Lulin Ding dreams up digital makeup

[gallery]Industrial designer Lulin Ding is investigating digital makeup with a recent project that turns your eyeshadow into a glowing, illuminated splash of color. "I was interested in the way women wear eyeshadow and how most of the time you can only see the details when their eyes are closed. I sought to translate the attributes of eyeshadow into a digital medium. I made the initial decision to use the light to paint the eyelids when you blink and close your eye.” Continue reading on ecouterre.

Images and source from ecouterre.

Gesture controlled fitness experience for runners

[gallery]Designer Adrien Guenette has envisioned a wearable experience aimed to help runners control their music through simple gestures during their run. "Technology is at its best when it feels completely natural." Guenette says. The concept includes a fitness watch called the "beat watch" that pairs your music with your performance stats to help motivate you to perform better. Additional accessories that wirelessly communicate to the watch detects stride, heart rate and gestures that allow you to control the music. I'm not a huge fan of having too many accessories during my work out, but the idea of controlling the experience hands-free through simple gestures is very appealing.

More at beatnow. Images from Beatnow.

A more fashionable spin on the solar-powered bag

[gallery]There are a lot of products out there that attach solar panel cells to the outside of a bag to generate power for your devices. But up until now, they have been mostly messenger bags and backpacks. DIFFUS is changing that by offering a more fashionable spin on the solar-powered hand bag. And what I really love about this product is that the designer carefully considered the implementation of the technology, which helps to inform the aesthetics of the design:

"Instead of placing a single flexible thin film solar module onto the side of a bag, the designers of the DIFFUS Solar Handbag have distributed 100 smaller monocrystalline silicon solar cells over the surface of the bag to resemble oversized sequins. The surface of the bag is also embroidered with a combination of normal embroidery and conductive embroidery that transfers the energy harvested by the "solar sequins" to a lithium-ion battery hidden away within a small compartment."

Continue reading on Gizmag. Photos from Gizmag.

Electric Skin gives a breath of light

New media installation artist and faculty member of Emily Carr University of Art and Design, Suzi Webster, has been exploring and critiquing the ways in which technologies impact and shape our experiences. She has created a number of interesting wearable technologies including Electric Skin, which turns the breath of the wearer into pulses of light...something that would be great here in Seattle as we all wait in anticipation for the sun to finally sneak out from behind our 10-month cloud cover.

"The inhalation and exhalation of the wearer activates a breath sensor that dims and brightens the printed LED of the garment. The wearer is engaged in an altered state of perception, bathed in the electric aqua light."

Continue reading at Emily Carr. Images from Emily Carr.

Useless networks experimentation

I am loving this experimental work by Art Center College of Design student Daniel Lara called Useless Networks. Daniel describes us as becoming numb to our own sophisticated body sensors and playfully aids us in our most basic sensing capabilities through technology. The result is an evocative commentary on our own awareness (or lack thereof). Watch the video to see the project in action:

Nancy Tilbury fashion phreaks

[gallery]Wearable technology designer, Nancy Tilbury, has recently launched a project called Fashion Phreaking, which is new form of contextualizing Smart Clothing and Intelligent Cloth. "Most ‘Smart Fashion’ is currently awkward, unwieldy, burdensome, weighty, clumsy and self-conscious, where sportswear is surging ahead." Nancy Tilbury's approach aims to make clothing more valuable and sustainable by integrating playful technologies. Fashion Phreaking integrates playful technologies, conductive textile networks and soft switching into denim garments. The result is a new "digital skin" designed to give fabrics and jewelry extended body communication to the viewer and wearer. More at fashionphreaking Images from fashionphreaking For event photos, go to fashionphreaking Live!