Hasta La Ideas

Researchers at Italian design centre Fabrica have created accessories that would deceive neuroimaging devices by diverting thoughts using electric shocks and flashing lights (+ slideshow).

Lisa Kori Chung and Caitlin Morris from Fabrica designed the anti-NIS (neuroimaging surveillance) pieces to detect when surveillance technology linked to CCTV cameras is trying to read the wearer’s brainwaves. It would then focus their thoughts to something inconsequential to help maintain privacy.

They say neuroimaging technology is currently being researched and developed to read and record the thoughts of the public, with the aim to detect ill intentions before they are carried out.

However this raises issues of privacy, so Kori Chung and Morris are proposing to mask thoughts using a range of wearable devices.

Each faceted piece covered with decorative patterns is designed to detect when the wearer is being scanned and provides a distraction to change their thought pattern.

“Rather than simply blocking access to the brain, which would require unsubtle and complex equipment, each piece proposes a method of momentary cognitive diversion,” said the designers.

“When a scan is detected, the accessories provoke a sensory reaction that will demand the wearer’s attention, changing their current brain activity patterns and affording a moment of privacy through camouflage.”

The hat transmits sound pulses through the skull to the ear, the collar gives a gentle electric shock and the mask emits light flashes into the wearer’s eyes.

This means that at the moment of the scan, the wearer’s thoughts are more likely to be read as “this light is too bright” or “that’s a strange sound” rather than what their mind might have been preoccupied with otherwise.

Even though the implementation of neuroimaging technology is still science fiction, the project aims to raise awareness of other surveillance techniques currently used in conjunction with CCTV such as facial recognition, motion detection and voice analysis.

The project was designed for the Futures 10 exhibition of wearable technology, displayed last night as part of the Wearable Futures conference at Ravensbourne in London.

On the same theme of masking surveillance, Adam Harvery created a range of anti-drone clothing to hide the wearer from heat detection technologies.

Photographs are by Marco Zanin.

Here’s some information the designers sent to us:

Wearables to thwart neuroimaging surveillance by Lisa Kori Chung and Caitlin Morris

The paradigm of clothing as protector and concealer is slowly shifting: increasingly, our bodies are becoming more and more public (though security practices as well as fashion choices), while new forms of neuro-imaging technology are developing that may one day allow for surveillance and interception of the contents of our minds. Anti-NIS Accessories is a series of proposed objects designed as a form of clothing that maintains privacy of thought and action.

Rather than simply blocking access to the brain, which would require unsubtle and complex equipment, each piece proposes a method of momentary cognitive diversion. When a scan is detected, the accessories provoke a sensory reaction that will demand the wearer’s attention, changing their current brain activity patterns and affording a moment of privacy through camouflage. The objects include a hat that transmits sound pulses through bone conduction, a collar that gives a gentle electric shock and a mask that distracts the user with flashing lights.

Can the purpose of clothing be expanded to serve a hybrid purpose: acting as an expressive covering of the body, and also maintaining privacy of things like emotions, intelligence, and even more specific “brain data”?

These are the wider questions we asked:

Today, closed-circuit video surveillance has become commonplace. Concurrent with its rise in ubiquity, new techniques are being developed for analysing the massive amounts of information generated. Biometric identification techniques such as FRT (facial recognition technology), gait analysis, and voice analysis are often used after an incident has taken place to try to determine the identities of the parties involved. However, now various companies are working on algorithms to detect persons acting “suspiciously” (perhaps based on activities such as running, loitering and carrying packages). We are entering a new period of algorithmic guessing of intention based on external behaviours, before an incident takes place.

What if brain-scanning could be periodically deployed in a widespread and stealthy manner in urban environments, similar to CCTV now? Already our notions of civil liberties and bodily privacy are being challenged on an everyday basis, how should they be defined in the future in terms of the mind?

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London designer and researcher Shamees Aden is developing a concept for running shoes that would be 3D-printed from synthetic biological material and could repair themselves overnight.

Shamees Aden‘s Protocells trainer would be 3D-printed to the exact size of the user’s foot from a material that would fit like a second skin. It would react to pressure and movement created when running, puffing up to provide extra cushioning where required.

