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In the emerging Internet of Things , everyday objects are becoming networked. Clothing is no exception. It's still early days for Web-enabled clothes - the best example so far is the Nike+ running shoe, which contains sensors that connect to the user's iPod. But expect to see everything from your shirt to your underwear networked in the not too distant future. In the following list of ten 'smart clothing' items, we showcase Internet pants, a proximity sensing shirt, a heart sensing bra, biosensor underwear, a "thought helmet", and more! Sponsor Motion Detecting Pants Now, we're know what you're thinking - it's already pretty easy to detect 'motion' in pants isn't it? Nevertheless, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg has developed a pair of pants "that detect movement and let a computer know your every move." These smart pants work via a loom that helps sew the wires and fabric together. Sensors embedded in the fabric measure the speed, rotation and flexibility of the pants with every movement. Wireless signals are sent from the pants to a computer to display the activity. The scientists at Virginia Polytechnic don't yet know why this activity would be useful (to a computer), but we're sure that use cases will arise. Proximity Sensing Shirt The Locked ON Proximity Sensing T-Shirt is currently available at the ThinkGeek store . It features a "radar screen" on the shirt that scans for matching shirts. If you get within a few meters of your counterpart wearing the same shirt, the radar on your shirt "locks on" and detects the other. This could be useful for love or war - the video below shows the latter scenario. Heart Sensing Bra The Numetrex heart sensing bra uses electronic modules and silver coated electrodes to pick up a person's heart rate and transmit the data to a watch worn on the wrist. Says NuMetrex Marketing Director Meg Burich, "It's a comfortable way to wear a heart rate monitor, because we knit flexible heart sensing fibers directly into the fabric of the garment. There's no hard plastic belt to strap around your chest." Smart Running Shoes Nike+ running shoes come with a sensor that tracks your run, then sends the data to your iPod. It even has its own social network and can automatically tweet and post a status report on Facebook. See ReadWriteWeb's review of the Nike+ shoes . Networked Jacket According to a report from GizmoWatch a couple of years ago, Lunar design's BLU Jacket is a futuristic concept that could make walking billboards a reality. Lunar Design used organic fabrics containing semiconductors in the BLU Jacket, in order to display your moods through signs and colors. This BLU Jacket also has a GPS module built into it. So if someone asks you directions, you could theoretically project a map onto your jacket's sleeve through it's flexible display. Or, asks GizmoWatch, "how about getting paid for displaying advertisements on your jacket?" Next Page: Neuro Headset, Thought Helmet, Biosensor Underwear, iPod Watch, Nanofibers. Neuro Headset The Emotiv EPOC neuroheadset is for gamers and is available for $299. It's described as "a high resolution, neuro-signal acquisition and processing wireless neuroheadset." The headset uses a set of sensors to "tune into electric signals produced by the brain to detect player thoughts, feelings and expressions and connects wirelessly to most PCs." According to the company , the headset can detect emotions such as anger, excitement and tension, as well as facial expressions and cognitive actions like pushing and pulling objects. Thought Helmet Let's get very futuristic for a minute. Six Revisions references an article in Time from September 2008, which claims that the U.S. Army is actively pursuing "thought helmets" for secure mind-to-mind communication between soldiers. The goal "is a system where entire military systems could be controlled by thought alone. While this kind of technology is still far off, the fact that the military has awarded a $4 million contract to a team of scientists from the University of California at Irvine, Carnegie Mellon University, and the University of Maryland means that we might be seeing prototypes of these systems within the next decade." Image: Wikimedia iPod Watch Back to the now, and there are already a range of iPod watches available from different manufacturers. These watches let you control your iPod using your wireless watch. Biosensor Underwear RSC Publishing reported recently that US scientists have developed durable biosensors that can be printed directly onto clothing, to allow continuous biomedical monitoring outside hospitals. The aim is to enable constant