Stefabi Marzano
CEO & Chief Creative Director, Philips Design
Communication and empowerment
In almost any city in the world today, you can't go anywhere without seeing someone using a mobile electronic product. They may be holding long conversations on their mobile phone... or listening to their Walkman. Consulting their organizers... or working on their palmtops or laptops.
The digital revolution has meant the electronics industry has been able to create wonderful things that give people incredible empowerment... things that allow them to communicate with friends or colleagues anywhere they want, and whenever they want. Things that allow them to get the information they want... at the moment they need it. And that entertain them in the way they want, whenever they feel like it. In fact, with all these portable devices, we've almost forgotten what it was like to have to look for a telephone booth, or to be able to work on a computer only at the office, or to be able to listen to music only at home or in a concert hall... These digital, miniaturised devices have allowed us to take a big step forward towards total mobility, total connectivity... and great deal of comfort.
But is this all that digital technologies can offer us? Is there a step forward beyond miniaturization... that will enable us to achieve total comfort and freedom?
In 1995, in our Vision of the Future project, Philips Design came up with many new ideas about how certain functionalities – relating to connectivity, communication, entertainment and geographical localization - could be embedded into clothing. As you probably know, the first steps towards this development (known in the business as “wearables”) are now about to happen.
The question is: Will it be just a short-lived fashion? Or will it stay? And if so, for how long? I'd like to look with you today at some of the things we at Philips have been doing in this area. But before I do that, I'd like to put the whole idea of wearables into perspective. Because it is actually only the next logical (and yet highly innovative) step in a development that has extended over the whole long history of Mankind. And it is by no means the end of the story.
The irresistible path of evolution
Let's go back to the beginning - the very beginning of life on Earth. From the earliest stages of evolution, the clear-cut direction of first genetic and then cultural development has been towards the externalisation of an internal life-force. The evolution of eyes, ears and the outward orientation of much of the nervous system as a whole, the development of limbs and later of tools all seem to point to an irresistible goal-oriented drive on the part of all creation to explore the world beyond the mind and beyond the body. It is a goal for the continuous amplification or expansion of the senses, of power, of reach and knowledge.
Taking this development to its logical extreme, the goal of our species would seem to be omnipresence, omnipotence and omniscience - the ability to be everywhere, to do everything and to know everything there is to know. It is surely no accident that these are the characteristics we are inclined to ascribe to our gods, or to idealized creatures of our imagination, like Batman, Superman and our fairy godmother.
The drive to become divine - Exteriorization
Let's look at the development of tools in this light. In order to expand our powers, we have used and adapted things in our environment. We have found ways outside our own physical bodies of performing all sorts of things we can do on a limited scale on a much grander and more effective scale.
Take transportation, for instance. First, we were limited to using our own legs. Then we borrowed the much more effective legs of the horse. Then we came up with the wheel, which helped us carry things, including of course ourselves. Finally, in the relatively recent past, we have come up with various types of motor-powered devices that are even more powerful than a horse: the train, the car and the aeroplane.
Each time, the tool has become bigger and more complex. Or take the expansion of our mental powers. First of all we developed cave painting, and set up stone circles to gain a better understanding of the world. Then we learned to write, and developed the abacus to help us count. Now we have cameras, calculators, and computers. All these are external devices to help us achieve our long-evolutionary goal of joining the gods – being omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent.
The principle of least effort
However, humanity is pursuing this long-term evolution within the limits defined by a condition of efficiency – what is sometimes called the path of least resistance or the principle of least effort. That is to say, we want everything, but we want to get it by expending as little effort as possible. We want everything, and we want to do it with the maximum of ease, freedom and comfort. Ironically, in fact, we will often go to great lengths and great pains just to do things the easy way.
