The Internet of YOU

Wearable technology is on a collision course with the Internet of everything. When the two collide, we will enter into a new era of the Internet of you. The recent Apple Healthbook and Google’s Android Wear, combined with Motorola’s Moto 360 news are taking the wearable space to the next level. Apple Healthbook demonstrates the powerful insights about ourselves that wearables could deliver. Once the data is pulled into the platform, it can find correlations and trends and not only display its meaning in the historical sense, but make predictions that can give us even greater, more proactive insights about ourselves and how to improve our lives. It also confirms something we have known for a while: that the real winners will be the platform players that can leverage their channels and deliver services beyond just fitness.

At the same time, the promise of Android Wear is that it creates opportunities for new apps and services that will help create value for consumers at an accelerated speed. If you compare wearables to the evolution of the smartphone, we started with the brick phone, which was all about proving out the technology with little consideration of aesthetics and user experience. Fast forward to the iPhone, which became mainstream when the app store enabled new services and experiences on top of the phone device—from useless ones like Flappy Bird to indispensable ones like Maps. The same is happening with Android Wear. It’s turning wearables into a platform for delivery of a wide range of new services. In fact, it has the potential to change the way we interact with our technology altogether.

You can think of this new platform as an ecosystem of devices — wearables, mobile, etc. — that are stitched together with software and services delivered through apps. And with wearables, what we are really talking about here are new sensor-based devices that can not only allow us to collect environmental and mobile data, such as location and temperature, as we do today, but also a new form of biometric data, such as heart rate or steps, that we can combine to make completely new experiences that are more personal to us. What this means is that we are no longer talking about the Internet of everything, but rather, the Internet of you, where we can build our technology so that it works for us, not the other way around. It marks a pivotal moment in our technological history, which brings us to an entirely new era of technology. You will no longer have to stop, think, and decide to take your phone out of your pocket, find and launch the app you want, then take action. Instead, our data and services will come to us when we need them and in the context in which we are currently in.

Beyond health and fitness

Since a platform like Android Wear is built on Google, it comes with all of the other services and data that Google provides, which will allow developers to combine these services toward entirely new experiences potentially beyond health and fitness.

For example, one of Google’s big advantages is its recent purchase of Nest, which offers smart devices for the home. You can imagine an Android Wear-powered device that becomes connected to the home in a very seamless, data-driven way. Your wearable device would know that you have had a very stressful day and that you are heading home. Your connected house knows that you’re on your way home and can turn down the lights and play calming music to adjust the environment automatically based on your mood, before you even walk in the door.

Accelerating innovation

Android Wear provides a platform for third-party developers to explore this new channel and come up with their own wearable experience. This opens up the opportunity for many types of businesses to be invented and built on top of it quickly, accelerating innovation and exponentially increasing the value that wearables can bring. For those who focus on hardware, the platform allows for new devices to be built on top of the platform that allow for new form-factors to collect valuable information about ourselves. And for those who don’t have the appetite to build new hardware, the platform provides a way to build new apps and services from the data that these new devices collect. What this means, is that a platform like this can result in an explosion of new wearable experiences that will have greater impact since they will have the potential to become mainstream. And if done right, these new experiences will make our technology much more personal.

Who will pave the way toward the Internet of you?

Most of the major technology companies are dipping their toes in this space in a race to be the big winners. In addition to Apple Healthbook and Android Wear announcements, Intel also just announced that they purchased smartwatch maker Basis. Yet Google is empowering developers to build apps and services on top of their platform, which will accelerate innovation. Interestingly, Google is doing this before Apple does. Will this help Google win the ultimate wearable battle? We will have to wait and see. As exciting as it is to think about these new experiences and interactions, we also have to be really honest about how they can add value to our day to day lives. Whoever figures out that problem first and creates the “killer app” that will truly add value to our lives, will be the real winner.

This article also appears on Venterbeat.

A forecast on the future of wearables

As Google Glass gains momentum (including all the media buzz about it right now), companies and researchers are trying to decide what will be the next big breakthrough in wearable technology. MIT Technology review talks about the challenges we face when bringing these new products to market and forecasts the future of wearables by painting a picture of siginificant growth over the next 3 years. "Juniper Research expects nearly 15 million wearable smart devices (including glasses, health and fitness monitors, and other devices) to be sold this year, amounting to $800 million, and nearly 70 million to be sold by 2017. But the field remains experimental, and it’s still not certain what form most wearable computers will end up taking.

