Wearable Technology

In this part of the lecture we were shown a video game group called Blast Theory. They use a GPS tracking system to locate themselves in a city and run around with all the technology strapped to their body, while players online can try to capture their avatar, with an avatar of their own. This must be the most ridiculous game I've ever heard of. Why do it?!? So I asked if the developers of the game made money from it, and the answer was: sort of, a little bit sometimes. I'm stumped. I can't grasp the purpose of what they're doing. Maybe if I look at it from a side angle, like perhaps that they are interested in developing hand held and wearable technology that has some substance to it. But the overall idea of running around in a city while the avatar of a person tries to capture you just seems so crazy. Where's the fun in that? It is a 'game' after all isn't it?

Well if I go back to the idea of developing wearable technology
that's very inetersting. It's the new stage of computing called 'Ubiquitous.' It means 'being everywhere at once', and that is exactly what this is all about. Technology that isn't just one microchip in a big clunky object, it's about spreading the intelligence all over, so it's existence is a thin layer within every inch of an object. Or the chip affects the entire object, in a minamalist way. An example of this is a contact lense developed to allow the user to see more detailed information on something far away (like a zoom feature), and also to be 'beamed' information like a map from a computer. The map would appear in front of the user as if it were really there. Another example is jackets, skirts, hats etc. that connect to the users mobile phone. One feature I found very cool on a shirt I looked at was the ability for the shirt to squeeze the user giving the person a 'hug'. The 'hug' was sent from another phone using bluetooth. This attracted my attention, because it is looking at technology moving forward in a 3D interactive and physical way. Instead of just saying, or seeing something, the user would actually be able to experience it practically firsthand. Technology seems to be continually addressing the issue of affecting the five senses. So what's next? Smell? Taste?