I want to be free
Product designers spend a lot of time trying to make the devices that they design attractive and easy to use – just as I'm sure fashion designers spend a lot of time making sure their clothes look good, feel comfortable and express certain emotional values. But because of the limits imposed by technology, this sort of work - on what designers call “usability” - can only provide ad hoc, or half-solutions. What people really want... is to be free of any attachments. We don't want easy tools, we don't want to bother with tools at all. We don't want to fly in an aircraft, we want to fly like a bird. We don't want to sit in a car in a traffic jam, we want to be beamed around by the transporter in Star Trek. Hang gliding, bungee jumping, parachuting, Harley Davidson motorbikes – these are all attempts to escape from the restrictions of ordinary life and to experience, even if for short, intense moments, ultimate freedom.
Re-interiorization
It's just a pity that present technology doesn't allow this desire to come true. Certainly, the human race has come quite a long way towards its goal of liberation, but it still has a long way to go. Many of the tools and products that expanded our powers by adding external enhancements to them were at first too big to be carried around. They could only be used in one place. But gradually, new technologies have made it possible to miniaturise many parts and processes, so that we have been able to develop products that can be carried around.
This development is obvious in the case of radio and audio systems, for instance. The development of the transistor, replacing the valve, led to a revolution in the spread of radio, taking it for the first time outside the home. Now, since the arrival of the Walkman, we have seen the next phase: the object does not need to be carried by hand, but can be put into a pocket. And earphones have similarly become smaller, no longer being worn on the head, but instead tucked neatly into the ears.
The invention of radio and audio products was originally an exteriorization of our powers – we used these external devices to help extend our power of hearing. Now, this external device is beginning to make its way back inside us, as it were. From a static box, the radio has become a box that can be carried by hand, independent of a fixed power source, and now it has become so small that it can be tucked into a pocket. The same can be seen in the case of telephones. They began as static devices, were later built into cars and became portable, finally becoming today's pocket-sized models.
Culture and the body
Notice that this is not only highly convenient, it also the start of a big tidying up operation that involves not only our mobile life but also our life at home. At the moment, many of the tools we have created for use in the home – like televisions, video recorders and audio systems – are scattered around the home in the form of big black boxes. As miniaturization continues, products will occupy less and less space in the home and will either merge invisibly into the home environment or become objects of attention in their own right, like works of art.
The question then arises as to what will technological functionalities ultimately merge into – and why? Basically, I suggest, that it will be the objects that human beings experience as indispensable that will be the new home for all these embedded functions. And what we experience as indispensable derives from the physical form and nature of our bodies on the one hand, and our culture on the other. For instance, almost all cultures have something that resembles table and chairs, even if they are only rocks or logs.
All human beings take shelter in places that have things that resemble walls and ceilings. Different cultures may embellish them in various ways, but the basics are determined by the fact that we like to rest our bodies while still being alert, and like to do things with our hands at a certain height from the ground. Other items in our environment may not be as universal: they are more culturally determined. I would say clothes fall into this category. All cultures have them, even if only to limited extent, though they may vary enormously. These sorts of items – tables, chairs, walls, clothes – have been around since the earliest times and are likely to be around into the distant future. Because we do not feel they are in the way, or that they are holding us back in our struggle for freedom, they are almost the ideal carriers for the functions that make us more like the gods we long to be.
Harmonising technology and fashion
But moving from miniaturisation to progressive integration calls for a great deal of careful thought. Miniaturisation has changed our lives dramatically. Integration is going to change it even more. Miniaturization has meant mainly that people have been able to perform certain operations with mobile devices; integration means that the entire relationship between people and the objects that contain embedded technology will change completely. Take clothing, for instance. The integration of technology – even to start with perhaps just a mobile phone or MP3 player integrated into a jacket – will mean the beginning of a whole new chapter for the fashion industry.... because it will be the first time that an industry that's traditionally been driven by style and emotional values will have to team up with another, totally different type of industry – the electronics industry. And it will be the first time that people will be considering clothes not only in terms of matching colours and designs but also in terms of functions.
