.' Now if Apple had said that when they introduced the iPhone, I don't think we'd ever end up with the iPhone! What really should happen is that they put a similar amount of money into researching just awesome real world applications that you'll really use and that work robustly and smoothly and delightfully. "They should spend as much money doing that rather than just on hardware tech and saying, 'Okay developers, we'll leave it to you.' If you look at the cases where technology has worked well - touch is one of those, and Wii Sports and motion control; Nintendo didn't introduce motion control until they had Wii Sports. You weren't just playing a few demos. I just hope that for the Holo stuff that they really choose an application and make that sing. That is what transforms a piece of tech from awe inspiring gadget that you try a few times and show off to friends into something that you use as part of your life, and that's really what we want technology to be. And that requires just an awesome amount of design to be put into the software, not just the hardware." Source: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2015-01-22-molyneux-warns-microsoft-dont-overpromise-on-hololens http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2015-01-22-molyneux-wa... via http://daringfireball.net/linked/2015/01/23/mololens-molyneux http://daringfireball.net/linked/2015/01/23/mololens-molyneu...
- GuiA 11y ago
  Yep. It's easy to wrap early stage research in shiny PR and highly polished videos. Shipping a compelling product that incorporates the tech in a meaningful way is orders of magnitude harder. Sadly, pushing the hip video is much easier and cheaper than building the products, and it makes you feel good about yourself. Kind of the corporate version of this psychological phenomenon: https://sivers.org/zipit https://sivers.org/zipit
  - SoftwareMaven 11y ago
    It's more than that. Finding a real-world, compelling, useful product based on a new technology is much harder than just developing the technology. This is, of course, obvious, because in both cases, you will have to develop the technology. For one, the project ends at that point; for the other, some of the most challenging work is just getting started. If you are responsible for developing a new technology, you can claim success if you release something that works as advertised, even if nobody actually uses it ("it was ahead of its time", "naysayers poisoned the market", etc.). Since there is no way to tell ahead of release whether it will succeed in the market, your project and, by extension, your position within the company creating it, are secure. Much, if not all, of the blame can be externalized. On the other hand, if your goal is to release a usable product, you've just massively increased your personal exposure. First, you have to become very opinionated because any product that tries to please everyone generally succeeds in pleasing nobody, so that means there will be people who hate it, often before it is even released. Second, it is usually possible to tell if a product is useful before it actually releases (if you aren't putting blinders on yourself), so you can find yourself in a position of failure before release, a failure that you cannot shift to anybody else. Part of the reason the iPhone succeeded was because the person who, ultimately, was leading the project was the CEO. He wasn't worried about what his boss thought, so the entire team could focus on the complete application. But that was only part. The other reason is that the product, the way the technology would be used, was part of a feedback loop that influenced the technology itself. The advantage of taking on all that risk of failure is that you end up with technology that is better, technology that is more suited for solving real problems.
dingdingdang 11y ago
OK, but what exactly does this achieve? Bad to worse touch sensitivity on my sleeves? Why? I wish they could have come up with at least one genuine show-stopper application to get people excited about this tech. Reading through this thread the only semi-reasonable application is surreptitious counting of cards.. and even that is useless as cleanly pointed out by the most upvoted comment-on-comment by downandout.
- Kalium 11y ago
  I'm left thinking that the point of this announcement is to get designers thinking about possible applications.
- IanCal 11y ago
  I'm a little surprised at the negativity in this thread. They've announced flexible, soft touch interfaces which can be produced at scale using existing production methods. Isn't that at least really cool? Do you not think there are places this could be used? I don't know if I can think of many "showstoppers" but is it really that hard to imagine places where a new input device could be used? Soft, invisible, cheap (?) touch sensors that are flexible and easy to work with. Things I'd use this for / would like to play around with: 1. Touchpad on the side of my sofa, so I can use gestures to control TV and media. 2. Touchpad on the side of my headboard in the same material as the rest with a subtle marking on which I can control / dim my lights. Similar things for controlling alarms. 3. Improving children's toys that require buttons now but do so by having hard things surrounded by some padding. I imagine "tickle me elmo" that was able to say "you're tickling my feet!" would be popular. 4. Would this detect my feet through socks? Run a bunch through my carpets, I'm sure I can do some fun stuff with home automation with that by knowing which room I'm currently in. Similarly for that, I'd like to track some of my habits, how long do I actually spend just sitting on the sofa or how often do I really get up from my desk and go somewhere else? 5. Make some board games. Fabric + some metal pieces, all the complex logic could sit on your phone. 6. Better sleep tracking? Do I curl into a ball, starfish, keep rolling about a lot? Those are mostly just things I'd like to do at home. What about interfaces where you want to present something to other people? I've seen touchscreens at restaurants/bars, would a soft less delicate one work well? To be honest, I think that you could make an absolute killing selling a t-shirt that had a touch sensitive star-trek looking badge that answers the phone. Not world changing, but I can definitely see that this could be used.
meerita 11y ago
I'm so amazed with the new wave of projects Google are working on. Definetively, the sensation I had about Apple as a innovation company has changed once I seen these new projects. This is innovation, this is a nice approach to future and not iphone and iwatch iterations.
- ryandrake 11y ago
  This is more invention than innovation.
grimmdude 11y ago
I wonder how something like this will fare in the washing machine.
joefkelley 11y ago