We’re just starting to see the early adopters of wearable computing wandering the streets gazing through Google’s head-worn computer or staring down at their Pebble smart watch. But a slew of researchers are already hard at work figuring out what will come next. Among the more outlandish ideas these researchers are experimenting with: sensors embedded in clothing and teeth, and—oh yes—a wearable computer designed just for dogs.

After languishing in research labs for years, wearable computing is suddenly a hot topic in technology circles. The introduction of technologies such as the Pebble watch, fitness-tracking devices like Jawbone’s Up, and Google Glass, which is currently available to developers and is slated for public release next year, have ignited demand for more wearable gadgets." Continue reading on MIT Technology Review...

Image (1978-1980 and now) source includes a nice history of wearables

3 ways to make wearables wearable

Wearable technology is the next new wave of technology, and it’s bound to drive a lot of the innovation in the consumer electronics industry. We can expect to see a lot more watches, glasses, fitness gadgets, and wristbands in the years to come. But bear in mind that we’re in the “brick phone” phase, or version 1.0, of wearable tech. In these early days, we’re approaching wearables with a traditional CE mentality--it’s all about making a powerful gadget that we can bolt onto our bodies without considering the new aspects of what it means to wear, rather than carry, something. And if we are not careful, we will be on our way to becoming cyborgs: bolting gadgets onto our bodies will distract, disrupt, and disengage us from others, ultimately degrading our human experience.

The real opportunity is for wearable technology to enhance the human experience by seamlessly integrating the technology into the fabric of our lives. I use “fabric” deliberately, not just as a reference to the world of e-textiles but to the ample set of considerations that encompass our lifestyle. As an inventor and designer of wearable technology for the last decade, I think we need to consider several key building blocks to achieve this.

1. Make it beautiful 

Until recently, in the technology industry the idea of aesthetic value was often considered secondary and sometimes controversial. Yet fashion and aesthetics are important when you start wearing the product on your body--it becomes a part of our identity and a mode of self-expression; it evokes certain perceptions in others and starts to define us. That is why beauty is essential to wearables.

Our goal should be to create iconic and timeless forms that are beautiful and help us communicate who we are. In my concept, Modwells, the modular sensors that track your biometrics are like jewels that you can attach to your clothing. Misfit Wearables is taking a similar approach. We also need to take into account the context of the situation--something that we would gladly wear at the gym would not fit in at a cocktail party, so finding the right balance between aesthetics, functionality, and context is key.

One way to achieve beauty is to hide the technology, and an emerging breed of flexible and softer materials is making that easier than ever. I have experimented with stretch sensors in Move, my concept garment that helps people achieve the precision of movement required in Pilates by tracking and adjusting their movements. As with Angella Mackey’s Vega biking jacket, the technology is incorporated in a way that transforms the function into the aesthetic.

Striving for invisibility should not be a goal in and of itself. While invisibility might be preferable for clothes that aim at improving you, if the product’s goal is to change how you interact with others, we have to take into account social norms, personal boundaries, and privacy.

2. Make it peripheral

In the era of wearable technology, we are moving away from interacting with the technology; it interacts with us instead. This is an important paradigm shift--the body becomes the interaction platform: the mouse and the screen.

Up until now, in order to interact with our smartphones or Fuel Band, we’ve had to look at them and start the display. With wearable technology, we can do these things more seamlessly by using the peripheral space to create new interaction models. We can also move beyond our face and arms and use our bodies like the GPS shoes by Dominic Wilcox, which use light to indicate where to go. While they still rely on visual cues and could have used haptic feedback to let you know when to turn right or left, I do think they are a step in the right direction (pun intended).

Beyond receiving information, we can also use the periphery to send signals. (See the diagram at the top of this page.) Zip is a garment that ties the gestures we normally use to interact with our clothing with controls. For example, zipping the jacket adjusts the volume of music. What is important when designing these new interaction models is that we do not simply translate old metaphors from the computer era but consider the context, proximity, and social situations in which these interactions will occur.

3. Make it meaningful

Wearing devices that are always tracking our activity produces a huge amount of data. But, as any Big Data expert would tell you, the question is what we do with all that data. Merely displaying the information, however beautifully we do that, misses the chance to influence positive behavior.

Instead of simply displaying your biometric readings like your heart rate, we can nudge positive behaviors right in the moment. Jawbone Up is doing this nicely: It sends a tiny vibration when you have not moved for a while to remind you to get up. I used this concept in Pulse, the ring that tracks your heart rate. By itself, your heart rate doesn’t really mean anything; you need to know what to do with it. Pulse uses color to indicate when to cool down and when to speed up so that you can stay in the optimal heart-rate zone while working out. The other advantage of using color instead of a number is how readable it is. You can get the information in less than a second, which does not disrupt your workout (again, the importance of periphery).