Aden developed the project in collaboration with Dr Martin Hanczyc, a professor at the University of Southern Denmark who specialises in protocell technology. Protocells are very basic molecules that are not themselves alive, but can be combined to create living organisms.

By mixing different types of these non-living molecules, scientists are attempting to produce artificial living systems that can be programmed with different behaviours, such as responsiveness to pressure, light and heat.

“The cells have the capability to inflate and deflate and to respond to pressure,” Aden told Dezeen at the Wearable Futures conference in London. “As you’re running on different grounds and textures it’s able to inflate or deflate depending on the pressure you put onto it and could help support you as a runner.”

After a run, the protocells in the material would lose their energy and the shoes would be placed in a jar filled with protocell liquid, which would keep the living organisms healthy. The liquid could also be dyed any colour, causing the shoes to take on that colour as the cells rejuvenate.

“You would take the trainers home and you would have to care for it as if it was a plant, making sure it has the natural resources needed to rejuvenate the cells,” said the designer.

Aden added that her footwear project was intended to help a broader range of people comprehend the potential of protocell technology, and claimed the speculative results could become reality by 2050.

The project is being presented at Wearable Futures, an event focusing on innovations in wearable technologies taking place in London from 10-11 December.

Photography is by the designer unless otherwise stated.

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Technology will increasingly be integrated into the body “to extend our abilities, our knowledge and our perceptions of reality”, according to Neil Harbisson, the first officially recognised human cyborg (+ interview).

“We will stop using technology as a tool and we’ll start using technology as part of the body,” said Barcelona-based Harbisson, who wears a head-mounted antenna attached to a chip at the back of his skull that allows him to perceive colours. “I think this will be much more common in the next few years.”

Harbisson wears the “eyeborg” headset to overcome a visual impairment called achromatopsia, which means he sees the world in shades of grey. The eyeborg turns colours into sounds, allowing him to “hear” them and meaning he qualifies as a cyborg, or cybernetic organism – a living being with both natural and artificial parts.

“Feeling like a cyborg was a gradual process,” he said. “First, I felt that the eyeborg was giving me information, afterwards I felt it was giving me perception, and after a while it gave me feelings. It was when I started to feel colour and started to dream in colour that I felt the extension was part of my organism.”

“The sounds are transmitted through my bone to my inner ear, which allows me to interpret what colours are according to the different sign waves of each sound.”

Harbisson charges his eyeborg via a USB power cable that attaches to the back of his head. “The aim [in future] is not to use electricity but to start finding ways of charging the chip [in my head] with my own body energy,” he explains. “I might be using blood circulation or my kinetic energy, or maybe the energy of my brain could charge the chip in the future.”

“Instead of using technology or wearing technology constantly, we will start becoming technology,” Harbisson told Dezeen. “It’s a very exciting moment in history that allows us to perceive reality in a greater way.”

After a long battle with the UK authorities, Harbisson’s passport now carries a photo of him wearing his eyeborg, making him the world’s first government-recognised cyborg.

In 2010, Harbisson founded the Cyborg Foundation – an organisation whose mission statement is to “help humans become cyborgs, to promote the use of cybernetics as part of the human body and to defend cyborg rights [whilst] encouraging people to create their own sensory extensions”.

Harbisson believes that recent technological advances mean there will be a rapid growth in the number of people with cybernetic implants that give them enhanced abilities. This in turn will change what it means to be human.

“Our instincts and our bodies will change,” he said. “When you incorporate technology into the body, the body will need to change to accommodate; it modifies and adapts to new inputs. How we adapt to this change will be very interesting.”

Other human cyborgs include Stelarc, a performance artist who has implanted a hearing ear on his forearm; Kevin Warwick, the “world’s first human cyborg” who has an RFID chip embedded beneath his skin, allowing him to control devices such as lights, doors and heaters; and “DIY cyborg” Tim Cannon, who has a self-administered body-monitoring device in his arm.

However, Harbisson is sceptical of Cannon’s cyborg credentials. “Tim is a very different user of technology because I’m not sure if he’s extending senses of perception,” said Harbisson. Cannon’s device allows him to know the temperature of his body, whereas “the projects that the Cyborg Foundation is interested in extend senses and perception.”