If nothing else, this is immediately useful to the sport of fencing. If you're not aware, competitive fencers already wear metallic jackets to detect when one has been hit by the other's weapon. If this could make them cheaper/lighter/more durable/more accurate or improve them in any way, that would be pretty cool. I'm guessing you could even track the specific place that they hit.
- angersock 11y ago
  Fencing electronics are, at least last I looked, suuuuuper janky.
jamesrcole 11y ago
I wonder if this could be used to log a person's activities? If it was in their clothing and if movements of peoples' limbs -- brushing against the fabric -- generated data that could be used to determine what they're doing. E.g. 80% chance they're currently sitting typing at the computer. Or at another moment, that they're probably washing some dishes. Or what particular task a factory worker is working on.
kjax 11y ago
After reading about this, I realized that as always, battery tech might become somewhat of an issue for this application. However, nearly all of us have a cellphone that has a wireless charging mechanism; what if we were able to reverse that mechanism, so that something like a pant pocket was able to collect a small amount of energy from this process? Easier still, phones could be manufactured with small copper contacts on the back to do this the old-fashioned way. I realize that phone batteries are quite terrible in many cases, but this could change... or perhaps the process could be optimized to use such an irrelevant amount of energy required to keep the garment charged?
natch 11y ago
It's interesting if you look at this from Google's perspective, as a data collection project.
- genericone 11y ago
  Are you implying they want to do big data on how people touch themselves? or because, therefore, implication, ads?
  - natch 11y ago
    I was thinking more about how people move, and how the motion capture data would be amazing for many purposes such as person identification, activity identification, learning what cultures/sports/injuries/ailments/etc. correlate with what styles of motion, learning "tells," as in poker, about how people are feeling... the list of applications of this data could go on for quite a while. It also could feed into research on some styles of robot locomotion.
anigbrowl 11y ago
For people wondering about use cases, a friend of mine has been working in this area for a decade and is now starting to get traction in the fashion industry: http://www.lara-grant.com/ http://www.lara-grant.com/
iandanforth 11y ago
Along with a collaborator from MIT,(1) I helped create rSkin, a multi-touch stretchable textile sensor for robotics.(2) Here are some really interesting things I learned about e-textiles during my project - The hard/soft interface is really hard. At some point you need to interface with electronics and in many cases this will be a failure point. Also, normal electrical contact methods like soldering just don't work. - Stretch is really hard. Most of the fabrics shown don't look like they have much stretch, but I wanted something that could wrap around robot joints. Turns out that calibrating a sensor for this task is very hard to model. Even without stretch calibrating and maintaining calibration can be hard. - Metal oxidizes I'm hoping Google has taken care of this but many of the thread types I had at the time were silver based and would degrade (become much more resistive) over just a few months. - Getting high resolution sensors is tricky. Getting a ton of conductive threads wired up in a matrix means you're trying to do lots and lots of hard/soft interfaces. Automating bringing all those threads from one grid direction into a tight layout to match with a board or other metal conductor will be a very interesting manufacturing challenge. I'm surprised and excited to see Google take this on as I still feel there is huge potential for e-textiles in softer and more sensitive robotics. (1) Hannah Perner-Wilson (who did all the hard work) (2) Check out the instructable (http://www.instructables.com/id/rSkin-Open-Source-Robot-Skin/ http://www.instructables.com/id/rSkin-Open-Source-Robot-Skin...)
- msutherl 11y ago
  The hard/soft boundary is indeed very difficult, especially when you have bundles of leads in all directions! I did some work with stick-on stretch conductive textiles, both silver and polymer-based (Eeonyx), and something I always wished I'd had was a high bit-depth A/D converter so that I could work with a ton of headroom to account for the inevitable swings due to environmental changes, degradation, etc. in software. I'd love to see someone produce a 16bit+ A/D converter front-end for Arduino or something. I actually purchased all the parts for wiring up one of these, but didn't have time to finish: http://www.linear.com/product/LTC2444 http://www.linear.com/product/LTC2444. Looks like some people have been working on it: http://dangerousprototypes.com/2012/07/02/interfacing-the-ltc2440-24bit-adc-with-the-arduino/ http://dangerousprototypes.com/2012/07/02/interfacing-the-lt....
shkesar 11y ago
Wait! What all did the Jackie Chan's Tuxedo do?
styts 11y ago
I imagine it would be great to sit through my commute, while typing something on my knees, with the touchscreen keyboard integrated into the fabric of my trousers.
louithethrid 11y ago
If there is one thing that is in for a softrapture with augmented reality, its fashion. The designers still will be there- but i can imagine a world were visuals and physical reality are completely disjunct.
jedanbik 11y ago
Outside of a fashion week couture fashion tech concept house like Anrealage[1], what will this do for us? Project Jacquard strikes me as a solution to a problem, but I can't think of a single problem it solves. A smart watch tells time, streamlines notifications, and maybe keeps me in shape, but this? What will this do for me? [1]: http://www.kaltblut-magazine.com/anrealage-aw15-16/ http://www.kaltblut-magazine.com/anrealage-aw15-16/
- lnanek2 11y ago
  If your display is in your contact lens, how are you going to dismiss a notification or reject a phone call? Well maybe you just have to swipe the right way on your jacket sleeve like they did at the key note.
sillygoose 11y ago
Oh great, even more of Internet of Surveillance Things! I can't wait to help governments monitor me in every way possible! I'll wear surveillance clothes, use only Smart surveillance TVs, play video games with Kinect, wear surveillance Glasses, wear surveillance watches, and decorate my home with surveillance thermometer systems and Elves on Shelves: http://truthstreammedia.com/2014/12/24/elf-on-shelf-toy-teaches-kids-to-love-surveillance-society/ http://truthstreammedia.com/2014/12/24/elf-on-shelf-toy-teac... Yes, that will be great. Yay technology. I can't wait to mindlessly consume everything they put in front of me!

