Google, in its I/O 2015 have announced that they are allied with the iconic US Jean maker ‘Levi Strauss’ and are making clothing woven with touch-screen control capabilities. The search giant in its annual developers’ conference in San Francisco revealed it’s so called Project Jacquard, highlighting its first partner ‘Levi Strauss.’
That’s exactly the technological innovation everyone was anticipating on Day 1 of Google I/O 2015 - the inspiring kind. If there’s anything we’ve learned from this I/O, it’s to maintain a closer eye at ATAP. The name surely raises the curiosity amongst the people, and stands for Advanced Technology and Projects.
Project Jacquard
The unveiling of the idea was a pleasing revelation. In its articulating manner, it is a flawless combination of conductive fibers woven into your clothes with implanted sensors. The innovation is believed to be the next gen in the tech world.
“We are enabling interactive textiles,” Emre Karagozler of ATAP said yesterday as the smart fabric was displayed in an area set up to look like cloth coming out of a loom. “We do it by weaving conductive threads into fabric.”
The unique threads can be used to weave into an extensive set of fabrics visually standing out or go unobserved depending on designers’ wishes. Conductivity will be controlled to the preferred parts of fabric or be prevalent on the entire cloth. According to Google authority, Project Jacquard will be able to weave touch and gesture interactivity into all forms of textile using ordinary, industrial looms.
Anything comprising fabric, ranging from suits or dresses to furniture or carpet, could potentially have computer touch-pad style control capabilities. Small circuits are connected to the conductive yarn as small as shirt buttons, with miniaturized electronics using algorithms in spotting touches or swipes, ATAP said.
The data delivery to smartphones will be wireless, allowing actions such as making phone calls or sending messages with brushes of fabric.
With the bearing in mind of the wearable technology and different ways to interact with devices, Project Jacquard is perhaps the oddest of the day 2 announcements at the I/O 2015.
