Google Wants to Put a Touch Sensor on Your Pants

Soon your clothes may be able to communicate with your phone. At its annual I/O developers conference, Google is demoing a new smart fabric that it calls Project Jacquard, made by its experimental Advanced Technologies and Projects group. The fabric is made using conductive thread and works similarly to a touchpad, using low-power Wi-Fi to interact with other devices. Jacquard can sense multiple finger presses and even varying amounts of pressure. In the demo, Google showed the fabric being used to change the brightness and color of smart light bulbs as well as to control a media player.

The company said a primary initial use case for the technology would be to control a smartphone. So get ready to use your pants to fiddle with the smartphone that’s already sitting right in your pocket.

[Gizmodo]