Sony invent new wearable computing device just like Google Glass. The “smart wig”, patent by Sony, a wearable computing device hidden within a hairpiece. The wig could monitor users’ health or contain a video camera used as a remote control device operated by facial expressions. The SmartWig can help navigate roads and collect information such as blood pressure. There will be a laser pointer and remote that can be used for presentations, controlled by the head’s movement. The device will include GPS and a camera to deliver “image information from the surrounding of the wig.”
Sony’s smartwatch may be less than two months old, but a patent application suggests the company’s already thinking of branching out into other wearables-namely a smartwig that connects to smartphones and sends tactile feedback to wearers’ heads.
The advantages Sony describe of a smart wig are that it would be more comfortable than other wearable devices, more likely to be instinctively protected by the user because of its location, and invisible to other people.
Resources:
- Does Sony’s smart wig take wearable computers too far? (www.theengineer.co.uk/blog/)
- The Future of Wearables, According to Sony, Is a Smart Wig (With Lasers!) (www.fastcompany.com)
- Sony files patent for ‘SmartWig’ (www.bbc.co.uk/news/)
- Image source – USPTO