Creating beautiful visualization from ballet

A gorgeous project by Electronic Traces that was designed to capture the movements of ballet dancers and translate them into flowing digital pictures. The project was prototyped by Lesia Trubat, a product designer who built it on the Arduino platform.

Here's a description of the project:

The concept of Electronic Traces is based on capturing dance movements and transforming them into visual sensations through the use of new technologies. To do this we focused on the ballet shoes themselves, which through the contact with the ground, and thanks to Lilypad Arduino technology, record the pressure and movement of the dancer's feet and send a signal to an electronic device.A special application will then allow us to show this data graphically and even customize it to suit each user, through the different functions of this app.

The user can then view all the moves made in video format, extract images and even print them. Dancers can interpret their own movements and correct them or compare them with the movements of other dancers, as graphs created with motion may be the same or different depending on the type of movements executed and the correction of the steps and body position.
 

Continue reading on their project site here.

Misfit explores new business models for wearables

As the wearable industry continues to define itself, we are getting creative with new business models. A good example is the Misfit Flash, which created a deal with insurance companies that literally pay you real hard-earned cash for hitting your daily goal.

"Fake applause, motivational messages and gamified challenges are all very well but good, old-fashioned cash could be the way to get more of us exercising.

That's the thinking behind the insurance company Oscar's new fitness scheme. It's handing out 20,000 free Misfit Flash trackers to customers who want to sign up to sync their daily steps to their health insurance account. Targets are determined by an algorithm starting at 2,000 steps and topping out at just over 10,000 steps a day, moving up and down as users hit or miss their goals. Meet your daily target, get a dollar."

Continue reading at wearable.com

Apple Watch Makes A fashion Debut on the Cover of Vogue China

Apple wants its newest product to be seen as more than just a gadget, putting the Apple Watch on the cover of fashion magazine Vogue China.

The Apple Watch isn't expected to hit shop shelves for months yet, but can be seen on the wrist of 26-year-old model Liu Wen, in the November issue of the fashion publication, Business of Fashion reports.

Source from Cnet

"It is becoming increasingly clear that Apple is putting substantial effort into positioning its watch as a premium fashion item," Ben Wood, analyst at CCS Insight told CNET. "This is reflected in the people it has hired and the launch strategy, that has seen the Apple Watch appearing at events like Paris Fashion Week and gracing the cover of Vogue and other fashion publications."

Smartwatches and wearable tech are tipped to be the next tech frontier, but not every wearable to date has offered much fashion appeal.

Continue reading on Cnet.

Source from The Guardian

And a behind-the-scenes team of fashion’s power players has been involved for a long time

Not just Marc Newson, product designer and one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world (as well as being married to stylist Charlotte Stockdale) but fashion strategist Anita Borzyszkowska, a former global head of PR for Gap and a best-dressed front rower in London, New York and Paris. Borzyszkowska was present at the Paris events alongside Paul Deneve, the man who put Hedi Slimane in charge at Saint Laurent and was then poached to Apple last year.

Continue reading on The Guardian.

Fitbit Designers Imagine A Digital Tattoo Implanted Under Your Skin

From The Designers Of Fitbit, A Digital Tattoo Implanted Under Your Skin

FOR CO.DESIGN’S WEARABLES WEEK, NEWDEALDESIGN CREATED A CONCEPT FOR A DIGITAL TATTOO. BUT THEY THINK THEY CAN ACTUALLY BUILD THE THING.

From the Jawbone Up to the Apple Watch, wrist-based designs have become the de facto form factor for wearable technology. But we’re already wrist-banded out. So what’s next?

[Fast.co] asked NewDealDesign, the design consultancy behind projects like the Fitbit line of activity trackers, and Google’s modular Project Ara smartphone, what things might look like when technology and fashion reach beyond the wrist. In response, they created Project Underskin. It’s a concept for a smart digital tattoo which would be implanted in your hand and interact with everything you touch. It can unlock your front door, trade data with a handshake, or even tell you if you have low blood sugar.

Continue reading on Fast.Co

Design a Part of Anouk Wipprecht x Polaire’s Open Source Dress

Anouk Wipprecht has teamed up with Austrian creative network Polaire to invent a dress that will be created through a worldwide collaboration of anybody who has a bit of inspiration and who has an interest (whether old or new) of CAD design and 3D Printing. What they’ll do is join together all your submitted design-elements into one dress with one uniform connecting mechanism during the weekend of September 13th and 14th, 2014.

More info at the website here.

En Vogue: Blurring the Line Between Brands & Tech

I need your support! Please vote for my talk at SXSW for next year: En Vogue: Blurring the Line Between Brands & Tech

Brand matters. As we’ve seen on TV, even a $20 Casio watch will excite people if it has an Apple sticker on it. In my talk, I will reason that for wearables to have this kind of enduring consumer engagement, we need to align brand values and technological capabilities in a way that makes the experience more meaningful. As wearable technology and the IoT collide, we’ll see more technology embedded into products we use daily, from our clothing to our homes. So far, brand values have been an afterthought for these smart products but it’s time to think about it the other way around – creating new experiences tied to the values of brands we love. In my talk, I'll explore the intersection of fashion and technology by breaking down models of brand collaborations from Tory Birch and Fitbit to Apple and Gucci, and discuss how incorporating brand from the beginning will result in tailor-made experiences of the future.

Vote now here.

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