Harbisson has created a series of artworks using his eyeborg, creating sound portraits by scanning people’s faces for different hues and turning the tones into short musical compositions.

The device also allows him to “listen” to architectural structures. The work of Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí is his favourite: “All of the spaces in his buildings have very interesting spaces that are just musical,” he says.

Here is a full transcript of the interview:

Ross Bryant: Firstly could you introduce yourself and tell us what you do.

Neil Harbisson: I’m an artist that wears an eyeborg, which allows me to perceive colour. I do colour concerts where I connect my eye to loudspeakers and I create sound portraits from looking at people’s faces. I also do exhibitions where I exhibit the colours of music or the colours of sound. I transpose music into paintings as well as working with the Cyborg Foundation in Barcelona. We start projects relating to extending other people’s senses by applying technology to the body.

Ross Bryant: Can you describe how you can hear colour?

Neil Harbisson: I have an antenna attached to my head that receives the light frequencies of the colours in front of me. These senses are connected to a chip in the back of my head that transposes light frequencies to sound frequencies. I see colours through a method of bone conduction.

Ross Bryant: You can do this because of the eyeborg. Can you briefly describe why you began the process of developing the eyeborg as well as beginning the process of becoming a cyborg?

Neil Harbisson: I was born completely colour-blind, so from a child I wanted to perceive colour. Then when I met Adam Montandon ten years ago, I realised that technology could be used to expand senses. I asked him if he could start a project to extend my senses and we began with this project. The first prototype was based on software, a five-kilo computer and a pair of headphones. We tried to find other people to make the extension smaller and more user-friendly and now it’s in in this form of a chip and a sensor.

Ross Bryant: Before the creation of the Eyeborg, how did not being able to perceive colour affect you personally?

Neil Harbisson: Not seeing colour didn’t make me feel disabled, it made me feel socially excluded. This alienation made me hate colour’s existence, but I came to realise that I couldn’t ignore colour forever – even if I couldn’t see it.

Ross Bryant: How do you charge the Eyeborg up? Do you connect it wirelessly or do you have to connect yourself up?

Neil Harbisson: I have like a USB-like connector that I put at the back of the head which allows me to plug myself in to the mains. I take three hours to charge myself and then I can go usually three or four days, but the aim is not to use electricity. One of the next stages is to find a way of charging the chip with my own body energy, so I might be using blood circulation or my kinetic energy – or maybe the energy of my brain could charge the chip in the future. That’s one of the next things; to be able to charge the chip without depending on any external energy.

Ross Bryant: How does the eyeborg communicate the sound of colour to you?

Neil Harbisson: Each colour has a specific frequency that I can hear because of the Eyeborg. Infrared is the lowest sound and ultraviolet is the highest sound. I hear them through bone conduction. Basically, the sound goes to the back of the head and then my inner ear hears the different sign waves.

Ross Bryant: You can perceive ultraviolet light and infrared? Are these upgraded functionalities to the Eyeborg?

Neil Harbisson: Before it was all about upgrading the software, now we just upgrade the chip. We continue extending and upgrading the cybernetics and that’s the good thing about cybernetics – you can keep upgrading the senses and perceiving more and more the longer you use it I guess. There’s no end. So, I can now perceive near infrared and near ultraviolet, but the next stage is to perceive them from afar and just continue to extend this to be able to hear colours underwater and also in space.

Ross Bryant: Have you heard of Tim Cannon and the DIY cyborg? What are your thoughts?

Neil Harbisson: He is a very different user of technology because I’m not sure if he’s extending senses of perception. Tim’s device just allows him to know the temperature of his body, which is just giving him information. The projects that we’re interested in at the Cyborg Foundation are those that extend senses and perception, not just the extension of information or abilities.

Ross Bryant: How do you think our relationship with technology is changing and what are your predictions for the future of cybernetics?

Neil Harbisson: I think the biggest change during this century will be that we will stop using technology as a tool and start using technology as part of the body. One way might be to extend our abilities or our knowledge, and other ways of using it would be to enhance our senses and perception of reality. I think this will be much more common in the next few years. Instead of using technology or wearing technology constantly, we will start becoming technology.

