Video of presentation by Francesca Rosella and Ryan Genz of CuteCircuit at mobileCampLondon 2007, 29-30 September 2007. They gave an overview of Cute Circuit wearable technology projects. Their mobile (Bluetooth) activated Hug Shirt is to be launched hopefully before Xmas 2007 - hug your hug shirt, and you'll hug your friend who's also wearing one, they'll feel it exactly where you hugged yourself - (NB long video - 1:02:07!):
Unfortunately no live demos of the shirts were possible as they'd taken them to LA for the Wired NextFest previously and some producers wanted to use them in a movie so they left them behind for the filming!
See also the live blog post - and yes, people constantly wanted to know if the products would be available in black (the geeks' fave colour?), and yes of course someone, you'll have to watch the video to find out who, had to ask about clothes with widgets around "the Venusian regions" as he put it (and apparently a little old lady in LA also asked!). It wasn't me, honest, despite my previous speculations about possible uses for haptic technologies.
Still, I think there's more money to be made in that (Venusian!) area, and I know Cute Circuit want to be ethical, and perhaps more to the point are targeting some of their products at parents, but surely those sorts of clothes would be no less ethical than say Ann Summers garments, now would they? I suppose it depends on your view of ethics...
More seriously, I can see other very good uses for wearable technologies like this. Imagine "bubble boys" who had to live in sterile environments, without ever being able to feel their family hold them. Wouldn't it be great if CuteCircuit donated hug shirts to those people and their families?
They also showed slides of fabric that changes colour when you get a call on your mobile, the A-Nerve, and clothes that you can get to change colour, etc - see the video and their website for more info.
For lots more from mobileCampLondon 2007 see:
- list of videos and accompanying blog posts
- videos themselves
- overview blog post about the event
- the official mobileCamp blog.
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