beauty technology as an interactive computing...

Beauty Technology as an Interactive Computing Platform

Abstract Just blink and levitate objects, just move your fingernails and open the door. Chemically metalized eyelashes, RFID nails and conductive makeup are some examples of Beauty Technology products, an emergent field in Wearable Computers. Beauty Technology embedded electromagnetic devices into non-invasive beauty products that could be attached to the human body for interacting with different surfaces like water, clothes, the own wearer’s body and other objects, just blinking or even without touching any of these surfaces.

Author Keywords Beauty Technology; Wearable Computers, Muscle based interfaces

ACM Classification Keywords H.5.2 [Information Interfaces and Presentation]: User Interfaces - Haptics I/O, Interaction styles.

General Terms Design.

Introduction Nowadays we cannot think of Wearable Computers just as an exploration of the capabilities of devices into clothing but also about breaking through barriers of

Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for third-party components of this work must be honored. For all other uses, contact the owner/author(s). Copyright is held by the author/owner(s). ITS'13, October 6–9, 2013, St. Andrews, United Kingdom. ACM 978-1-4503-2271-3/13/10. http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2512349.2512399

Katia Vega

Department of Informatics,

Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro

R. Marquês de São Vicente, 225 - Gávea,

Rio de Janeiro, 22451-900, Brazil

[email protected]

Hugo Fuks

Department of Informatics,

Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro

R. Marquês de São Vicente, 225 - Gávea,

Rio de Janeiro, 22451-900, Brazil

[email protected]

Posters ITS'13, October 6–9, 2013, St. Andrews, UKPosters ITS'13, October 6–9, 2013, St. Andrews, UK

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technology to make them useful to us in ways never imagined before! This work proposes ‘Beauty Technology’ as an emerging field in Wearable Computers. We suggest the use of products on the human body surface that hides electronics, are easy to attach and remove, are ergonomic and highlight the wearer’s personality. Beauty Technology products interact through the body using muscle movements like blinking and finger movements. They also interact with other surfaces like water by approximating fingernails to a hidden device.

Figure 1. Beauty Tech Nails interact touching into the water,

without touching any object and through your wearables.

Beauty Tech Nails

Imagine that you don't need a card for opening your office door, or for paying your bus ticket. Imagine that you don't need any ticket for going to a movie session. Go and shop at the supermarket or rent a book at the library without any wallet or ID card, just point and have it, everything at your finger tips: your nails. Beauty Technology Nails embed technology components into fake nails in order to interact with the world in different ways and through different materials. Create personalized gestures and musical instruments.

These nails contain embedded magnets for amplifying the wearers’ capabilities by giving the sense of reading magnetic fields but also give them access to different objects. For example, these magnetic nails could interact with tablets and smartphones that have magnetic sensors and smart object with embedded smart switches.

A RFID nails’ wearer makes a secret combination of finger movements to open the door in the project called “Abrete Sesamo”. Figure 1 shows some prototypes of our RFID nails. Like “AquaDJing”, in Fig.1 A, another project where a DJ could change between different tracks by touching into the water with her RFID nails. Fig. 1 B shows Beauty Tech Nails in the “Twinkle Nails” project. In this project, the nails aproximate to a white box that hides the RFID reader and translates it into a note. In the project “Gimmickiano”, showed at Fig. 1 C, a Dj moves around the auditorium, and aproximates each fingernail to the wearable thus, the notes are

Beauty Tech Nails embed electromagnetic devices and are

designed to be aesthetically attractive.

(A) (B)

(C)


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played and displayed in a piano visualization. The wearable send the played notes to the computer by Radio modules.

Conductive Makeup

What if we could just blink and also activate the world with just a blink? Beauty Technology proposes the use of makeup for understanding blinking and other face movements. We used conductive makeup that connects sensors and actuators by the use of conductive materials that stick to the skin as well-defined eyeliners and eyebrows.