531 points by yla92 11y ago

I'm having a hard time to understand if it's some kind of joke or a true project. Could someone explain what's it all about? It's also interesting that the parent path https://www.google.com/atap https://www.google.com/atap redirects to project tango, https://www.google.com/atap/project-tango/ https://www.google.com/atap/project-tango/

amaks 11y ago
Just watch the ATAP keynote on Google IO 2015 web site.

devindotcom 11y ago

It's a neat idea, and one I think people won't be able to appreciate until the killer app hits, possibly in fitness or high-end suits. As far as I'm concerned, it's just neat research being backed by Google with no obvious ulterior motive, and that works fine for me.

freyr 11y ago
Google's business is targeted advertising. Its competitive advantage is knowing more about you than other advertisers. Obviously, embedding clothing sensors could collect and deliver tremendous amounts of information about a person and their habits. It's aligned with Google's interests in an obvious way, and it would be naive to think this is lost on the decision makers at Google. That's not to say it's bad. Google's ATAP program is modeled on DARPA, which has funded many military-oriented research programs that have delivered advancements that extend beyond military applications. Yet all DARPA programs have some obvious or non-obvious military value. I imagine ATAP works the same way, funding ambitious projects that have high potential value for Google's primary business, but also have potential for broader impact.
- Navarr 11y ago
  I'm not sure there's any sort of technology that does not somehow benefit Google's model. Perhaps Encryption? Then why does ATAP have Project Vault?
  - MichaelGG 11y ago
    Strong, usable end to end crypto is probably not very feasible. But doing user friendly crypto makes people feel secure and gets them sharing more online. The NSA stuff could only have hurt Google, so it's obviously in their own interest to make sure they control the connection fully to the end user.
- btian 11y ago
  That's bullshit and you know it. Google is a large company with many businesses. How is Google Cloud Platform related to advertising? Nest? Liftware? Google Docs? Fact is advertising is cyclical, and Google is aggressively diversifying away from it.
  - freyr 11y ago
    > Google is a large company with many businesses. Yes, many tiny, unprofitable "businesses" that contribute little to nothing to Google's bottom line, except through direct or indirect support of the advertising business that generates the vast majority of its revenue.
    - cromwellian 11y ago
      You have it exactly backwards. Google's Ads business throws off massive amounts of cash to spend on R&D diversifying away from Ads. The Ads business is maxing out, you cant generate 20% revenue growth per year by continuing to have a 97% ads business model. This "oh, but they're going to use it for ads" meme is pure lazy and sloppy thinking.
      - deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
ngoel36 11y ago
A start for fitness is already here - it might not be the "killer app", but it has the potential to become so one day - liveathos.com

TeMPOraL 11y ago

Here goes my dream of being the first to create a CPS suit from Continuum. It's actually a weird feeling - on the one hand I love the progress we have; on the other hand, I feel sad that I can't get to be a part of it. It also seems to me that any cool idea I have tend to become a mass-market product before I can get around to start prototyping. Yeah, I know, the real world. Real world sucks :(.

