I’ve got you under my skin

A man uses an UP fitness wristband and its smartphone application.

A man uses an UP fitness wristband and its smartphone application.

Published Aug 7, 2013

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London - The revelation that Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, has begun using Jawbone Up, the activity-tracking wristband that monitors how much you move during the day and whether you sleep enough at night, caused some mirth in Westminster last week.

But Osborne isn’t the only one joining in the wearable technology trend. Marissa Mayer, chief executive of Yahoo!, is giving the Up wristbands to its 11 000 employees, and tech industry observers foresee a time when the activity tracker is issued to new employees with their laptop and smartphone.

While wearable computing isn’t new, this year it’s everywhere. Activity trackers like Jawbone Up and Fitbit Flex are increasingly prominent. Google Glass, the computer-enhanced eyewear with built-in camera, speaker and internet connectivity, has a growing profile. And smartwatches, such as the Pebble, are moving smartphone features to a wristwatch.

Juniper research says 15 million wearable computing gadgets will be sold this year and expects that to increase to 70 million by 2017. If Apple’s rumoured iWatch appears, then expect growth to hasten.

Wristbands, watches and glasses are just the beginning. Next-generation wearables will be part of the fabric of our clothes.

London-based CuteCircuit has developed a cellphone dress with an antenna in the seam and the SIM card in the label. Artist and designer Dominic Wilcox’s No Place Like Home shoes use GPS and LED lights to give directions.

These are concepts, not commercial products, but compared with what’s coming, they seem crude. Research published in 2011 by a team of scientists from Italy, France and the US explored the possibilities of using conductive thread – cotton coated in nanoparticles and polymers – to form transistors and circuits.

Instead of wearing a dress with a computer built-in, your dress will be the computer.

Sabine Seymour, founder of Moondial, an agency that develops and consults on wearables, says: “If we use that assumption that a consumer is covered every day, we have a fantastic surface where we can embed a lot of functionality.”

She foresees smart clothes that change colour, regulate our temperature, charge the gadgets we carry and don’t need to be washed.

Wearable computers and smart clothes are fine, but what about having the technology surgically implanted in your body?

Kevin Warwick, professor of cybernetics at the University of Reading, has been experimenting on himself for more than a decade. In 1998, he had a silicon chip implanted in his arm that controlled the door and the lights in his laboratory. A second experiment, four years later, let him remotely control a prosthetic hand.

This year, Rich Lee, a 34-year-old American, had magnets implanted in the tragus – the small protuberance in front of the ear canal – that act as speakers when combined with a coil necklace. In 2011, Trevor Prideaux, 50, had a smartphone embedded in his prosthetic arm, making it easier to use the device with only one hand.

For now, there are other concerns about wearable technology. The US anti-Google Glass campaign, Stop The Cyborgs, provides downloadable stickers reading: “No surveillance devices”. Some critics warn that Google Glass facial recognition software could track people without their knowledge. Google currently doesn’t permit such software but a determined developer could get around that.

Data security is a potential worry, too. What happens to all that information about your exercise and sleep habits? What if your health data was sold to a third party, such as an insurance company? Could an employer discriminate against a worker with an “unhealthy” lifestyle?

Finally, there’s the problem of compulsion. Dr Larry Rosen, a professor at California State University and an expert in the psychology of technology, says: “In our studies, the typical teen and young adult checks his or her smartphone every 15 minutes or less and if they can’t check as often as they like they get anxious. This anxiety then drives the need to check in to reduce the anxiety which then begins to build again.”

The more immediate nature of wearable technology could make this problem worse, he says.

But these concerns aren’t exclusive to wearables; they apply equally to smartphones and other technology. For most people, the benefits will outweigh the risks.

The technology will advance regardless and Osborne’s wristband will seem quaint when our children are confronted by the first cyborg chancellor.. – The Independent

l Shane Richmond’s ebook Computerised You: How Wearable Technology Will Turn Us Into Computers will be out as a Kindle Single next month

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