If we look at things in this light, what we are talking about is quite clearly a new lifestyle and business revolution – one that means the electronics industry will have to be able to “think emotionally”. To guarantee human-focused solutions, we can't expect the fashion industry to adapt itself to technology. Rather, the technology industry will have to learn how to deal with fashion. And in fact, some very successful innovations have been the result of a traditionally technology-focused industry “thinking emotionally”.
The interaction of technology and fashion
Will the current forms taken by technology simply disappear? Will people no longer fumble with their Walkman box to change the music? Will they no longer pull a ringing mobile phone from their pocket? Will the objects simply vanish when the functions are so integrated that they disappear from view?
Perhaps. History is full of examples of objects that used to be very common, but which were lost without trace when they were replaced in their function by something else. When tights and pantyhose for women replaced the old stockings, the suspender belt more or less disappeared – surviving only in certain limited contexts (or so I am told). But if items of clothing don't disappear from general view, they may become a fashion accessory, and their fashion function becomes more important than their utilitarian function. This is what happened to the male neck-tie: it started out as a way of fastening the collar, it gradually became more decorative, only becoming purely decorative until the nineteenth century, when its role in fastening the collar was taken over by the collar stud. And women's brooches, which are now almost completely decorative, began life as a means of securing clothes around the body.
In the same way, the technological functions we can integrate into our clothing may also bring about changes in the clothing itself. People may want to hide the technology away, but it's more likely that they'll want to give the new “invisible” functions some visible form, not because they have to, but simply in order to show other people that those functions are there. If people take this route- and let the design of the object reveal, as it were, the presence of an otherwise hidden function, the whole aesthetic of the original object could end up changing.
Sports shoes, for instance, are an adaptation of conventional footwear, but have now developed an aesthetic of their own. This aesthetic is now spreading to affect other casual and even formal footwear, so that many shoes now look like sports shoes, though the people wearing them would probably never dream of doing any sports!
Another reason for making a new function visible – even when it's not necessary - is so that you can “explain” the new function to users. This is often done by drawing an analogy with an older function that is traditionally associated with a particular form. For example, the weapon used by Luke Skywalker in Star Wars had a technology unknown to us. But because it looked like a sword – even if an illuminated one – we were able to understand what it was for. In the same way, when electric kettles first came onto the market, they were made to look like the object you normally placed on the fire to heat water for drinking - in some cultures that was the tea kettle, in others the coffee pot. Which explains why electric kettles look like a kettle in England but like a coffee pot in Holland and Germany. This blending of an old shape with a new function makes it easier for people to understand and accept new things.
It's also worth noting, I think, the way we choose our clothes each day will also undergo a subtle shift. When choosing our clothes for the next day, we will not only have to decide whether we need to wear a jacket or a pullover, and whether their colours match. We will also have to customize those garments in terms of the functionalities that we require.
Wearables: the next step in empowerment
Now it's time to show you the sorts of things I mean. As I mentioned earlier, in 1995, in our project Vision of the Future, we at Philips Design presented a number of ideas on how technologies could be integrated. Some of the concepts included a Music T-Shirt, featuring in-ear speakers and solar cells to provide energy; a Ski-Jacket, with integrated entertainment and communication, as well as allowing for navigation and emergency rescue, through GPS localisation of the user; a Solar-Energy Recharge Jacket, including some tools for creative playing and communication, such as a camera, a display, and a microphone.These are just a
The great interest these concepts aroused in the media and their immediate success among the public convinced us this was an area that was worth investigating further. Since then, Philips Design and Philips Research have been working on the idea of wearables, investigating and developing technologies that would actually enable us the first steps to be taken towards realising such concepts. I'd like to show you now some of what we've come up with. The technology used in almost everything you see is either currently available or is in an advanced stage of development phase - although none of these garments are actually in the shops. Yet!
