Smart Bra

Microsoft is working on a smart bra with sensors to monitor a wearer's mood and trigger a smartphone app to reduce emotional overeating, U.S. researchers said.

Alerts from the wearable technology would be constantly refined by user feedback, enabling the bra to improve its ability to read a specific person's feelings, InformationWeek reported Thursday.

Microsoft researchers worked with the University of Rochester and Britain's University of Southampton on the project, attempting to associate emotions with poor eating habits and to determine whether wearable devices can help reduce the resulting weight gains.

A wearable smart bra was chosen primarily because it allows sensors to be placed near the heart, the researchers said, but follow-up research is intended to yield more gender-neutral devices such as bracelets.

To establish a link between a person's emotional state and the likelihood they would overeat, participants in a study were asked to record their emotions and eating patterns with a smartphone app.

Those who reported they felt stressed, upset or bored were most likely to eat outside of regular meals, the researcher found.

Microsoft said the smart bra is part of its ongoing research into possible uses for wearable technology and it has no plans to make it into a commercial product.

The "second wave" of wearables is coming.
Wearables are a "bleeding edge" technology. It's new and advanced, but not yet commonly accepted. A lot of technology goes through that cycle and consumers should keep that in mind before purchasing. In 2014 we're going to be greeted by a whole new array of wearable products.

Wearable technology will soon be in your car.
The car is a significant form of heads-up display, the same functionality Google Glass serves. Our cars are a "captive" environment and we are perhaps in the best frame of mind to subtly receive information from our wearables when in them. For example, if a driver gets stressed, wearables should be able to pick up on it, notify the driver and offer to play soothing music.

Wearables will raise new privacy concerns in the New Year.
Most wearables will interact with the Internet in some manner of speaking and these interactions will be recorded. Wearable health devices can be synced to provide information about our lifestyles to doctors or insurance providers and navigation-based wearables could send data about our location through technologies like GPS sensors.