Clevertex - Grado Zero Espace Srl

weather and physical demanding tasks, like workers on ski-lopes, rescue workers and guides in the
artic area. In order to facilitate the communication for these people, a mobile phone is connected
wirelessly to a glove, an item that they use anyway. Thus, the group of persons can make and receive
calls without picking up the mobile phone. For designing the prototype it was important to develop a
type of user interface with no display or button that could be hard to handle with thick glove. Therefore
the phone calls can be made and received by hand gestures and the voice. The call is activated by
pressure on a part of the thumb, speaking in the wrist, listening at the index finger and exchanging
number by shaking hands.
Fig. 27 Lina Berglin’s glove design
At the “Intelligent Ambience and Well-Being” conference in 2005, Berglin presented an extended
model of the glove. With this model it is possible to get actual weather information by bending the
index finger. By bending the index finger twice information on navigation can be accessed. In order to
make the information visible a display can be integrated into the glove. This can be achieved either by
a Velcro strap or to insert a thin and flexible display on the upper part of the glove, as presented in the
picture above [71, 72, 73].
Another glove with an integrated mini joystick controller is marketed by O’Neill under the name ‘Fat
Controller’ since the end of 2005. The joystick has been developed by the British company Fibretronic
in order to operate an iPod wirelessly by connecting to an RF transmitter positioned in the cuff of the
glove. The joystick is sewn into the glove on the back of the hand. The user can switch between five
functions (play, rewind, fast forward, volume up, volume down) by moving the soft rubber stick. The
signals from the joystick are then sent wirelessly from the transmitter in the glove to a receiver unit that
plugs into the iPod player [74].
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