All the concepts we have developed meet latent needs that we have identified through trends research. They also address various social groups - such as “business professionals”, “kids and youth”, and “performance sports enthusiasts”. The concepts have been developed by a multi-disciplinary team, consisting of fashion designers, interaction and multimedia designers, technologists and scientists from the Philips Research Laboratories in Britain. Most of the concepts make use of what is known as a Personal Area Network or PAN. This allows a great deal of flexibility, so that people can decide what functionalities they need to meet the day's requirements and then “customize” their garments accordingly. Philips has already filed for several patents to protect its intellectual property in this area.
Let's take the business and professional group, for instance.
Here we have a businessman. A man on the move. A microphone incorporated in his collar. An earpiece, like a piece of jewelry tucked into his ear, and a display and personal digital assistant in his sleeve: note the embroidered keypad. He can select equipment for the day ahead and fit them discreetly into the garment he has decided to wear.
And here's the air hostess of tomorrow. Again the microphone, this time in leather, so that she can speak to other crew members, ground staff or passengers from anywhere in the plane. She's got a flexible PDA display on her sleeve so that she can check the passenger list at any time.
For kids, mobile phone technology and miniature cameras can be combined to allow parents to track their children and at the same time create new opportunities for play. All this is made possible through radio tagging, and newly designed miniature video cameras and other devices.
Then there's the youth - an important group for wearables, because they're probably the group that's psychologically the furthest when it comes to accepting new things! And, of course, they're very technology-oriented.
Here's an outfit for the girl who's really into clubbing. In any club that has installed the right equipment, the sensors hidden in her clothes will affect the lights and beat of the music close to where she's dancing. It will allow her to create her own “sensory ambience”.
And so that she can make contact with other people across the dance floor, she has these pageable pants - yes, there's a pager in there!
And these piercings are a form of “hot badge”, that is you can program them with information about your own likes and dislikes and they will react when you're near someone whose piercing is sending out a similar pattern of likes and dislikes.
And for out in the streets, here's an MP3 Audio Jacket. You can download music into your MP3 player - which sits in its own pocket. And the controls are on your sleeve again. You've got hifi headphones incorporated into the hood - so you can create your own total-immersion audio space. And you can let other people know you're enjoying the music (without forcing them to join in!) thanks to the flexible Electro-luminescent screen on your back, which shows a sort of equaliser picture of the music you're listening to.
If that was a jacket that amplifies your sense of hearing, then this is a jacket that amplifies your sense of sight. There's a camera in here that records your environment and can even use face recognition to identify people as they come up to you. Through the small speakers in the collar, you - and only you - can hear the name of the person. No more of those embarrassing moments when someone who seems to know you very well comes up to you, holding out their hand and smiling - and to you they look like a complete stranger! Ideal for politicians, I would think...
Of course, sports, health and fitness are increasingly important areas of activity. Integrated fabric sensors will monitor and display your pulse-rate, blood pressure, body temperature, and so forth. On the skiing slopes, performance clothing could have built-in electronic ski-passes, radio links, GPS for location and navigation and temperature sensors, for instance. And when you come home, tired out after your activities, and just want to relax, simply put on this massage kimono. It gives you a soothing massage - and you can even specify the level of relaxation you want to achieve.
New dimensions External and internal monitoring
What you have just seen are the sorts of products that, as I said, are not on the market at the moment. But they - or something like them - could be around very soon, most probably in a relatively simple form, such as the integration of actual communication and entertainment products into washable garments that allow a Personal Area Network. They will empower us in many different ways. They will allow us to relax and be entertained, they will allow us to communicate more easily, they will allow us to extend our ability to control our environment and enhance our sense of security, and they'll allow us to monitor our health more easily.
But this is just the beginning. Let me conclude by looking with you a bit further ahead.
In the jogging suits, we just saw how wearables can help us monitor our bodies. But that bodily monitoring doesn't have to be limited to our OWN bodies. We can experience an extra dimension as a spectator of sports, for instance, by seeing more of what is “happening” in performances: we can monitor athletes' heartbeat, for instance, see the power they use when playing golf or tennis, or when rowing or playing soccer - all through wireless monitoring devices in their clothing. This takes us one step further than our own normal powers of observation: we will be seeing things that we normally cannot see, experience things we currently cannot experience.