nine_k 11y ago
So you basically say you keep predicting ideas that large corps put to market? Enjoy your savviness; it could also help you get a nicer job.
- Swizec 11y ago
  I was convinced that self-driving convoy trucks where they just follow the leader were already a thing for like 20 years. Downright certain of it. It just seemed so obvious and relatively easy to implement. Then bam, a few months ago, someone makes a big deal out of making that a reality. I was very confused.
  - smacktoward 11y ago
    > It just seemed so obvious and relatively easy to implement Most new things seem obvious and relatively easy to implement until you try to actually implement them.
    - TeMPOraL 11y ago
      Most new things are easy to implement if someone is willing to put a concentrated effort into them and support it with resources. For example, it took only 12 years from the first artificial satellite to putting a man on the Moon. The real bottleneck here is the market; you need to wait for it to be ready in order to get the required resources and a pressure for concentrated effort. Apparently, the market became ready for self-driving cars only recently.
11y ago

ohitsdom 11y ago

If you're interested in this kind of thing, Becky Stern with Adafruit is a pretty great source for DIY wearables. Lots of tutorials and a regular Youtube series that keeps you updated on the latest products and tools.

sologoub 11y ago

Reading this on the heels of talking with a colleague about (relatively near) future of TV advertising when marketers will know how many people are in the room (and possibly who these people are) and can deliver hyper-targetted ads, my initial reaction was "oh, crap... my couch will now know I'm sitting on it, for how long, etc... my t-shirt will know the last time I wore it and where..." This future is inevitable and all the AMAZING use cases such advances bring, but I can't help but wonder how we can keep these operating for the "good" and not the "ugly" of tech and monetization.

javert 11y ago
Don't use bad tech. Some people will, but that's their loss. As long as it's a free society, we'll each individually have the choice to stay away from bad tech. Paying one of my local telco monopolies too much money to watch TV full of ads is already a losing value proposition for me, so I don't have cable TV. I sure as hell am not going to get a TV that is connected to the Internet and has a microphone, much less shares information with advertisers. Same thing for a couch.
- smacktoward 11y ago
  The problem arises when the bad tech crowds the good tech out of the market altogether. I would like to have a smartphone that doesn't spy on me. I can't, because nobody makes one. So my personal preference doesn't matter; my only choice is between either accepting the spying, or not having a smartphone at all. Now I get to look forward to enjoying this exact same dilemma when I buy furniture! Hooray.
  - javert 11y ago
    > The problem arises when the bad tech crowds the good tech out of the market altogether. That's not possible in normal market dynamics. When only shitty products are available, someone will start competing at the high end. The reason it doesn't, and won't, happen with smartphones is because the telcos have [government granted] legal monopolies. And they function as government bureaus. Look up what happened to the CEO of Quest. [1] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Nacchio http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Nacchio

michaelmior 11y ago

In case there's a chance someone doesn't know, the name comes from the inventor of the first programmable loom. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacquard_loom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacquard_loom

agumonkey 11y ago
Watching the results at the bottom I was thinking, this is the first programmable renderer.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  Which leads to the question - does it have a demoscene?
mkempe 11y ago
It really bothers me that Google hijacks Jacquard's name for their own project. In the future the Google search engine will bury Jacquard's innovation in /dev/Internet/dustbin With decency, they could at a minimum have acknowledged his existence, creations, influence, and inspiration.
- mkempe 11y ago
  Oh, downvoted! Love to you too. Joseph Marie Jacquard was a genius and Google should not use his name without proper acknowledgement. Shame on Google, and on downvoters.
  - Turing_Machine 11y ago
    How do you feel about Pascal, Ada, Erlang, Haskell, Python...?
    - mkempe 11y ago
      Both Blaise Pascal and Lady Ada Lovelace were honored explicitly when these languages were named after them. (I got my programming start with UCSD Pascal!) Their creators --Niklaus Wirth and Jean Ichbiah-- never dreamed of using these names without explicit tribute, since the naming was intended as a tribute. The other programming languages you mention I don't know as much about -- Python users do seem to be regularly paying homage to Monty Python, so I'm quite happy with their intellectual and cultural honesty. As for Turing, how could it ever be acceptable for someone to name a product after him and not explicitly mention him, his work, or his importance? I love computers, software, and the people who made it possible, from Jacquard to Turing via Babbage and their heirs, friends, emulators, and more. I include a number of Ancient Greek philosophers in the lot. We have a responsibility to honor history and our ancestors; Google should, too. It's not a difficult proposition. Not doing it is unbecoming.

msoad 11y ago

This is the missing part of Google Glass. For interacting with the Glass you don't have to touch the Glass itself. You can just perform gestures on your jeans.

