[gallery]Well, we made it to ISWC 2011 this week and had a great show! Thanks to Clint Zeagler for the design exhibit coordination, it went very smoothly. Jesse Graupmann, the brains and talented developer behind the custom Ping software, joined me in San Francisco for a few days of sunny city exploration, wearable technology demos and discussions about the field and where it's heading. During the design exhibit, Jesse and I demonstrated the Ping and Zip projects. For Ping, we did a live demo of the custom Ping application, which allows the garment to communicate with Facebook by performing natural gestures. Elizabeth Bales who presented a paper on how "Sensors meet Social" during the conference focuses her research on connecting people effectively through low maintenence mobile technologies. We had a great discussion on how we can communicate in subtle and expressive ways through wearable devices and interfaces such as Ping. She had some terrific feedback and ideas. Thanks Elizabeth!
One of the design exhibit show-stoppers was Sheridan Martin Small and Asta Roseway's project titled "The Printing Dress", which earned them the "Best Concept" award. Built out of paper, the dress enables the wearer to Tweet “thoughts” on to its fabric and wear them as public art. A gorgeous and thought-provoking project.
In general, taking the interface off the device and putting it onto the user through wearable technologies opens up a world of new types of experiences. I can't wait to see where our collective work takes us...
Photos taken by Jesse Graupmann. For more projects that were exhibited, GirlieMac has a nice collection of photos on flickr here.