“I am too sexy for my shirt…”

Right Said Fred released their hit song “I am too sexy for my shirt” in 1991. Almost 25 years later, what Fred rightly said is becoming a reality! Smart fabric and sexy shirts are just around the corner!

Recently I had the honor of hosting a panel on “Wearable Tech” at Confluence 2014 conference organized by Zinnov. I had interesting panelists on my panel, Sathya from BOSCH, Dr. Raghunath from Mindtree and Mohammed from http://www.GetActive.in. Sathya gave us the perspective on how BOSCH is making smaller and smaller building blocks (sensors, accelerometers) that are enabling the wearable technology devices. Dr. Raghunath talked about the role Mindtree plays in helping other companies build cool devices. And Mohammed who is the CEO for http://www.GetActive.in showed us cool wearable consumer products that his startup is making. It was interesting to discuss social, security and privacy issues around wearable technology. Mohammed also talked about what lies in the future for the exercise bands of today. He mentioned that folks are already working on detecting your ECG via these bands. ECG like fingerprint is unique to every person. So when the armbands start becoming your identity tools, we can start using them in variety of ways such as financial transactions etc. The possibilities are endless! Sathya talked about how they are making sensors smaller and smaller. The day won’t be long when instead of wearing a device, you swallow a device! The device will draw power from acids from your stomach. This is a whole new direction that will unlock many barriers and create interesting opportunities.

I am really excited that all the sci-fi gadgets that we grew up watching in Star Trek and other such shows are becoming a reality in our life time! Can we thus extrapolate that what we see in today’s sci-fi movies (Transformers, Matrix) will be our future? Scary but it just might be!