Lifeboat Foundation

New Zealand-built technology enabling an entirely new type of wearable

AUCKLAND, NOVEMBER 22, 2017 — StretchSense Ltd., New Zealand-based manufacturer of wearable sensing systems, today is proud to see the release of ZozoSuit by its client and investor Start Today Co., Ltd., owner of Japan’s largest online fashion retailer. The first consumer-ready wearable product built with StretchSense’s unique sensor technology, the ZozoSuit was developed in close collaboration between the two companies and provides precise measurement of body shape to solve the problem of fit when buying clothes online.

StretchSense’s mission is to go beyond wearables and towards “disappearables” — truly smart garments with unobtrusive sensors and electronics that feel invisible to the wearer. The ZozoSuit is a realization of that vision, blurring the line between clothing and technology with lightweight sensing elements, flexible cabling and miniaturized electronics all fully integrated into a skin-tight garment.

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Researchers at the University of Cambridge, working with colleagues in Italy and China, have incorporated washable, stretchable, and breathable integrated electronic circuits into fabric for the first time — opening up new possibilities for smart textiles and wearable textile electronic devices.

The circuits were made with cheap, safe, and environmentally friendly inks, and printed using conventional inkjet-printing techniques.

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Ray Kurzweil is director of engineering at Google but he is better known for writing best-selling books outlining the future of artificial intelligence.

He has made 147 predictions on the future of technology including the ubiquity of wearable devices and the move from desktops and laptops to smartphones and tablets. In fact, his prediction rate has been rated 86 per cent accurate.

With this in mind, fans were excited to see Kurzweil answer their questions in a live streaming interview session last week where he elaborated on his predictions.

Continue reading “Nanobots will live in our brains in the 2030s, says Google boss” »

Imagine printing off a wristband that charges your smartphone or electric car with cheap supplies from a local hardware store.

That’s the direction materials research is heading at Brunel University London where scientists have become the first to simply and affordably 3D print a flexible, wearable ‘battery’.

The technique opens the way for novel designs for super-efficient, wearable power for phones, electric cars, medical implants like pacemakers and more.

Neat!

Continue reading “A sneak peak at radical future user interfaces for phones, computers, and VR” »

Toyota envisions smart cars and wearables saving lives in car crashes by working to predict heart attacks or diabetic blackouts among drivers.

Through behavioral biometrics, a wearable glasses continuous authentication system improves privacy protection by detecting imposters through voice & touch.

Tattoos are fast becoming more than just a means of self-expression: soon they could be used for more practical applications, like tracking blood alcohol levels or turning the skin into a touchscreen. Now, a team from Harvard and MIT has developed a smart ink that could make for tattoos that monitor biometrics like glucose levels, and change color as a result.

Currently, bodily biomarkers can be monitored through a wardrobe-load of wearables, but they usually need batteries for power and wireless communication systems to transmit data. Using biosensitive inks (bio-inks), the Harvard and MIT design is self-contained, and since it works on simple chemical reactions it doesn’t require power for any data processing or transmission.

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Cool Wearable! Actually does something useful & could help reduce energy waste.

Sitting in a stifling subway car or walking Boston’s cold winter streets may soon become more bearable, thanks to a “personal thermostat” wristband being released by MIT spinout Embr Labs.

For a design competition in 2013, four MIT engineering students created a smart wristband, called Wristify, that makes its wearer feel warmer or cooler through its contact with the skin on the wrist. After much fanfare, and a lot of research and development, the wristband will hit the shelves early next year.

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