A Jacket For Window Cleaners?

The new Levi’s Commuter smart jacket, being pushed to window cleaners. Yet no information on if they get wet or washing instructions!

Levi's® Commuter™ x Jacquard by Google Trucker Jacket - The Commuter Smart Jacket: The new Levi’s Commuter smart jacket is fashioned in collaboration with Google’s Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP) research along with Project Jacquard, which was created to embed technology in the clothes we wear.

Wearables is a sensitive subject for Google, because it is still nursing the wound from the failure of Google Glass (in terms of wide acceptance and not technology). After all the hype, considerable investment, and hard learned lessons, the company has decided to create a wearable that is more accessible and not so conspicuous.

The Commuter smart jacket looks just like any other jacket, which may be its saving grace. Unless you know the tech is in there, you would be hard pressed to find it. This was achieved using conductive yarns so that custom touch and gesture-sensitive areas can be woven at precise locations, anywhere on a piece of garment. Additionally, sensor grids can be woven throughout the textile, creating large, interactive surfaces.

When Google announced the smart jacket at the recent I/O conference, it was being pushed to urban cyclists and the commuter market, but there is no reason it can’t be applied anywhere else, especially after developers get their hands on the APIs.

Achieved using conductive yarns, custom touch and gesture-sensitive areas can be woven at precise locations, anywhere on a piece of garment. Additionally, sensor grids can be woven throughout the textile, creating large, interactive surfaces.

So What Can This Connected Smart Jacket Do?

As of now, not that much, but Google will release some APIs in 2017 so developers can use it create more solutions and integrate other applications besides the limited fair currently being offered.

The sensor that is attached on the cuff of the jacket lets you control your phone with some basic functionalities so you can focus on the road while accessing the information you need. This includes messages, calls, Google Maps, Google Play, Spotify and Strava using the Jacquard platform.

Small Business Application

In addition to bicycle messengers as possible business application, this smart jacket can be used in different industries. Security guards, window cleaners, drivers and anyone else that needs to communicate with minimal effort can take advantage of this technology.

The Levi’s Commuter smart jacket is going to be tested in beta this fall with availability in the Spring of 2017. The price for the jacket hasn’t been announced.

Do you have a small business that requires your employees to be outdoors a lot, and if so, do you think a connected jacket can improve their productivity and quality of work? If you have used any type of wearable as part of your operation, and might consider the Levi’s Commuter Trucker Jacket, please let us know.

Viability of the Levi’s Commuter Smart Jacket

What gives this connected smart jacket a great chance is the way it is made. It is produced using existing Levi’s factories so interactive textile can be woven the same way as any other Levi’s garments in the mills it operates. That means no special factories to invest in, which allows Levi’s to keep the cost low and scale to meet demand if consumers like the jacket and becomes hugely popular.

Also see; The Cold Weather Safety Jacket

Talking Windows - Bone Conduction

A concept that would pipe messages directly into the heads of people who try to rest or sleep against train windows.

Sky Deutschland campaign will pipe ads straight into train passengers' skulls: Sky Deutschland, the German wing of TV provider Sky, is testing a marketing concept that may be pure evil genius, or possibly just pure evil. The BBC and others report that Sky Deutschland and advertising company BBDO have tested a concept that would pipe messages directly into the heads of people who try to rest or sleep against train windows. The idea, which was first unveiled at the advertising-focused Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity in late June, is known as the Talking Window. It uses bone conduction like that found in headphones, hearing aids, and Google Glass to send vibrations through a window.

When a commuter leans against the window, he or she will hear a message that nobody else can, asking if they're bored and want to download Sky's mobile app. BBDO has said that if Sky Deutschland gives final approval, "we will start with the new medium as quickly as possible," but even it seems to implicitly recognize that this is bound to irk some people. A promotional video notes that the subjects will be "tired commuters" who want to rest, and people in the ad display emotions ranging from curiosity to open annoyance.

A spokesperson also said, however, that tests in Munich and Aachen had been received well, and that there were applications besides pure advertising. It could also, he said, give people public transit updates, weather, or music, though Sky says it hasn't yet decided whether to run the ad campaign. Fortunately for this reporter and commuter, if the technology ends up in common use, BBDO says it's not planning on expanding outside Germany any time soon.

Audiva Develops Talking Window For Ad Purposes: I am quite sure that many of us are sick and tired of ads by now. Turn on the TV, and it seems that a 1 hour show is interspersed with more ads than the actual TV series itself. Your Internet experience, too, is filled with ads that pop-up blockers which used to be an option are now a necessity. Heck, just when you thought that you could get some peace and quiet all by yourself at the solitary seat in a bus by the window, along comes Audiva with their idea of a Talking Window. The Talking Window happens to be a new advertising experiment from Germany’s BBDO for pay TV company Sky Deutschland, where they will send promotional messages to commuters who happen to rest their heads on the glass of a train car. These advertisements will not disturb the rest of the other passengers’ peace, but rather, only you if you happen to rest your heads against the glass. This is made possible thanks to bone conduction technology which will stream auditory messages to you, with the help of a small transmitter box that does the streaming of high frequency vibrations onto the glass. If I were the commuter, it is time to carry a portable neck pillow so that I no longer need to lean against the window any more.

Passengers leaning their head against the window will "hear" adverts "coming from inside the user's head", urging them to download the Sky Go app.

Talking train window adverts tested by Sky Deutschland: A German firm is proposing to transmit adverts via train windows so that the sound appears to "come from inside the user's head" when passengers lean against them. The idea would use bone conduction technology, a technique that transmits sound to the inner ear by passing vibrations through the skull. The concept has been developed by ad agency BBDO Germany on behalf of broadcaster Sky Deutschland. It is already proving controversial. Comments posted under a video showing off the concept include "This is a violation to a person's right to rest" and "I think I'd take a sledgehammer to the window."

The Talking Window campaign idea was shown off at the International Festival of Creativity in Cannes last month. The video shows passengers on a German train being surprised to hear ads urging them to download the Sky Go app on to their smartphones to watch streamed video. The audio is created by a special Sky-branded transmitter made by Audiva attached to the windows. "Tired commuters often rest their heads against windows," says the ad. "Suddenly a voice inside their head is talking to them. No-one else can hear this message." Details posted online note that bone conduction technology has previously been used in hearing aids, headphones for swimmers and runners, and devices used by magicians to make someone think they have had a message planted in their head. Google also plans to use the tech in its forthcoming Glass headset.

BBDO Germany said it had had a positive response to tests using prototype transmitters placed in public transport in Munich and Aachen. "If our customer Sky Deutschland agrees, we will start with the new medium as quickly as possible," spokesman Ulf Brychcy told the BBC. "At present, this is limited to the German market. If we look into the future: everything is possible. "Some people don´t like advertising in general. But this is really a new technology. [It might] not only be used for advertising, but also for music, entertainment, mass transport information, weather reports and so on." A spokeswoman for Sky Deutschland said it had yet to make a decision on whether to run the campaign. Although the firm shares the same logo as the UK's BSkyB's satellite TV service, the two are separate companies, albeit both part-owned by News Corp. BSkyB said it had not been aware of the campaign before the BBC brought it to its attention, and was not planning to launch anything similar.

Similar glass here.