It’s a very exciting moment in history – to perceive reality in a greater way. Our instincts and our bodies will change. When you incorporate technology into the body, the body will need to change to accommodate; it modifies and adapts to this new input. How we adapt to this change will be very interesting.

Ross Bryant: Do you think anything will exist in the near future that will enhance people’s perception?

Neil Harbisson: I think we will start with very simple things like bone conduction. It’s very simple and gives you the advantage of having a new audio input. Having bone conduction sensors is something we could use a lot. We will have antennas for different reasons. In my case, I’m using an antenna to perceive colour, but antennas could be used for perceiving many other things that we cannot perceive.

Having a bone input gives us a sense that doesn’t block any other senses, so I think this gives us a lot of options. Also, just having sensors at the back of our body is something you can do simply with very simple technology. This enables you to have some sort of sense of what’s behind you. Also, what we’d like to see is people using small, infrared sensors that vibrate so you know when there’s someone behind which creates a 360 degree perception. Then there’s other things such as orientation. Having a small compass implanted that vibrates whenever you face north could help a lot.

Ross Bryant: Do you have a favourite architect that you enjoy listening to?

Neil Harbisson: Yes! I enjoy listening to Antoni Gaudí’s architecture. All of the spaces in his buildings have very interesting spaces that are just musical.

Ross Bryant: You were officially recognised as a cyborg in the UK in 2004 after you battled to have the Eyeborg included in your passport photo. Are there others with this recognised status or are you the first?

Neil Harbisson: I don’t think I’m the first of anything. I just know that the government in England wouldn’t allow me to have the electronic eye on my passport photo. I insisted that I wanted to have it included in the photo as it was an extension of my senses and a part of my body. In my case, I had to send many letters.

Ross Bryant: What cyborg rights would you like to see implemented?

Neil Harbisson: Human rights, but applied to people who wear technology as part of their body. There’s public places that don’t allow people in if they wear electronic devices and that’s why we defend the rights of cyborgs. We defend their rights to go into these places. It’s not creating new rights, it’s just defending basic rights really.

Ross Bryant: At what point did you begin to feel like a cyborg?

Neil Harbisson: Feeling like a cyborg was a gradual process. First, I felt that the eyeborg was giving me information, afterwards I felt it was giving me perception, and after a while it gave me feelings. It was when I started to feel colour and started to dream in colour that I felt the extension was part of my organism.

Ross Bryant: Am I right in saying that you designed a fashion range based on people’s favourite music?

Neil Harbisson: Yeah, we designed clothes that sound good. We created a full collection but now we just have a tie, a dress and a pair of trousers that are specific songs. Depending on what kind of colours you use, the piece of clothing will sound just like a specific song.

Ross Bryant: How do you think cybernetics will transform design, art and fashion in the future?

Neil Harbisson: The good thing about cybernetics is that it can allow you to have new senses. When you have a new sense, you can express yourself through it in a way that has never been explored before in fashion, architecture or any other type of art that exists. It’s about exploring whole new possibilities, new senses that you can express who you are.

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says human cyborg appeared first on Dezeen.

This activity-tracking device by former Apple CEO John Sculley’s tech startup Misfit looks more like luxury jewellery than a sports accessory.

The Shine wearable device by Misfit counts steps and tracks activity to estimate the number of calories burnt during a day.

Unlike other activity monitors such as the Nike+ FuelBand and Jawbone Up, the anodised aluminium disc can be attached to clothes, worn around the wrist or tied around the neck using different catches and straps to look like a fashion accessory.

Data collected by the device can be synced with an iPhone by placing it on top of the screen, then the user can set goals of how many steps to walk or calories to burn and graph the results with an app.

Progress towards an activity goal during the day is shown around a ring of lights on the edge of the disc, which illuminate when tapped on the top.

Tapping with two fingers turns the surface into a clock dial, so the user doesn’t need to wear a watch at the same time. The hour is indicated with a constant light and the minute by a flashing dot.

First launched this summer, the products have recently starting selling in UK department stores John Lewis and Selfridges.