Figure 2. Beauty Tech Conductive Makeup

We also used black false eyelashes that were chemically metalized to react to blinking. As an example, a character called “Arcana” is a futuristic angel that communicates by amplifying her blinking and creates gestures that activates different music tracks and displays different images (Fig. 2 A). Superhero is another example of the conductive false

eyelashes and makeup used to levitate objects just by blinking. Eyelashes worked like switches that were connected to circuit into a headband that sends signals via module radio to control the object by infrared.

Beauty Technology

Wearable Computing had changed the way individuals interact with computers, intertwining natural capabilities of the human body with processing apparatus [1]. But most of this technology had been designed just for clothing or accessories, it is still flat and rigid, and circuits visibly appear through the wearables.

Wearable Computers could also be attached on the body surface or incorporated into the body like implants. Recently even skin mounted “epidermal electronics”, biomedical devices in the style of tattoos [2, 3] such devices being useful for measuring and monitoring physiological data. Even though the privacy and health issues are still evolving, wearers nevertheless seize opportunities to experiment with the sensation of being injected with tiny electronic devices – not just for health management, but also looking for new experiences and fashion, like tattoo implants for using the skin as a display [3] and chipping humans with RFID tags implants for tracking people’s comings and goings [4, 5].

Beauty Technology is a proposal for electromagnetic components hidden into beauty Products that could be attached and are removable from the body [6]. It enhances the appearance of the wearer and maintains her personality with aesthetic products.

(A) (B)

Fake eyelashes were chemically metalized with an activation and

electrolysis process.


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Beauty Technology Interactions are done in 2 ways. The first interaction is through wearables devices on the same wearer environment. Beauty Tech products connected to wearable device like the projects Arcana and Superhero that connected the eyelashes and the wearable device through conductive eyeliner. Another way of interaction is through wearables devices and smart objects outside the wearer environment. Electromagnetic devices on the skin surface without any physical connection to other device (like Beauty Tech Nails projects). This kind of interaction makes it possible that the Beauty Tech Products interact with different surfaces like water and other devices like smart objects and Smartphones.

The first technologies developed for Beauty Technology were conductive makeup for connecting sensors and actuators on the face, black false eyelashes that were chemically metalized for acting as switches for understanding blinking and fake nails that hide RFID glass capsule tags, magnets and conductive materials.

Future work will include the evaluation of materials for creating new Beauty Technologies like a colourful conductive eye shadow that is flexible and adaptable to the eyelid and a conductive nail polish.

Acknowledgements Katia Vega (grant 140859/2010-1) and Hugo Fuks (Project 302230/2008-4) are recipients of grants awarded by the National Research Council (CNPq). This

work was partially financed by Research Support Foundation of the State of Rio de Janeiro (E-26/170028/2008) and CNPq (557.128/2009-9).

References [1] Mann, S.: Humanistic intelligence/humanistic computing: ‘wearcomp’ as a new framework for intelligent signal processing. In Proc. IEEE, 86, 11, pp. 2123–2151 (2008).

[2] Windmiller, J. R., Wang, J.: Wearable Electrochemical Sensors and Biosensors: A Review. Electroanalysis, (2013) 25 , 29–46.

[3] Mc10: http://www.mc10inc.com/company-information/technology

[4] Bitarello, B., Fuks, H., Queiroz, J.: New technologies for dynamic tattoo art. Proceedings of TEI 2011, Fifth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction, Funchal, Portugal, (2011) 313- 316.

[5] Rotter, P., Daskala, B., Compano, R.: RFID implants: Opportunities and and challenges for identifying people. In: IEEE Technology and Society Magazine vol.27, no.2, (2008) 24-32.

[6] Vega, K.; Fuks, H. Empowering Electronic Divas through Beauty Technology. Proceedings of HCI 2013, Design, User Experience, and Usability. User Experience in Novel Technological Environments, Volume 8014, 237-245.


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