ubersync 11y ago
I can't help but imagine how awkward that would be. If tilting your head repeatedly and talking to yourself was not enough, touching yourself all over the body will definitely make you look awkward!
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  If it's awkward, you've designed it wrong. Touch surfaces in your clothes can allow almost totally discreet operation. Just put them on your thigh, a little to the side, and you can operate them while standing or sitting without most people noticing.
MrBuddyCasino 11y ago
You mean, for those rare occasions when Google Glass just doesn't cut it to make you the nerdiest guy in the room, you can now get an extra-boost? Well, sign me up!
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  Like being a nerd is a bad thing :). Wear it as a badge of honour!
  - ryanx435 11y ago
    Lol no thanks
  - serf 11y ago
    This feels appropriate. Wired (1994)/Mondo 2000 R.U. A Cyberpunk? : https://i1.wp.com/craphound.com/images/R_U_cyberpunk.jpg https://i1.wp.com/craphound.com/images/R_U_cyberpunk.jpg Funny to think of a modern 'cyber-punk' extolling the values of paper currency. Guess Wired was off the mark a bit.

xngzng 11y ago

Appears to be still cooking in the lab. Similar to Ara and also Glass. Sounds like a research project that needs not answer the business question of how to make money. IBM, Microsoft, Apple likes to keep theirs secretive. Google likes to showcase.

coherentpony 11y ago
Advertising. Wearing a specific brand of clothing will impact what your Google search results contain. Edit: To the downvoters: Why? Am I wrong? Are you Google employees?
- Dirlewanger 11y ago
  Yup, that's a fucking scary-but-very-likely thought.
- cromwellian 11y ago
  I am an employee, but I down voted it because it's dumb.
wldcordeiro 11y ago
I prefer their method, it's nice to see what their R&D looks like.
curun1r 11y ago
While I think there's a lot of possible ways that this can make money in the future, there are some that are just so obvious that it doesn't really compare to other research projects that are more of a departure. The ability to control our digital devices using input devices built into clothing and furniture is just obviously compelling. Also, this isn't exactly new...Burton did something similar over a decade ago: (http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1934259_1934555_1934562,00.html http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,288...)
sangnoir 11y ago
Microsoft Research[1] is hardly secretive for things that are cooking in the lab[2] 1. http://research.microsoft.com/ http://research.microsoft.com/ 2. http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/news/headlines/hyperlapse-download_20150514.aspx http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/news/headlines/hyperlaps...

hharnisch 11y ago

This is really cool, but at first glance one of their images really freaked me out: https://www.google.com/atap/project-jacquard/static/img/making-clothes-intelligent-1.jpg https://www.google.com/atap/project-jacquard/static/img/maki... Who's hand is that!

BinaryIdiot 11y ago
> Who's hand is that! Someone's hand. It was someone's hand. Now it belongs to the fabric.

BinaryIdiot 11y ago

I hadn't thought about conductive threads. What a neat idea. The applications could be really interesting here. I'm not sure what would be initially compelling but I'm interested in seeing what people come up with using this tech.

chralieboy 11y ago

This is amazing for card counting. Discreet swipes to add/remove count and double tap to have your phone/watch buzz the current count. Maybe not the most ethical use of the tech, but sounds fun!

mtrpcic 11y ago
Yeah, this definitely takes "Android Wear" to the next level. Integrating pieces of your outfit into your phone/watch will allow for a lot of subtle little tweaks to every day life: * Leaving work but forgot your keys? The electromagnetic sensor in your pocket will vibrate your phone to let you know the moment you step out of the office. * No more "three tap check" for keys, wallet, phone. Every time you leave the house your clothes will check that for you. * Two-factor auth is a lot easier when you can authenticate by wearing special underwear * Feeling cold? Your clothes can probably detect that and adjust the thermostat in your car or home automatically (including heated seats!) Lots of cool ideas, but these ideas have been floating around for a while now. Every piece of wearable clothing I've seen that had integrated electronics has been both bulky and gaudy. Maybe a concentrated focus like this will bring it to the next level.
- downandout 11y ago
  I don't see a single one of these applications actually being possible with this. The thread enables touch sensitivity on clothing; nothing more. There are no temperature sensors, RFID chips, electromagnetic sensors etc. It's interesting that even Google didn't post a single use case for it...I can't think of one off the top of my head either.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - heatwaving 11y ago
    The project Jacquard site describes some output: "We developed innovative techniques to attach the conductive yarns to connectors and tiny circuits, no larger than the button on a jacket... LEDs, haptics, and other embedded outputs provide feedback to the user, seamlessly connecting them to the digital world." https://www.google.com/atap/project-jacquard/ https://www.google.com/atap/project-jacquard/

mmanfrin 11y ago

I get annoyed with the business of Google on occasion -- I was very upset with the closure of Reader and IG, with choices they've made with Android; but I really appreciate the amount of unicorn ideas they push after.

shockzzz 11y ago

WHAT.

shockzzz 11y ago
y the downvtoz? dis proadukt iz amayzni

jedc 11y ago

I know the team at Knyttan (http://www.knyttan.com http://www.knyttan.com) which has awesome tech to enable industrial-size looms to do knitting on-demand. If Jacquard fabric was used on Knyttan-enabled looms, anyone (designers, anyone else) could effectively print/knit one-off pieces of connected clothing. The future is awesome. :)

smikhanov 11y ago

This is definitely not a joke. The guy in the video, Ivan Poupyrev (I'm super proud about graduating from the same university and department he has graduated from), is a world-class authority on UIs that are integrated into physical world. His website lists lots of English-language materials about him, here's one interview with him in Russian, for Russian-speaking HNers: http://vozduh.afisha.ru/technology/vy-budete-zhit-vnutri-kompyutera-i-vse-vokrug-budet-ego-interfeysom/ http://vozduh.afisha.ru/technology/vy-budete-zhit-vnutri-kom...

sebringj 11y ago

ah fuck i got rugburn on my finger again.

