I recently visited Microsoft Research (MSR) to meet some of the researchers and designers who are doing some amazing work with wearable technology. One of the designers I met with was Senior Research Designer Asta Roseway (MSR). She recently collaborated with User Experience Designer Sheridan Martin Small (Xbox) on a project called The Printing Dress, which won Best Concept and Best in Show at ISWC 2011 in San Francisco last month.

Here’s a look at their creation, how they made it, and what Asta’s thoughts are about the future of wearable technology.

The Printing Dress
You are probably familiar with the old saying, “You are what you eat” but how about, “You are what you tweet?” What if this concept were incorporated into garments of the future?

The “Printing Dress” is an artistic piece that explores the notion of wearable text and its potential impact on the future of fashion, as well as our social identity. Built almost entirely of paper, the dress enables the wearer to enter “thoughts” on to its fabric and wear them as public art. While constructed from materials of the past, the dress looks towards the future with a message indicating that we are entering into a new realm of social accountability, where you literally wear what you tweet.

The Dress is powered by four Lilypad Arduinos, a laptop, a short throw projector and uses a Processing sketch to display and animate the text.

Interview Participants
Asta Roseway – Senior Research Designer, Microsoft Research
Sheridan Martin Small – User Experience Designer, P10 Incubations/Xbox
Tom Blank – Hardware Engineering Manager, Microsoft Research
Desney Tan – Senior Researcher, Microsoft Research

Special thanks to Artefact, Microsoft Research, Xbox, and Issara Willenskomer at Dos Rios.

Also featured on Engadget, Cnet, PSFK, talk2myshirt, Ecouterre, Microsoft News Center.

I met with Desney Tan at Microsoft Research today, who walked me through a few mind-blowing demos and prototypes he has recently developed. One of his prototypes demonstrates the capabilities of using on-body musclecomputer inputs that can be integrated into garments. Listening to Tan articulately describe a bloom of possibilities and how he sees the evolution of interfacing was incredibly inspiring. Just imagine the potential.

Read Tan’s publication for more info.