Meaningful products enable us to do something better. They help us achieve better posture in Pilates, or stay within our optimum exercise zone; they connect us to those we love or empower us to be more responsible, healthier, smarter. To achieve this, we must go beyond the fad of just quantifying ourselves. Instead we should use the data to prompt us to act in a way that makes us healthier, stronger, better--a principle of 21st-century design.

What's next?

Today’s wearable technology products are mainly in the fitness space, but this is just the tip of the iceberg. Wearable tech will start permeating many other domains, including medical, entertainment, security, financial, and more. The more pervasive it becomes, the more important it is to advocate for products that are beautiful, peripheral, and meaningful. Only then will wearable technology achieve its full potential to enhance our lives, rather than disrupt, disconnect, and distract us.

Continue reading and also published on FastCompany's Co.Design.

2013: The Year of the Wearable

According to Forbes (and a growing number of other sources) 2013 will be the year of wearable technology. "There will be no bigger exception to commoditization of devices than wearable technology. Wearables will be the big story of 2013. You’ve already heard about Google Project Glass. Perhaps you also read about competitive offerings from Apple and Microsoft. Accessory designerOakley is an early arrival with wearable glasses that lets skiers see real-time data on their current location, snow and ice conditions, and hang distance of jumps as they careen downhill.

But wait, there’s more—lots more. The FDC recently approved a pill you swallow that will transmit internal medical data to your medical team.  Elsewhere, sensor-embedded tattoos for immobilized patients confined in their homes. Also in 2013, there will be a button-sized computer that monitors your health functions and sends data to health technicians. Nike alone offers five digital sports devices, including shoes that signal when they need replacement. There are numerous competitive offerings from other vendors as well. At Stanford University they’re working on batteries that become part of your clothes.

The gadgets will make big news, but third-party developers who will deliver a new generation of mobile apps for wearable devices to market will foment the real revolution. I predict these apps will ignite a groundswell of both business-to-business and business-to-consumer demands that will get all of us using wearables before the end of 2013." (source)

Is this a trend or here to stay?

If 2013 is the year of the wearable, we have an opportunity to define how these new devices are designed so that they have lasting value to broader consumer audiences. If not, than we'll end up with a pile of short-lived novelty devices. Here are four principles that we can follow to design wearable technology that is wearable, useful and that has lasting value.

More info and images from Forbes, Engadget, BBC News

10-year predictions coming true?

Ten years ago, Wired Magazine predicted that we’d be "living with phones on our wrists, data-driven goggles on our eyes and gadgets that would safety-test our food for us." Turns out, a lot of the things Sonia Zjawinski conceptualized in Wired Magazine's “Living in 2013” feature way back in 2003 were remarkably close to what we’re starting to see today. Predictions included a series of wearable technology devices that are very close to products that are hitting the market today such as smartwatches and Google;s Project Glass. Continue reading their past predictions and what has been delivered today at Wired.

Images from Wired.

IBM predicts our technology future

This year IBM presents The 5 in 5 in five sensory categories, that includes 5 scientists, 5 stories, and 5 predictions about the world in 5 years and how technology will impact it. According to IBM, "in the era of cognitive computing, systems learn instead of passively rely on programming. As a result, emerging technologies will continue to push the boundaries of human limitations to enhance and augment our senses with machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI), advanced speech recognition and more. No need to call for Superman when we have real super senses at hand." (source) CTO Telecom Research Paul Bloom, IBM Fellow and VP of Innovation Dr. Bernie Meyerson, and VP Industries Research Dr. Katharine Frase, think that "Our computers today are just large calculators. They calculate very fast and they calculate lots and lots of data, but they really don't think. If a cognitive computer can experience it's environment by definition it can act upon it to improve it and that's a unique capability compared to what we have today. How do we get computers to behave and think and interact the way humans do?" To do this, IBM predicts that our hardware will eventually share your senses.

One of the big opportunities here is to extend this type of computing experience from the limitations of laptops and even mobile phones by integrating them into smaller, smarter and more ubiquitous devices that can be easier integrated into our environments. These devices can leverage the processing power of laptops and mobile phones while providing the ability to collect body metrics, environmental data and understand our context (where we're at) in a natural and non-abstrusive way.

What better way to do this than with wearable technology?

Source and images via IBM