The design joins a growing line of wearable gadgets for monitoring activity that includes the FuelBand, Up and miCoach Smart Run by Adidas. It’s a less extreme way to collect data than Tim Cannon’s Circadia 1.0 device, which he had implanted under his skin to monitor his body temperature.

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monitor by Misfit appeared first on Dezeen.

Competition: as media partner for the Wearable Futures event taking place in London in December, Dezeen is giving away 50 tickets to attend the two-day exhibition and conference dedicated to technology for the body.

Wearable Futures will explore current and prospective technologies, making links between business, technology, design and fashion.

All forms of wearable technology will be discussed over the two days, with talks and seminars covering how wearables will impact sectors such as health, retail and the city.

Speakers will include designer Daan Roosegaarde, whose projects include clothing that changes opacity when heart rate increases, and technologist James Bridle, who also spoke at our Designed in Hackney Day.

Visitors will be able to try on and test some of the technologies, plus create their own wearable prototypes in a special lab.

The event will take place at London’s Ravensbourne College on 10 and 11 December. Find out more about the event here.

To enter this competition email your name, age, gender, occupation, and delivery address and telephone number to competitions@dezeen.com with “Wearable Futures” in the subject line. We won’t pass your information on to anyone else; we just want to know a little about our readers. Read our privacy policy here.

You need to subscribe to our newsletter to have a chance of winning. Sign up here.

Competition closes 11 November 2013. Fifty winners will be selected at random and notified by email. Winners’ names will be published in a future edition of our Dezeen Mail newsletter and at the top of this page. Dezeen competitions are international and entries are accepted from readers in any country.

More information from the organisers follows:

Wearable Futures 2013 brings together the worlds of design, technology and social science to uncover the future wearable landscape. Over 10-11 December Ravensbourne in London will play host to 50 thinkers and doers from around the world showcasing, debating, reflecting, and sharing their vision for the future of wearables, from smart materials to new technologies. Speakers include Daan Roosegaarde, Lauren Bowker, James Bridle and Clara Gaggero.

The event will explore wearables across all forms; from those that are embedded to those that surround us; from function and problem solving to enabling expression. The two days will include a wide ranging programme of talks, interactive and immersive installations, and the chance to get your hands dirty experimenting with new technologies and digital making for wearables, as well as designing your own wearable for the future.

Just some of the Wearable Futures speakers:

Lauren Bowker, founder of The Unseen who describes herself as a Materials Alchemist will be talking about the potential of integrating biological chemicals and electronic technology with fashion.

Clara Gaggero, director of Design and Research at Vitamins will be explaining the origins of wearables and their history right up to the current day, and exploring the role of wearables now and in the future.

Caroline Till from Textile Futures will discuss biological design and living technology, in relation to Future Wearables.

Jessi Baker, a Creative Technologist who has worked with clients such as LVMH, Galleries LaFayette and Mulberry, will talk about the role of open data in wearables and the future of retail.

Despina Papadopoulos from Studio 5050 NYC will discuss the ethics of wearables and explore the concept of the qualified self rather than the quantified self.

Leading international make up artist Alex Box will talk about how she continues to push and blur the boundaries between technology, make-up, the skin and the human body.

Simon Roberts, formerly senior design anthropologist at Intel, will describe a set of lenses that helps us understand the different speed at which social and cultural conventions and technology develop and what that means for how we respond to wearables.

Zoe Romano, founder of Makerfaire Rome, an associate at arduino, and founder of openwear.org will talk about Wearables, DIY and Empowerment.

Kuniharu Takei, one of MIT’s Top Innovators Under 35, will be talking about his innovations in nano-materials including current work on a smart bandage that will be able to sense and respond to glucose level, skin temperature and more.

Tomas Diez, the creator of Smart Citizen Kit will be talking about wearables in the city.

Wearable Futures will also be presenting The Futures 10, an exhibition of 2D and 3D responses to questions that we have set to leading thinkers and doers including Ben Hammersley (Wired) and Peter Gregson (the Electric Creative CoLab). Themes that will be explored include Wonder, Consciousness, Echo, Absorb, Hybrid and Memories.

www.wearablefutures.co

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Wearable Futures to be won appeared first on Dezeen.