TD-Linux 11y ago

The most obvious problem is that capacitive interfaces like this detect on both sides. Which means rejecting false touches from the clothing moving on your body is going to be very difficult - unless it's integrated into outerwear or something farther away.

avinashv 11y ago
Not at all. The fabric can be woven to specifically avoid this problem.
- TD-Linux 11y ago
  How? The most common method I've seen is to put a ground plane behind the sense wires, but that would require 2 layers of fabric.
  - Kalium 11y ago
    Many garments above casual streetwear have multiple layers. Your typical blazer has several.

brianpgordon 11y ago

It's pretty funny that this hits HN the day after this did: http://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/2015/05/27/what-heck-happened-to-google/ http://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/2015/05/27/what-heck-h... > It’s almost as if Page walked right into that corner office and flipped the switch marked “Fiscal Responsibility” from the “on” to the “off” position. At that point, Page abandoned Google’s second core philosophy, “It’s best to do one thing really, really well,” and started doing just about everything.

jbhatab 11y ago
Since when has google followed that philosophy? I always thought they were the mad scientist of tech companies and that was more Apple's cup of tea.
- darkmighty 11y ago
  Yea, the counterexample is pretty much all of their products. Gmail, Translate, pretty much every product was either acquired or created through internal experimentation afaik.
haberdasher 11y ago
"an artificial neural network for machine vision (whatever that is)" -- I think you should probably get your news/insights elsewhere...
copsarebastards 11y ago
Well, the problem is, they're not actually that good at search any more. I find stuff in my email now by grepping my email on my server easier than I do by searching in my GMail account. PageRank, their core technology, lowers results for things that have DMCA complaints. Even if their privacy settings weren't scary I'd be moving away from their services.

ngoldbaum 11y ago

Reminds me of the wearable computers in Vernor Vinge's novel Rainbow's End.

pcarbonn 11y ago

Best application of this tissue : a head cover with electrodes to do electro encephalograms and read your thoughts. What a powerful source of info to target ads...

maresca 11y ago

This would be great to integrate into the leg of my jeans so I can change my music while riding my motorcycle. I'll be following this project.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

MyNameIsMK 11y ago

Dear Google, Please stop. I do not want you or your technology in my life. Thanks!

cpeterso 11y ago

How will these fabrics be disposed of? Can they be recycled?

abalone 11y ago

Sage advice from Peter Molyneux: "The bizarre thing is a huge amount of effort and time and money goes into researching the tech, like the Kinect tech and scanning the bodies, and there's always this one line that hardware manufacturers - whether it be Microsoft or anyone else - say and that's 'we can't wait to see what happens when it gets into the hands of developers.' Now if Apple had said that when they introduced the iPhone, I don't think we'd ever end up with the iPhone! What really should happen is that they put a similar amount of money into researching just awesome real world applications that you'll really use and that work robustly and smoothly and delightfully. "They should spend as much money doing that rather than just on hardware tech and saying, 'Okay developers, we'll leave it to you.' If you look at the cases where technology has worked well - touch is one of those, and Wii Sports and motion control; Nintendo didn't introduce motion control until they had Wii Sports. You weren't just playing a few demos. I just hope that for the Holo stuff that they really choose an application and make that sing. That is what transforms a piece of tech from awe inspiring gadget that you try a few times and show off to friends into something that you use as part of your life, and that's really what we want technology to be. And that requires just an awesome amount of design to be put into the software, not just the hardware." Source: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2015-01-22-molyneux-warns-microsoft-dont-overpromise-on-hololens http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2015-01-22-molyneux-wa... via http://daringfireball.net/linked/2015/01/23/mololens-molyneux http://daringfireball.net/linked/2015/01/23/mololens-molyneu...

