Wearables

Oooh, now we get it. HandTalk converts hand gestures like sign language into spoken words. Well, don’t we feel silly. The device was developed by a group of nerds at Carnegie Mellon, and can track finger and hand gestures with a vocabulary of 32 words in its existing v0.1 model. The signals are transmitted from the glove to a phone over Bluetooth, where the words are converted with text to speech software. Not bad for a bunch of off-the-shelf components, but they could’ve scored double the nerd points by repurposing a Power Glove for this — gotta think big picture, people.

[Via talk2myShirt]

It’s a tough call — are you willing to get your eyeballs within the driver’s seat of your remote-controlled vehicle, even if it means looking freakishly like Geordi La Forge? If you’ve thrown aside your pride and confidently answered “yes,” you should certainly have a gander at the Pilot View FPV 2400. Designed for use in radio-controlled aircraft and cars, the system places a wireless camera in the cockpit and then beams back live first-person footage to those horrifically unsightly goggles you see consuming the face of that poor gal above. In all seriousness, we’d bet the experience is fairly novel, if not a touch fantastic, but we could probably think of more enthralling ways to spend $549 if we were really pressed.

[Thanks, Claudio]

The SolarAid really isn’t much different than your average hearing aid in function — it enables hearing-impaired individuals to get a better listen at the world around them. The difference, however, comes from its source of energy. Through a series of tragic and fortunate events, Howard Weinstein wound up in Africa with a goal in mind: to concoct a hearing aid that even the poorest of citizens could afford. Through a series of grants and help from hordes of deaf individuals that had no qualms holding a soldering iron, some 20,000 folks in 30 countries are currently using the solar-powered devices. Best of all, the mastermind isn’t slowing down, as he’s looking to expand the nonprofit into the Middle East, China and India in the not-too-distant future.

[Via CrunchGear]

We’ve been hearing about MIT spinoff VectraSense’s Verb for Shoe “smart shoe” since 2004, but the company is finally taking preorders, and if you’ve got an extra $700, you can now blow it on some of the most ridiculous kicks ever designed. Four years and several hundred melodramatic product renders later, the basic idea is the same: an embedded computer automatically adjusts the shoe to your feet, syncs with your PC, and communicates with the shoes of others to exchange contact information. We’re not sure why you’d want to drop seven Bens on this functionality (we’d rather carry a cell phone and laptop and wear non-ridiculous shoes, you know?) but hey, if you’re going to be a fashion disaster, you might as well do it with wireless capabilities.

We’re been fans of Kleer wireless audio technology since we first gave it a listen back at CES in January 2007. Unfortunately, lackluster products have held back its potential over Bluetooth audio. While DigiFi’s Opera headset isn’t likely to tip the balance, these headphones are interesting nonetheless. The buds ship with a mini-jack dongle and offer 10 hours of playtime and CD-quality sound. Not bad, but they also allow you to tune in up to 3 additional Opera wearing friends. Silent raves will never be the same. Available today in Korea, worldwide eventually for $98.

[Via AVING]

Solar-powered dresses are so two years ago. These days, dames in the know are all about that piezoelectric material, evidenced by the incredibly flashy Piezing. Dreamed up and designed by Amanda Parkes, this piece of garb is all set to steal the show at the 2ndSkin expo in San Fransisco, and according to CNET, it features electricity-generating fabrics around the joints of the elbows and hips. When the wearer walks, bends or gets downright nasty on the dance floor, the mechanical stress conjures up energy which is stored as voltage in a built-in battery where it can presumably be used later for charging your favorite handheld gizmo. Sure gets our electrons flowing.

[Via textually, image courtesy of James Patten]
Read - 2ndSkin expo
Read - CNET article on Piezing

Okay, so maybe tapping that space bar repeatedly in mixed company wouldn’t be entirely appropriate, but if you’ve actually managed to mingle with fellow civilians while rocking these, they aren’t likely to mind. Dreamed up and designed by Erik De Nijs, these über-geeky pants boast a built-in keyboard that’s apparently Bluetooth-enabled. Beyond that, you’ll also find sewn in speakers, a pocket made especially for travel mice of all flavors and a “joystick controller” strategically located just behind the front zipper (saywha?). Hate all you like, we just penned this very post on a pair of these bad boys. Only kidding.

[Thanks, Hans]