Nadi X is activated yoga apparel that was designed with embedded electronics. Using vibrational feedback, the pants guide the wearer with the touch of a yoga instructor. “We believe technology should empower the human experience, not overtake it,” says Ben Moir, co-founder and CTO of Wearable X. “With Nadi X, the sleek design allows technology to seamlessly integrate with the tights, allowing the beauty and design to take center stage.”
Clever Tech Digest sat down with Olivia Burca, a garment engineer for Wearable X, to discuss the company’s take on wearable tech.
Read MoreAll of the products we consume make an impact on the environment. We cannot fight the nature of consumption and our exponentially growing population. How, where, and with what materials things are made determine just how much of an impact a product's lifecycle can create.
Clever Tech Digest sat down to chat with Crystalyn Brennan, a pioneer in both vegan leather and zero waste up-cycled leather accessories. Her company, Crystalyn Kae Accessories fights to reduce the huge amount of material waste in the fashion industry by keeping scrap materials and used products out of landfills. Brennan explains in detail mindful ways to keep our planet clean without sacrificing style.
Read MoreInterview by Mikhal Weiner
Dana Bronfman makes jewelry that tells many stories - of the maker, the wearer, and an evolving, increasingly tech-influenced industry. “When I started [designing jewelry] I didn’t know anyone who had done this,” she says, “That’s part of the reason I didn’t go into it right away, I didn’t feel it was a realistic possibility.”
Coming from a socially conscious family, Bronfman travelled, working for various non-profits, but always found herself drawn to the jewelry of places she was visiting. “There are so many people, making these things that tell a story about culture. It’s a form of self expression.” This is more than adornment - the human connections that these artefacts represent fascinate her.
Read MoreFitness tracking and performance optimization lead much of wearable technology's innovation. Startups like Remo Haptics, a company creating wearable devices designed to fine tune cyclists' form, are elevating fitness technology's potential from trackers to sophisticated coaches.
Imagine subtle vibrations used to trigger mindful form adjustments in real-time. Remo Haptics integrates accelerometers and haptic feedback to produce nonintrusive remote athletic training.
Clever Tech Digest sat down with the masterminds behind Remo Haptics to discuss the future of human-tech interfacing and physical training.
Read MoreWisp is a breakthrough in wearable technology, the erotic industry, and women's sex lives! Using passive stimulus like smell and vibration, Wisp can be activated remotely with an app to trigger arousal for the user. The final product will look more like jewelry than technology, and hopes to increase healthy sexual intimacy between partners. Wan Tseng has been showing her work all over the world, representing design for women by women in a predominantly male industry. You can learn more about this innovative creative technologist on her website at http://wantseng.com/Wisp
Read MoreCreative Technologists must carry the heavy burden of how new user experiences and consumer technologies will shape future generations. Clever Tech Digest talks to Elaina Woods of NovaKitten about the potential social influence Virtual Reality can have in our lives.
NovaKitten Productions is an Austin based Virtual Reality and Film production company. Born out of a group of UT Austin Students, NovaKitten works on commercial and gaming VR projects, in addition to an array of other Film Projects. This small start up focuses on developing a fun learning-centric storytelling community and is pioneering immersive mediums and collaborative cross disciplinary projects.
Read MoreTogether engineers, designers, content creators, and users drive the development of technology’s applications. Many of Virtual Reality’s (VR) early adopters and developers use the technology for gaming systems, but a new direction has emerged. VR has the power to unlock human capacity’s to share experiences remotely, revisit fond memories, and expand users’ perspectives.
Facet is a boutique virtual reality production company based in Austin and NYC. When they’re not developing immersive content for clients, the Facet team explores the balance between narrative and viewer autonomy in the VR experience. Nick Ramsay and Ivan Gabriel Ramirez, the cofounders of Facet, share their vision for VR’s future role in human life. By focusing on connecting VR to music and culture, Nick and Ivan bring a unique view to light on 360 video content. http://facetvr.com/
Read MoreVirtual Reality (VR) makes for fantastic immersive gaming, but also possesses the potential to disrupt the way we learn, socialize, and explore. With the help of Google Cardboard headsets and smart phones, a teacher can transport a classroom full of students to the inside of plant cell and view photosynthesis up close.
Facet is a boutique virtual reality production company based in Austin and NYC. When they’re not developing immersive content for clients, the Facet team explores the balance between narrative and viewer autonomy in the VR experience. Nick Ramsay and Ivan Gabriel Ramirez, the cofounders of Facet, share the nuances, strengths, and weaknesses of VR as a storytelling medium. http://facetvr.com/
Read MoreA woman of many talents, Cindy Blias has brought fashionable fitness tracker accessories to the mainstream market. In 2014, she launched Funktional Wearables, a growing line of affordable on-trend jewelry pieces that conceal fitness trackers.
The blending of handmade and digital technologies is taking new and exciting turns through the world of 3D modeling and rapid prototyping processes. Avant- garde fashion designers like Iris Van Herpen Hussein Chayalan, and Anouk Wipprecht have blended high math algorithms with 3D printing and computing in combination with hand-crafted techniques to create outlandish poetic artifacts for the runway. Funktional Wearables makes a more accessible product with digital fabrication methods. According to Cindy,” Every piece of jewelry and the underlying tracking technology exists as a 3D model first. These are then paired with existing models of the trackers and various arm sizes to optimize fit, look and comfort.” Without such technologies the line may not have been able to expand so vastly so quickly, but rapid prototyping and design has changed the playing field for entrepreneurs and fashionistas alike.
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