GuiA 11y ago
Yep. It's easy to wrap early stage research in shiny PR and highly polished videos. Shipping a compelling product that incorporates the tech in a meaningful way is orders of magnitude harder. Sadly, pushing the hip video is much easier and cheaper than building the products, and it makes you feel good about yourself. Kind of the corporate version of this psychological phenomenon: https://sivers.org/zipit https://sivers.org/zipit
- SoftwareMaven 11y ago
  It's more than that. Finding a real-world, compelling, useful product based on a new technology is much harder than just developing the technology. This is, of course, obvious, because in both cases, you will have to develop the technology. For one, the project ends at that point; for the other, some of the most challenging work is just getting started. If you are responsible for developing a new technology, you can claim success if you release something that works as advertised, even if nobody actually uses it ("it was ahead of its time", "naysayers poisoned the market", etc.). Since there is no way to tell ahead of release whether it will succeed in the market, your project and, by extension, your position within the company creating it, are secure. Much, if not all, of the blame can be externalized. On the other hand, if your goal is to release a usable product, you've just massively increased your personal exposure. First, you have to become very opinionated because any product that tries to please everyone generally succeeds in pleasing nobody, so that means there will be people who hate it, often before it is even released. Second, it is usually possible to tell if a product is useful before it actually releases (if you aren't putting blinders on yourself), so you can find yourself in a position of failure before release, a failure that you cannot shift to anybody else. Part of the reason the iPhone succeeded was because the person who, ultimately, was leading the project was the CEO. He wasn't worried about what his boss thought, so the entire team could focus on the complete application. But that was only part. The other reason is that the product, the way the technology would be used, was part of a feedback loop that influenced the technology itself. The advantage of taking on all that risk of failure is that you end up with technology that is better, technology that is more suited for solving real problems.

dingdingdang 11y ago

OK, but what exactly does this achieve? Bad to worse touch sensitivity on my sleeves? Why? I wish they could have come up with at least one genuine show-stopper application to get people excited about this tech. Reading through this thread the only semi-reasonable application is surreptitious counting of cards.. and even that is useless as cleanly pointed out by the most upvoted comment-on-comment by downandout.

Kalium 11y ago
I'm left thinking that the point of this announcement is to get designers thinking about possible applications.
IanCal 11y ago
I'm a little surprised at the negativity in this thread. They've announced flexible, soft touch interfaces which can be produced at scale using existing production methods. Isn't that at least really cool? Do you not think there are places this could be used? I don't know if I can think of many "showstoppers" but is it really that hard to imagine places where a new input device could be used? Soft, invisible, cheap (?) touch sensors that are flexible and easy to work with. Things I'd use this for / would like to play around with: 1. Touchpad on the side of my sofa, so I can use gestures to control TV and media. 2. Touchpad on the side of my headboard in the same material as the rest with a subtle marking on which I can control / dim my lights. Similar things for controlling alarms. 3. Improving children's toys that require buttons now but do so by having hard things surrounded by some padding. I imagine "tickle me elmo" that was able to say "you're tickling my feet!" would be popular. 4. Would this detect my feet through socks? Run a bunch through my carpets, I'm sure I can do some fun stuff with home automation with that by knowing which room I'm currently in. Similarly for that, I'd like to track some of my habits, how long do I actually spend just sitting on the sofa or how often do I really get up from my desk and go somewhere else? 5. Make some board games. Fabric + some metal pieces, all the complex logic could sit on your phone. 6. Better sleep tracking? Do I curl into a ball, starfish, keep rolling about a lot? Those are mostly just things I'd like to do at home. What about interfaces where you want to present something to other people? I've seen touchscreens at restaurants/bars, would a soft less delicate one work well? To be honest, I think that you could make an absolute killing selling a t-shirt that had a touch sensitive star-trek looking badge that answers the phone. Not world changing, but I can definitely see that this could be used.

meerita 11y ago

I'm so amazed with the new wave of projects Google are working on. Definetively, the sensation I had about Apple as a innovation company has changed once I seen these new projects. This is innovation, this is a nice approach to future and not iphone and iwatch iterations.

ryandrake 11y ago
This is more invention than innovation.

grimmdude 11y ago

I wonder how something like this will fare in the washing machine.

joefkelley 11y ago

If nothing else, this is immediately useful to the sport of fencing. If you're not aware, competitive fencers already wear metallic jackets to detect when one has been hit by the other's weapon. If this could make them cheaper/lighter/more durable/more accurate or improve them in any way, that would be pretty cool. I'm guessing you could even track the specific place that they hit.

angersock 11y ago
Fencing electronics are, at least last I looked, suuuuuper janky.

jamesrcole 11y ago

I wonder if this could be used to log a person's activities? If it was in their clothing and if movements of peoples' limbs -- brushing against the fabric -- generated data that could be used to determine what they're doing. E.g. 80% chance they're currently sitting typing at the computer. Or at another moment, that they're probably washing some dishes. Or what particular task a factory worker is working on.

kjax 11y ago

After reading about this, I realized that as always, battery tech might become somewhat of an issue for this application. However, nearly all of us have a cellphone that has a wireless charging mechanism; what if we were able to reverse that mechanism, so that something like a pant pocket was able to collect a small amount of energy from this process? Easier still, phones could be manufactured with small copper contacts on the back to do this the old-fashioned way. I realize that phone batteries are quite terrible in many cases, but this could change... or perhaps the process could be optimized to use such an irrelevant amount of energy required to keep the garment charged?

