Last week, Saint Laurent teased the Cit-e Backpack with Jacquard built into the left strap. Google is now detailing two upgrades to the wearable platform, including a smaller Jacquard Tag and new app experience with Assistant integration.
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Do you remember Project Jacquard? Well, the smart-jacket that Google made in collaboration with Levi’s has now returned, this time packing in the ability to connect to the cloud and control things from the cuff of your jacket.
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It has been a long time since our very own Stephen Hall went hands-on with Google’s Project Jacquard smart denim jacket. Now, it has added the ability to alert you if you get too far away from your phone.
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Google first showed off what was then called Project-Jacquard over two years ago at Google I/O 2015. At SXSW earlier this year, we got a look at how Jacquard works and the Trucker Jacket that Levi planned to sell with the technology built-in. Then, this morning, we finally got word that Levi would begin to sell the jacket starting next week with a $350 price tag.
Do you plan on purchasing the Levi Trucker Jacket despite its $350 price tag?
Google ATAP first showed off the Jacquard fabric at Google I/O 2015, and at that time mentioned it was working with renowned San Francisco-based company Levi’s to produce some real products with the technology built-in. Now, more than two years later, the time has finally come. Google ATAP and Levi’s are launching their Trucker jacket with Jacquard built-in and it’ll be available on September 27th…
We haven’t heard much about Google’s Project Jacquard in the last several months, but as we pointed out the other day, that will soon change thanks to some events that Google is hosting at SXSW. To kick things off, Ivan Poupyrev of Google ATAP is holding a talk where Google and Levi’s are revealing tidbits of new information about the connected clothing…
We haven’t heard anything about Google & Levi’s plans for a Jacqurd-equipped jacket since Google I/O last year, but now there’s hope that might change in the coming days. As per the schedule for SXSW Interactive in Austin, Texas this coming weekend, the two companies are jointly holding a party to “celebrate” the forthcoming Levi’s Commuter jacket…
At Google I/O 2016, the Mountain View company decided — although admittedly not an entirely new theme — that it would be a good idea to spread its announcements across three days. The keynote showed off Google’s vision for the future: virtual reality, its new AI and machine learning initiatives, Google Home hardware to take advantage of them, and a few sprinkles of Android Wear 2.0 goodness. The second day saw the announcement of the Play Store coming to Chrome OS.
But the third day was ATAP day, admittedly my favorite day of Google I/O. Last year the Advanced Technologies and Projects group at Google showed off Project Jacquard, Project Soli, some more details on Project Ara, and more. And then the company went silent. For pretty much an entire year.
Maybe that’s a good thing, as Google tends to show its projects and technologies off a little early in general. It’s not exactly out of Google’s character to show a product or service, say that it’s coming in 6 months, it not arrive for 12 months or 18 months, and then the final product share hardly any resemblance to what was originally announced. Admittedly that’s happening with some of ATAP’s projects either way (I’m looking at you, Ara), but at least it’s not a constant barrage of teases and false hope.
Anyway, Google ATAP finally came out of hiding on the third day of I/O yesterday, and with it came updates on Project Jacquard, Project Soli, Project Ara, and Spotlight Stories. Jacquard brought the announcement of the first retail product based on the tech, Ara brought a little update on how progress is coming including the most current prototype device with new module connectors (and promise of a dev kit coming soon), and the Spotlight Stories mention came with some progress in VR storytelling. All cool stuff.
But Soli is what makes my jaw drop.
At last year’s Google I/O, the Advanced Technology and Projects group (ATAP) announced several interesting projects. Since then, ATAP head Regina Dugan departed for Facebook and the group was moved under Google’s new hardware division. This year, Project Jacquard — sensors embedded in fabrics — is announcing its first consumer product with Levi’s…
Alphabet, obviously, has a lot of mainstream products that bring in a huge amount of revenue. Google’s ads business is clearly the front runner by a long shot, but there’s also Android, its hardware offerings (like the Nexus line, OnHub, etc.), Play Store digital content, as well as revenue from subsidiary companies like Nest (er.. Dropcam?), Google Fiber, and others.
But what usually excites people the most at Alphabet are the company’s moonshots under the umbrella of “X” — projects that usually cost hoards of money to keep alive and bring in nothing (or next to nothing) in return. The self-driving car project, Project Loon for worldwide internet, Project Titan drones, Makani‘s wind turbines, and Project Wing air-delivery are just a few, but there are even more exciting projects that have “graduated” to be their own unit at the company.
Google has often I/O as a showcase for its favorite moonshots. The company’s huge Google Glass extravaganza from 2012 is the most obvious example that comes to mind, but the company has used the stage at I/O to introduce to the world some just-as-exciting technologies with much less fanfare. Google ATAP, for example, gave a separate keynote at I/O 2015 introducing a handful of projects arguably more exciting than the things Google announced on the main stage. Technically not the same as the “moonshots” in the X division, but they’re in the same category in my opinion.
While you might be familiar with some the following projects (and that wouldn’t surprise me, considering they’ve all already been announced), they’re all ambitious experiments that have been recognized, announced, and made public-facing, but have since dropped off the radar; a lot of them have gone dormant, at least from our perspective. These are projects that excite me, and I want to hear what’s new with them come next month’s developer conference in Mountain View…
ATAP’s Project Soli and Project Jacquard are two of the more exciting announcements to come out of Google I/O, and while Soli didn’t have any impressive demos on the show floor, Google’s advanced technology and projects group had some touch-able fabric out for us to give Project Jacquard a test run. So we did, and we grabbed a quick video…
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We told you yesterday that Google’s ATAP team is working on a couple new projects dubbed Soli and Jacquard, and today the group of self-proclaimed “pirates” came out to officially announce (and demo) them both on stage at their much-anticipated Google I/O session. They’re both about reimagining how we interact with technology, but both projects attempt to do so in different ways…
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