monitoring of blood pressure and heart rate: "Joseph Wang and colleagues at the University of California San Diego, La Jolla have developed a method for printing biosensors directly onto clothing. To form the sensors, Wang screen-printed carbon electrode arrays directly onto the elastic bands of mens' underwear. The tight contact and direct exposure to the skin allows hydrogen peroxide and the enzyme NADH, which are both associated with numerous biomedical processes, to be monitored using the sensor, explains Wang." Nanofibers To round out our list, we go a level down the clothing chain and look at next generation fabrics. Delta Farm Press reports that Cornell University's Department of Textiles and Apparel aims to develop fibers that have computing devices in them. An example use case is a shirt "made of cotton threads coated with a thin layer of semiconductor polymers and nanoparticles that conduct electric and can power your cell phone or iPod or monitor your heartbeat, brainwaves, and other functions." The University is also investigating "textiles that can act as sensors that could be used to detect the presence of hazardous bacteria, such as E. coli or anthrax." A further example is smart clothes made of fibers that can change colors - "one appropriate for daytime business environment, a different one for nighttime socializing." One thing is for sure with all ten of these examples of 'smart clothing' - at least some of the clothing that we wear in the future is likely to be networked, in one form or another! Thanks to Deane Rimerman, who provided research for this article. Discuss
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10 Smart Clothes You'll Be Wearing Soon
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When we first looked at the conviction of three Google employees by an Italian judge in late February, we agreed with Google's stance that the conviction attacked the very ideals of the Internet as we know it. The comments in reaction to this article were many and varied, often speculating on the reasoning behind the conviciton. Today, a CNet article identifies profit as the judge's reasoning behind the decision. Sponsor As Google stated when the convictions were first handed down, the case was concerned with a video of "students at a school in Turin, Italy [who] filmed and then uploaded a video to Google Video that showed them bullying an autistic schoolmate. The video was totally reprehensible and we took it down within hours of being notified by the Italian police." According to the Associated Press translation of the court document (pdf), the judge said Google's profiting off of the video was the reason behind the conviction. "In simple words, it is not the writing on the wall that constitutes a crime for the owner of the wall, but its commercial exploitation can," wrote Judge Oscar Magi, continuing to say that the Internet was no longer an "unlimited prairie where everything is permitted and nothing can be prohibited". Profit, especially that profit which is made from completely automated advertising systems, seems like an odd reasoning to hold a content provider responsible for the content uploaded by its users. The oft-quoted statistic to keep in mind here is that YouTube has more than 20 hours of video uploaded every minute to the service. Judge Magi, however, argues that "the overwhelming speed of technical progress will allow, sooner or later, ever more stringent controls on uploaded data on the part of Web site managers". Google gave CNET the following statement in response to the news: "We are reading the full 111-page document from the judge. But as we said when the verdict was announced, this conviction attacks the very principles of freedom on which the Internet is built. If these principles are swept aside, then the Web as we know it will cease to exist, and many of the economic, social, political and technological benefits it brings could disappear. These are important points of principle, which is why we and our employees will vigorously appeal this decision." We have to say, we still agree with Google on this one, as far as the spirit of the conviction goes. Holding the content host, YouTube in this case, liable for the content of its users attacks the very foundation of the Web. If, as some claim, Google knowingly allowed the content to stay on the site, then its a different story. But if the company immediately responded to official requests to remove the video, it should not be held responsible for its users' content. Discuss
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Italian Judge Says "Profit" Behind Google Convictions
