CASE STUDY INCREDIBLE WEARABLES , founded in the USA in 2004, was the first to produce “wearable technology”. The founders, Italian Francesca Rosella and British Ryan Genz, met in 2001 at the Interaction Design Institute in Ivrea, near Turin; Francesca had previously worked at Valentino’s in Rome, while Ryan was an anthropologist and an artist. Their common interest was to make the body’s senses more effective using technology. Their clothes mix design with the smartest new technology in order to produce items with extraordinary characteristics, designed for helping people with special needs, but also for entertainment and artistic performances. Katy Perry, U2 and Subsonica are among the artists who have worn CuteCircuit clothes during their concerts. Here are some of CuteCircuit’s most amazing creations. CuteCircuit brand The HugShirt The , invented in 2002, is designed to send hugs at distance. It integrates sensors that register the of the skin and the heartbeat rate of the sender, together with data such as the strength and duration of the touch, and actuators that reproduce them to the person the hug is sent to. In this way, using a Bluetooth connection, everyone will be able to send hugs at a distance or while moving. The inventors say that the HugShirt was created to help people physically when they are far for some reason. It can also have medical applications, for example with old people or children. awarded the HugShirt as one of the best inventions in 2006. HugShirt warmth keep in touch Time Magazine The SoundShirt The enables people to hear music by making them feel it on their skin. The of the shirt incorporates sixteen actuators that receive music in real time and transform it into data. The various musical instruments can be felt over different parts of the body; this makes it possible to recreate a full-immersion sensation to deaf people. SoundShirt deaf fabric TshirtOS is a shareable, programmable T-shirt which looks like a simple t-shirt, but which allows people who wear it to share their statuses, tweets, favourite songs and pictures, just like on social media. It is composed of thousands of coloured pixels in a wearable grid and it is controlled using a special app on the user’s mobile phone allowing them to broadcast anything they want, including animation and sound. It is with a microphone, which makes it sound- and noise-reactive, a movement sensor, a headphone jack to play music wirelessly from the user’s smartphone, and a micro-camera to take photos and share them. TshirtOS arranged equipped Adapted from: https://cutecircuit.com 4. These are some more inventions by CuteCircuit. Guess what they are for and then check your answers on the Internet. M-dress Skirtleone CuteCircuit Skirt Twirkle T-Shirt 5. Which invention do you think is the most useful? Give reasons for your choice. GLOSSARY : : : : : : : to arrange combinare brand marchio deaf sordo equipped equipaggiato fabric tessuto to keep in touch tenersi in contatto warmth calore