Wearable Electronics

There is a bandwagon just starting to roll containing various pairs of video-capable and augmented reality glasses. Google is currently in the driver's seat, but it's far from the only company working on ways to allow us all to record video from a first-person perspective and integrate what we see into our online lives. A case in point is Vergence Labs' Social Video Electric Eyewear. Read More

While it can be nice to listen to motivating music while riding your bike, riding on the streets while wearing earbuds is ... well, crazy. In many places, it’s also illegal. One option is to wear non-sealing earHero earphones, which are claimed to allow both outside noise and music into the user’s ear canal. Another, however, is to attach some Otus Mini-Speakers to your helmet. Read More

Japan’s Tokyoflash has made a name for itself with numerous weird and wonderful – or maybe baffling - ways to tell the time. Now, bringing to mind Homer Simpson’s quote of, “From now on Honey, we'll be spelling everything with letters,” when Marge is impressed by a house that has its street number spelled out with letters, German design agency Biegert & Funk is set to release a wristwatch that fancies things up by telling the time in words. Read More

Headphone cords: they're far from the gravest problem facing mankind today, but much like the common cold, they persistently annoy with no end in sight. At least we have a new, non-prescription pill, in the form of CordCrunchers. Read More

When it comes to implantable electronic devices such as pacemakers, biosensors or drug-delivery devices, there are a few options regarding power sources. While batteries could be used in some applications, doing so would require surgically replacing the implant when its battery runs out. Radio wave-based and inductive systems are instead often used, in which power is “beamed” to the device from a source outside the body. According to researchers from Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute for Ceramic Technologies and Systems, however, such systems often have a limited range, and are easily affected by factors such as location, position and movement. Instead, they’ve developed what they claim is a better, more versatile system. Read More

Google X (Google's futuristic technology development lab) has pulled back the curtain on Project Glass, its program to develop truly useful augmented reality "Google glasses." Project Glass aims to design and refine augmented reality technology to help a user explore and share their world armed with a wealth of relevant information - not at their fingertips, but rather at the end of their nose. Read More

Conventional earphones can become a liability you are out and about on city streets by limiting your ability to hear approaching vehicles or other potential hazards. That’s where the earHero comes into play. It’s an earphone system designed not to block the ear canal so that users are still be able to hear what’s going on around them. Read More

NASA has developed a pair of augmented reality glasses designed especially for commercial airline pilots to see during the worst visual conditions. The glasses include a heads-up display showing a virtual overlay of the runway and airport, head tracking technology, and voice controls - features that may help pilots keep their eyes where they're most needed. Read More

It looks like the skiers’ communications systems from Buhel and Recon could soon be in for some solar-powered competition. Working with German tech company TEXSYS and the Technische Universität Berlin, researchers from the Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Microintegration have developed a communications module that can be integrated directly into a ski helmet. That module is powered by nothing but sunlight, and can be linked with the user’s mobile devices via a Bluetooth-enabled glove-based control unit. Read More