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One of the iPad's biggest selling points is its potential as an e-Reader. The included iBooks application and the optional downloadable Amazon Kindle app, for example, provide hundreds of thousands of books to read, all in a relatively standard format: swipe horizontally to flip a page . iPad magazines, however, are trying to be far more creative. As we've mentioned before , the new magazine-style applications include everything from video to music within their pages, plus interactive features and clickable ads. But one problem with these innovative new 'zines is that they each do their own thing, in their own way. While this early adopter applauds the innovations we're seeing on the iPad platform, the mainstream user may find the variations confusing. Sponsor Mini-Movies and More First up: the heavily praised interactive VIV mag , a standout among online newstand Zinio's offerings. Early demos were decidedly exciting. This wasn't text - it was a multimedia experience ! The article featured in the demo video , a sex-ed advice guide, used actors against a green screen to produce a mini-movie illustrating the article's main points. Worried about AIDS? A women writhes against a bull's-eye as knives fly at her. Afraid of pregnancy? A women casts a worried glance at the man entering the room while pressing her hand to her stomach. In practice, however, this format is not as much fun as expected. The cover features clickable links, one that reads "Enter Issue" and another that says "Click to VIVIFY this cover!" Sorry - what? Now I know that they mean "launch interactive content" but mainstream Dicks and Janes may not. And the iPad, if anything, is targeting these so-called "everyday" users - the content consumers whose tech-savviness is a bit lacking, if I may say so kindly. But if you don't "vivify" the mag, you miss the movies - the main attraction. (There is a "Vivify" button at the bottom of each page, too, in case you didn't see it the first time around, but the text next to it says "Tap on the 'V' to read more." Read? How about "watch" or "see?") Another problem with VIV? I'm not sure if it was an app glitch or an iPad one, but the first movie got stuck "downloading" at 16%. Future, here I come? Next is TIME magazine . A gushing editor's letter talks about the publication's embracing the new slate-computer platform of the iPad. But how they've done so is already attracting some criticism . One of the problems is that TIME decided to go with vertical swipes for reading articles but horizontal swipes for navigating from one article to the next. This is not intuitive. On an eReader, whether book or magazine, we expect to read left to right. Vertical only works on the desktop-based web. Condé Nast's GQ magazine is another specialized iPad creation I examined. It doesn't start off well: upon launch, a progress bar displays how much of the magazine has download so far. Will the mainstream user know that you don't have to wait for the download to complete before you tap "read issue?" I'm so not sure. They've also chosen to go with vertical navigation for reading articles and horizontal navigation for scrolling between sections. Meanwhile, Car & Driver's "iPad Interactive Edition" returns you to plain ol' horizontal flipping. In fact, the magazine looks so much like a color PDF that we almost missed the interactive features. Obviously, two white squares overlaid on an image surely means "launch photo gallery," right? One app that gets it right is NPR ....although that's probably because it's not really trying to be a magazine, despite the company's claims that it uses a "magazine-style presentation." While it's true that you can flip from page to page, horizontally of course, the app is more than a mere digitized mag. There's an audio player, playlist creator, program and station finder and more. The news items with an audio track feature buttons for listening and adding to your playlist. Straight text-based items do not. Simple and easy, and overall, well-done. At the end of the day, these magazines are still more fun than their analog counterparts, but, clearly, they're all in very experimental stages right now. The navigation and interactive features differ from magazine app to magazine app, with some getting it better than others. Will they eventually standardize their presentation in an effort to simplify their features? Should they? It's too early to tell what format readers will prefer: mini-movies, some interactive bits sprinkled throughout or straight-laced e-reading. In the meantime, it will be interesting to try out all the variations. Discuss
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iPad Mags: Amazing or Confusing?
