Geekwear or Geekware?

As innocent as they look, those gloves are a major sign (I am a semiologist) and first step to a radical changement in our lifemodes.
Let's get a closer look:
- If unaware of their function, they just look good! Colorful, fancy pair of gloves anyone could wear (yet the geeks are going to love them).
- Looking forward, we can expect the technology to extend, spreading on further than just gloves, such as scanable jackets, musical trousers and so on. All allowing inter-activity with all sorts of devices including public services, security, access to 3D stimulation et c.
- It tolls the knell of fashion dictatorship when shapes, colors, materials, will not be defined by some poshy tycoon but by functions. Even if it seems to be modest, it is, per se, a revolution. Further than basic protection, clothes have always and mainly been status symbols for as long as mankind has been wearing them. Fashion has never had any other function: 80% of the classic occidental paintings' surface shows...material and clothing!
- It calls for whether the creation of a new term or the redefinition of what is hard/ soft/ ware. Until now it was easy (obvious?) to define and separate hard from soft but this is something entirely different. We have already seen hardware implanted on textiles but never textile hardware.
Those gloves are to the mouse what CD is to phonograph: a remain from the past.. A.D.



Source
physorg.com
The hardware for a new gesture-based computing system consists of nothing more than an ordinary webcam and a pair of brightly colored lycra gloves. Photo: Jason Dorfman/CSAIL

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