Bernard Marr - Tech Trends in Practice

So in the future, we may find ourselves permanently attached to our smart phones, but in a more literal way – because the technology could be implanted into our bodies and capable of constantly scanning our thoughts, emotions, and biometric data to understand what we want to do next. AI chips implanted in our brains could help us make smarter, faster decisions. And physical augmentation could make us stronger, faster, and who knows what else. No longer satisfied with manipulating the world around us, it seems humans are on a quest to manipulate themselves .

It all started with smart watches and fitness trackers. These now commonplace wearable devices are designed to help us lead healthier lives – and research suggests it actually works. One study found that participants with an Apple Watch linked to health and life insurance reward schemes increased their activity levels by a third, potentially amounting to an extra two years’ life expectancy. 3Smart watches also now have the ability to spot heart problems; the Apple Watch Series 5 has the ability to take an ECG, recording your heartbeat and rhythm in the same way as a hospital machine would, and is considered an approved medical device by the United States’ Food and Drug Administration. 4

Soon, capabilities like this will be par for the course for all smart watches, fitness trackers, and other smart devices. But there are many other exciting (and occasionally downright weird) advances to get to grips with the world of wearables, from smart clothes, to technology that physically augments the human body, to the eventual merging of the human brain with computers.

Let’s take a look at each category in turn.

Clothes are becoming more intelligent, with a view to making our lives better and more convenient. These smart clothes are otherwise regular garments that have been enhanced with technology – such as sensors or high-tech circuitry – which allows them to perform functions way beyond protecting our modesty or keeping us warm and dry. Here are some of my favorite examples of smart clothes already on the market:

Designed for athletes and serious exercise fanatics, Under Armour’s Athlete Recovery Sleepwear is designed to improve muscle recovery and deliver a better night’s sleep by absorbing the wearer’s body heat and releasing infrared light.

Ralph Lauren’s PoloTech t-shirts are fitted with biometric sensors that monitor heart rate and other metrics and deliver workout insights to your smart phone or watch, including tailored workout advice.

Designed for runners, Sensoria Smart Socks monitor pressure on your feet while running and send data to your smart phone. (Not all smart socks are for fitness enthusiasts, however. Siren’s Diabetic Sock and Foot Monitoring System monitors the wearer’s temperature to detect early signs of inflammation, which can lead to foot ulcers in diabetics.)

Wearable X’s Nadi yoga pants vibrate at various points (such as the knee or hip) to encourage you to move or hold positions. By syncing with an accompanying app, the pants give additional feedback on your yoga positions.

Fashion tech startup Supa has a smart bra complete with heart rate sensor and AI that tracks your workouts. Naturally, it syncs to an app so you can keep track of your health data over time.

Looking beyond workout gear, Tommy Hilfiger wants you to wear its casualwear so much, it’s introduced a whole line of clothing that tracks how often you wear items and gives you rewards for frequent usage. The clothing line includes hoodies, jeans, and t-shirts, all with embedded chips that send info to an accompanying app.

Google and Levi’s have collaborated on a smart denim jacket, called Jacquard, that connects to the wearer’s smart phone. With a tap or swipe of the sleeve you can control music volume on your phone, screen calls, get directions, and receive updates on your Uber ride.

Smart socks that monitor your baby’s heart rate as it sleeps? Sounds like the perfect gift for any anxious new parent (which, let’s face it, is every new parent). The Owlet Smart Sock not only monitors heart rate and breathing interruptions, it can also identify potential health issues like sleep irregularities, heart defects, lung disorders, or pneumonia.

From prosthetics that help restore amputees’ motor functions to industrial equipment that helps employees work smarter and safer, wearable technology goes way beyond everyday smart watches or clever yoga pants. Let’s look at some of the amazing ways wearable technology is physically enhancing the human body.

Exoskeletons – essentially, wearable robot suits – already exist that help workers become super-strong. For example, the Sarcos Guardian XO exoskeleton is a full-body suit that lets workers in, say, factory and construction settings lift up to 90 kilograms without strain. Sarcos says the technology will help to increase productivity and reduce workplace injuries. In case you’re wondering what a “full-body suit” looks like, picture the get-up Ripley wore for her epic alien fight in the movie Aliens, and you won’t be far off!

In 2018, Ford confirmed it was rolling out 75 EksoVest upper-body exoskeletons in a number of its auto plants around the world – at the time of writing, the largest adoption of exoskeletons to date. 5Volkswagen is also exploring rolling out rival exoskeletons at its plants. 6

There are actually many different types of exoskeletons, and not all of them designed with industrial super-strength in mind. Many are designed for clinical rehabilitation purposes, for instance, by helping to provide support to the hips, legs, and lower torso. The Rewalk Robotics Restore soft exoskeleton, which is designed to help stroke patients walk effectively and efficiently, is a good example.

MIT has developed a robot that can understand signals from your muscles and respond accordingly, to help you lift heavy objects. The mechanical system works by reading the electrical signals from your biceps – measuring your flex, in other words – to get a sense of how you’re lifting. It can then work out how best to help you lift. It might not be for the squeamish, though, since it requires electrodes to be inserted into your arm! 7

If you don’t fancy electrodes in your arm, how about a robotic tail? Designers in Japan have developed a robo-tail that straps around the waist and helps improve people’s balance. 8It’s not commercially available, but the designers predict robo-tail technology could in future help with rehabilitation or to augment balance for workers in dangerous locations, such as on a construction site.

Ocumetrics has created a Bionic Lens that claims to give wearers vision that’s three times better than what we’d normally consider perfect (i.e. 20/20) vision. The Bionic Lens comes folded up, like a taco, and is implanted into the eye in a quick, painless procedure – after which it unfolds itself over the eye in a matter of seconds, immediately correcting your sight. 9If the lens becomes widely available, pending clinical trials, it could make glasses and regular contact lenses a thing of the past.

Elsewhere, Samsung has been granted a patent for smart contact lenses that are capable of taking photos and recording video. The design also includes motion sensors, which would allow wearers to control devices with eye movements. 10If Samsung does end up making the lenses, they could become a serious challenger for smart glasses, such as Google Glass (see augmented reality, Trend 8).