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One of the emerging trends of the Mobile Web is using your phone to interact with the real world. We're not just talking about 'checking in' to locations, either. There's a world of more practical functionality that hasn't yet ramped up in the West - using your phone as a payment device (for example mobile ticketing ), getting special offers from retailers, downloading data from the Web via 'smart posters' on the street, and more. A key technology driving some of these interactions is NFC, which was one of Gartner's 8 Mobile Technologies to Watch in 2010 . It's a technology that you ought to become familiar with; whether you're a technologist, a marketer, or a consumer looking to make the best use of your smart phone (and aren't we all!). So in this post we give you an overview of what to expect from NFC. Sponsor What NFC is & Why You Should Care As we explained earlier this year , NFC (Near Field Communication) is a short-range communication technology for mobile phones. It's similar to Bluetooth and has a range of about 10 centimeters. There are three main use cases, according to its Wikipedia entry : Card emulation: the NFC device behaves like an existing contactless card; Reader mode: the NFC device is active and reads a passive RFID tag, for example for interactive advertising; P2P mode: two NFC devices are communicating together and exchanging information. Using the phone to emulate a smart card means that it can be a deployed as a payment device (similar to a credit card), identity card, security device, and more. This type of functionality is already common in Asia, but it hasn't yet taken off in the States. Using the phone as a reader allows the phone to interact with RFID-enabled objects in the real world, for example posters embedded with chips that connect to mobile web sites or applications. NFC in Mobile Phones & Services For these use cases to become a widespread reality, an NFC chip must be pre installed in most mobile devices. According to Dan Butcher from Mobile Commerce Daily , this probably won't happen until 2011 at the earliest. One issue is that NFC is not a current feature of the iPhone or Android, the tools of choice for many Web early adopters. However one handset manufacturer is showing the way with NFC: Nokia . Its Nokia 6131 NFC phone can be used as a credit card, travel card, loyalty card and a "multi-purpose smart card." Along with NFC handsets, NFC-enabled services will arise for applications such as mobile payments. As BusinessWeek reported recently , Alcatel-Lucent has announced a new mobile payment hosting service for mobile operators, in partnership with payments systems specialists Clear2Pay and PingPing. However, the article noted that other emerging mobile payment services aren't using NFC - including Nokia Money and Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey's new business Square ( our review ). NFC Has its Issues, But Also The Momentum... There are issues with NFC, perhaps the biggest being its limited range. In order for NFC to work, you need to hold your mobile phone close to the RFID tag or reader device. An alternative that has a longer range is DASH7 , which we'll review in an upcoming post. However NFC holds the most promise for delivering contactless mobile payments to consumers, along with other real world use cases. Image credit: nicolasnova Discuss
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NFC: Never Mind Credit Cards, Pay With Your Phone
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Sales and marketing are not the same thing. It's true they both deal with relationship management and it's true that neither of these job descriptions require hardcore engineering, but just because they're both in the realm of words over code does not mean that they are the same. At the risk of muddling your mind with HR jargon, the core competencies of a marketer are very different from those of a sales person. Surprisingly, many startup CEOs insist on hiring for a VP of Sales and Marketing position. Sponsor If you're the VP of sales and marketing for your company, this article is not about how you aren't doing your job properly. In fact, it's about how you're doing the job of two separate people and shouldn't be. Interwest investor Bruce Cleveland recently wrote an article entitled, In Search of the Mythical VP Sales and Marketing where he defines the separate domains of sales and marketing. Says Cleveland, "Sales and Marketing are vastly different functions that require substantially different personalities, skills, and decades of experience to master...A CEO who doesn't understand this basic fact, or doesn't believe it, is not a CEO I want to invest in." Explains Cleveland, a sales person understands the inner workings of B2B deal probabilities and the short term requirements to increase deal flow. Meanwhile, marketing people look at the landscape from a longterm perspective and lay the groundwork for sales through analyst, media and web leads generation. Essentially, sales people are great oral one-on-one communicators and marketers are great written mass communicators. He writes, " I have found that the CEO who makes this serious mistake hasn't worked with someone who is an excellent Marketer and therefore discounts the role it plays." With expertise in the Software as a Service space, it's interesting that Cleveland believes the marketing role is the one that gets tacked on at the last minute. While sales offers obvious measurement through direct revenue generation, marketing tends to have a less clear set of metrics. Cleveland explains that "today's head of Marketing must be an excellent demand creator (the "owner" of future revenue) through sales-ready leads." Essentially he believes that the marketer's job is to increase perceived value and generate demand on a massive scale in order to grease the wheels of the sales team. Discuss
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There is No Perfect VP of Sales and Marketing
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