Google + denim = no more pocket problems

Google has made a jacket. It controls your music, can help you navigate around the city and read you text messages to you. And it’s denim.

Starting from September 27 you will be able to buy Jacquard, which according to Google, will help you control your digital life as you navigate the real one. The jacket comes from Levi, and allows you to assign certain gesture controls for common digital tasks, for instance, starting or stopping music, getting directions or reading incoming text messages.

Just in-case you were wondering how it worked, gesture-sensing threads are woven into the cuff and wirelessly connected to your mobile phone using electronics embedded inside the sleeve and a flexible snap tag. The idea was announced last May, and now you can almost buy it. We are sure you can sense our excitement through the screen.

“Whether you’re cycling to work or juggling a cup of coffee, it’s often difficult to pull out your phone, unlock it and answer an incoming call, read a text or skip a music track,” said Dr Ivan Poupyrev, Engineering Director, Technical Project Lead, Projects Soli and Jacquard at Google.

Now as the good doctor points out, sometimes accessing your phone can be a bit of hassle. It could be in one of four pockets, meaning it could take up to thirty or forty seconds to locate the device, or one could be holding a cup of coffee. You would have to transfer the hot liquid to the other hand and who wants to do that. There is the risk of getting burnt, or even spilling some. Imagine if you did. Cars get backed up for miles and commuters stop in their tracks, as helicopters whir overhead and camera crews ready themselves, watching the euphoria of the cup transfer, praying for a minor discharge.

Despite the thousands of potential dangers that occupy your correspondents five minute walk to the train station, not once has the thought ‘I wish there was a simpler solution to reading this text than taking the phone out of my pocket’ emerged. There are many problems in this world which require a solution, climate change for instance, or famine, but speeding up the process of changing the song on a smartphone might not have been top of the list.

We wonder how many people around the world are paralysed by such inconveniences in the morning or harbour the fear of putting their hands in their pockets to justify such a product from the Google team.

And we always thought wearing double denim was a fashion faux pas.