natch 11y ago

It's interesting if you look at this from Google's perspective, as a data collection project.

genericone 11y ago
Are you implying they want to do big data on how people touch themselves? or because, therefore, implication, ads?
- natch 11y ago
  I was thinking more about how people move, and how the motion capture data would be amazing for many purposes such as person identification, activity identification, learning what cultures/sports/injuries/ailments/etc. correlate with what styles of motion, learning "tells," as in poker, about how people are feeling... the list of applications of this data could go on for quite a while. It also could feed into research on some styles of robot locomotion.

anigbrowl 11y ago

For people wondering about use cases, a friend of mine has been working in this area for a decade and is now starting to get traction in the fashion industry: http://www.lara-grant.com/ http://www.lara-grant.com/

iandanforth 11y ago

Along with a collaborator from MIT,(1) I helped create rSkin, a multi-touch stretchable textile sensor for robotics.(2) Here are some really interesting things I learned about e-textiles during my project - The hard/soft interface is really hard. At some point you need to interface with electronics and in many cases this will be a failure point. Also, normal electrical contact methods like soldering just don't work. - Stretch is really hard. Most of the fabrics shown don't look like they have much stretch, but I wanted something that could wrap around robot joints. Turns out that calibrating a sensor for this task is very hard to model. Even without stretch calibrating and maintaining calibration can be hard. - Metal oxidizes I'm hoping Google has taken care of this but many of the thread types I had at the time were silver based and would degrade (become much more resistive) over just a few months. - Getting high resolution sensors is tricky. Getting a ton of conductive threads wired up in a matrix means you're trying to do lots and lots of hard/soft interfaces. Automating bringing all those threads from one grid direction into a tight layout to match with a board or other metal conductor will be a very interesting manufacturing challenge. I'm surprised and excited to see Google take this on as I still feel there is huge potential for e-textiles in softer and more sensitive robotics. (1) Hannah Perner-Wilson (who did all the hard work) (2) Check out the instructable (http://www.instructables.com/id/rSkin-Open-Source-Robot-Skin/ http://www.instructables.com/id/rSkin-Open-Source-Robot-Skin...)

msutherl 11y ago
The hard/soft boundary is indeed very difficult, especially when you have bundles of leads in all directions! I did some work with stick-on stretch conductive textiles, both silver and polymer-based (Eeonyx), and something I always wished I'd had was a high bit-depth A/D converter so that I could work with a ton of headroom to account for the inevitable swings due to environmental changes, degradation, etc. in software. I'd love to see someone produce a 16bit+ A/D converter front-end for Arduino or something. I actually purchased all the parts for wiring up one of these, but didn't have time to finish: http://www.linear.com/product/LTC2444 http://www.linear.com/product/LTC2444. Looks like some people have been working on it: http://dangerousprototypes.com/2012/07/02/interfacing-the-ltc2440-24bit-adc-with-the-arduino/ http://dangerousprototypes.com/2012/07/02/interfacing-the-lt....

shkesar 11y ago

Wait! What all did the Jackie Chan's Tuxedo do?

styts 11y ago

I imagine it would be great to sit through my commute, while typing something on my knees, with the touchscreen keyboard integrated into the fabric of my trousers.

louithethrid 11y ago

If there is one thing that is in for a softrapture with augmented reality, its fashion. The designers still will be there- but i can imagine a world were visuals and physical reality are completely disjunct.

jedanbik 11y ago

Outside of a fashion week couture fashion tech concept house like Anrealage[1], what will this do for us? Project Jacquard strikes me as a solution to a problem, but I can't think of a single problem it solves. A smart watch tells time, streamlines notifications, and maybe keeps me in shape, but this? What will this do for me? [1]: http://www.kaltblut-magazine.com/anrealage-aw15-16/ http://www.kaltblut-magazine.com/anrealage-aw15-16/

lnanek2 11y ago
If your display is in your contact lens, how are you going to dismiss a notification or reject a phone call? Well maybe you just have to swipe the right way on your jacket sleeve like they did at the key note.

sillygoose 11y ago

Oh great, even more of Internet of Surveillance Things! I can't wait to help governments monitor me in every way possible! I'll wear surveillance clothes, use only Smart surveillance TVs, play video games with Kinect, wear surveillance Glasses, wear surveillance watches, and decorate my home with surveillance thermometer systems and Elves on Shelves: http://truthstreammedia.com/2014/12/24/elf-on-shelf-toy-teaches-kids-to-love-surveillance-society/ http://truthstreammedia.com/2014/12/24/elf-on-shelf-toy-teac... Yes, that will be great. Yay technology. I can't wait to mindlessly consume everything they put in front of me!