This highly convenient and direct mode of communication will have unexpected effects in many areas of life. Children, for instance, will be freer to play where they like, since improved monitoring technologies will allow parents to check on their whereabouts from a distance. And as better communication compensates even more for the time delay that physical travel inevitably involves, a wide variety of new benefits will emerge, ranging from medical diagnosis and treatment at a distance, to the rapid location by rescue services of people in danger.
Comfort
Smart clothing will also help us live more physically comfortable lives. For example, they can provide an adjustable micro-climate for our body. By incorporating appropriate technology, we can have the same jacket warm us up in winter and cool us down in summer. Or even when moving from an over-air-conditioned building out into tropical temperatures outside - and back again. These days, you end up with a bad cold - in the future, you'll hardly notice the transition!
Ultimate re-interiorisation: modifying Man
So you can see, there's a lot of opportunities still waiting to be realized in the field of wearables - because there are still so many ways people can by empowered to achieve their ultimate goal of approaching the gods. Clothes and other indispensable objects around us are the almost ideal carriers of empowering functions. ...Almost.
I say almost, because, the ultimate step will be when we have such functionalities incorporated directly into our bodies. Identification chips are already being inserted into animals' bodies, and we humans are already getting used to the idea of having foreign organs, pacemakers, and plastic hips implanted in us for medical purposes. It is therefore, I think, only a question of time before we are prepared to have chips implanted in our bodies for non-medical purposes.
We should not forget that, for thousands of years, people have altered their physical appearance for cosmetic purposes, and in many cultures around the world they still do. Think of the tattoos of the Maoris in New Zealand, for instance; or the nose-rings of the people of New Guinea; or the neck rings and lip disks women in certain parts of Africa. Not to mention the ear-rings, body-piercing, and tattooing in our own culture. And then, of course, there's cosmetic surgery - from nose-jobs to silicon breast implants and liposuction. This is already altering our bodies under the skin.
And our younger generation today already have a different relationship with their bodies than their parents had: body piercings, tattoos and other bodily decorations are now common for both sexes. So it does not seem unlikely that in a few decades, if not earlier, public opinion will be ready to accept the full consequences idea that in order to achieve the optimal level of comfort and freedom many of the tools we now carry around with us will need to be built into their bodies.
And even in the medical sphere, there are further steps that could be taken. So far technology has been used to fill in "gaps" or things that go wrong - pacemakers and heart valves, hip joints, or insulin implants to improve a medical condition. But no doubt we will soon be able to take things further by embedding functionalities in our bodies in order to enhance our original functions. To extend our memories, for instance, or to give us night vision, or to let us run faster or jump higher. Would we then still be the same “homo sapiens”? Or would mankind, as we know it, be a thing of the past?
Our physical bodies are, when it comes to it, biochemical computers. Extremely sophisticated biological computers, certainly, but biological computers, nonetheless. Are we about to move into a stage of evolution in which we become hybrids - a cross between ourselves as we are now and digital technology? The bionic men and women featured in so many third-rate TV series and Hollywood movies? This whole issue goes beyond mere lifestyle transformations and takes this debate into the field of ethics. We may feel like saying "Heaven forbid!", but we should at least realise that it is only the logical next step in a development that has been going on since time immemorial.
But stop! Don't let's get too bionic too soon. We're getting ahead of ourselves! For the moment, there are many exciting challenges and opportunities just waiting for us - for you in the textile and clothing industry, and for us in the electronics industry. If we are to make the most of them, we need to find ways of working together; of talking each other's language. So that we can explore- at the point where our two areas of expertise meet - all the possibilities that exist for us to help human beings do more, experience more, be more. Because, ultimately, that is what we will be doing with wearables - helping human beings one small step further along their path to achieving fulfilment.
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