Design Summary Analysis Draft #2


In the article, "Force-Sensing Gloves could Control an iPhone By Detecting Gestures and How Objects Are Gripped," Owen (2019) has stated that Apple aims to enable people to interact with devices using any form of clothing made using conductive strands in the fabric, such as gloves, which provide force-sensing capabilities. The article describes how a glove could be enabled to detect the amount of pressure applied to a surface, delivering different commands. The material used for the clothing would incorporate conductive strands, interwoven with normal threads in the fabric, which allows the sending of electrical signals from one section to another. The conductive strands are connected to force sensing circuitry signals are sent to a wireless element to send commands or other information to a main device. The article also states that Apple thought of adding these fabrics with flexible displays to create smart clothing.


While this article did not provide enough details regarding the functions of the force sensing glove as there are only patient available for the public, there is still a high potential due to the functions of the product in the market. There are endless possibility in how we are able to incorporate this technology of smart clothing into our daily life. 

One example is that they are able to replace games such as paintball where there will not be a need to hit someone with a real paintball. It is possible to hit the target with a replacement such as BB gun and pellet and the smart clothing will be able to register a hit and changes the surface colour of the affected area. Therefore, there will a lesser cost price in the long run as there will not be any cost price regarding the refill of ammunition as it can be reused. The only expenses will only be the maintenance of the equipment and the initial cost of the equipment. Loeffler (2019) discussed about the possibility that paintball would not need to paint to register a hit, clothing will be able to register the vital sign of the wearer. This will be a game changer as there will not be any consumable product wasted during the game and thus allowing a sustainable gaming environment.


Another function on how we are able to incorporate smart clothing is in the Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality (VR/AR) world. One issues with VR/AR world is that there is still a huge reliance on controllers whereas the main point is VR/AR world is to make the game as close to reality as possible whereas it is unrealistic to be holding a controller in a VR/AR game. One similar product is the haptic gloves that allows the user to control their character without holding a controller. Perret (2018) stated that it is the dream of everyone who experienced virtual reality environment to be able to touch and manipulate the virtual object without the additional controller and uses their hand.


In conclusion, the force sensing glove will be crucial to our future technology although the potential does not just lies on the force sensing glove itself but the technology behinds it that allows smart clothing to send commands to the main device through the force sensing circuitry. In overall, this technology will allow a breakthrough to the many different field such as gaming, engineering medical and many different more as the technology advances in the future.




References
Owen (2019) Force-Sensing Gloves could Control an iPhone By Detecting Gestures and How Objects Are Gripped. Retrieved February 6 2020 from https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/04/18/force-sensing-gloves-could-control-an-iphone-by-detecting-gestures-and-how-objects-are-gripped
John Loeffler (2019) Return of The Power Glove: Apple Patents Force-Sensing Gesture Control Gloves. Retrieved February 8 2020 from https://interestingengineering.com/return-of-the-power-glove-apple-patents-force-sensing-gesture-control-gloves
Jérôme Perret, Emmanuel Vander Poorten (2018) Touching Virtual Reality: a Review of Haptic Gloves. Retrieved February 8 2020 from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/324562855_Touching_Virtual_Reality_a_Review_of_Haptic_Gloves

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