We live in interesting times when technology evolves rapidly and things that our ancestors only dreamed of are becoming reality. The first computer was so big that it filled the whole room and today we can wear one on our wrist. That is what I would like to tell you about – wearable technology!
A bit of history first, before we get to really cool stuff. What was the first piece of wearable technology and when was it created? In 1286 Roger Bacon, an English philosopher and Franciscan friar mentioned glasses in one of his texts and that’s the earliest written record of this invention. Why do I consider something as ordinary as glasses a wearable tech? Well…it’s man -made, we can wear it and it augments our bodies allowing us to do something we won’t be able to do without it. Later, in 1665, an English natural philosopher, architect and polymath Robert Hooke wrote: “The next care to be taken, in respect of the Senses, is a supplying of their infirmities with Instruments, and as it were, the adding of artificial Organs to the natural (...)” He couldn’t be more right.
In 1762 a self-educated English carpenter and clockmaker John Harrison invented a “marine chronometer”, a pocket watch. It solved the problem of establishing longitude of a ship at sea.In 1907 an Aviator Alberto Santos-Dumont commissioned the creation of the first wristwatch which is said to be the result of a bet with his friend, who complained about not being able to check the time and keep both hands on the yoke (a steering wheel of an airplane).
 |
| Harrison's pocket watch. |
 |
| Santos-Dumont's wristwatch. |
Ok, enough boring stuff. Let’s talk about first real gadgets! Greed was always one of the strongest motivators for humankind and first wearable gadgets were created as a means to get rich really fast. In 1961 Ed Thorp and Claude Shannon revealed their invention used to predict roulette wheels. The system was an analog computer of the size of a cigarette-pack. The main unit would be worn with one wire running into the shoe to track timing of the roulette wheel by pressing buttons with wearers’ toes, while another would run up to an earpiece for receiving tones. There was a similar invention in 1972, created by Keith Taft and used to help in counting cards in blackjack. The main difference was that the results were shown as small blinking lights on the inside of glasses frame. At that time both inventions were legal because nobody had thought about this way of cheating.
 |
| Thorp's invention. |
- 1975 – wearable calculator in a watch
- 1994 – wireless internet camera
- 2000 – first bluetooth earpiece
- 2003 – first fully digital cardiac pacemaker
- 2006 – Nike + iPod shoe chip
 |
| Watch calculator. |
 |
| Bluetooth earpiece. |
 |
| Nike + iPod. |
So where are we now? Wearable tech is pretty much everywhere.
In sports, we can measure our vitals by wearing a smartband or a smartwatch. There are also helmets with built-in headphones to enjoy our favourite music while skiing or snowboarding.
 |
| Samsung Gear Fit. |
 |
| Headphone helmet. |
Over time technology begins to blend with fashion and becomes yet another way to express
ourselves. From fancy solar panel powered necklaces, to glowing skirts with smoke emitters.
 |
| Solar powered necklace. |
 |
| Dress with a smoke emitter. |
 |
| Glowing dress. |
 |
| Leg prosthetics. |
Technology can even be used to give us superhuman abilities! The truth is we don’t have super strong robotic arms or cameras implanted into our eyes yet but there are cyborgs living amongst us! Neil Harbisson was the first man to be officially recognized by a government. He was born completely color-blind and has an antenna implanted in his skull that allows him to see visible and invisible colours such as infrared and ultraviolet via sound. This way he can perceive more colors than any other human on the planet, despite being able to naturally see only in grayscale.
 |
| Heil Harbisson and his antenna. |
This year Intel started a competition for the next big wearable technology. Here is the list of ten finalists and their projects:
Team Nixie won the grand prize and I think they deserve it as their project is both useful and innovative. I encourage you to check out all the finalist on YouTube, they all have really exciting and innovative ideas.
So tell me, what do you think about wearable technology? Is it the natural next step for humans to use technology in every aspect or are all those things just useless gadgets that we could live without? And a more philosophical question – would you like to become a cyborg? Would it be wise to give up a small part of your humanity to enhance your abilities?
Sources:
- http://www.media.mit.edu/wearables/lizzy/timeline.html
- http://mashable.com/2014/05/13/wearable-technology-history/
- https://makeit.intel.com/
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longitude_(book)
