gloves

Got cold hands and a really hot wallet? Chaval Outdoor is showing off a pair of $390 heated ski gloves that regulate temperature independently for each finger. Say you're one of those people with a chronically blazing-hot thumb and perpetually shivering pinkie. These luxury gloves are here to tend to your tempermental digits.

Instead of the standard wire-heating technology you'd find in many heated gloves, the Chaval Response-XRT wireless gloves rely on a paper-thin, flexible nanotech polymer film to deliver heat to each individual finger (much like this technology from Aevex). The Seattle-area company calls its system AlphaHeat.

"Think of this like having independent temperature control in each room of your house," Chaval co-founder Mark Boone tells me.… Read more

I've been known to wander the wasteland aisles of the grocery store, seeking out a single elusive item in a futile voyage only slightly shorter than "The Odyssey." If only I had a prototype tactile glove developed by the Helsinki Institute for Information Technology and the Max Planck Institute for Informatics.

The glove works by giving the wearer physical feedback. It vibrates to lead the person to a point in 3D space. The researchers see it being useful for locating items in a supermarket, finding a car in a parking lot, or zeroing in on a book among the stacks of a library.… Read more

I have a very basic grasp of sign language, including the alphabet and few simple words like "thank you," "snake," and "chicken."

The last time I spoke with someone who was speech impaired, we resorted to a scrap piece of cardboard and a pencil to get our messages across. A new invention may help break down those barriers.

The EnableTalk smart glove recognizes sign language gestures and sends them for text and voice translation to a smartphone or other device. … Read more

I'm sure I wasn't the only kid who watched "Star Wars" and then tried to move objects with the sheer strength and determination of my young Jedi mind. What I was missing was a Force Glove.

The Force Glove is part of Uncle Milton's line of Star Wars Science products designed to teach kids about science through "Star Wars." It grants the wearer the ability to move objects without touching them.… Read more

A wireless musical glove developed at Georgia Tech not only teaches users to play songs on the piano, but may also improve the sensation and mobility of the hands of people who have suffered spinal cord injuries, researchers report.

The Mobile Music Touch (MMT) device, which works alongside a computer and a keyboard, improved rehabilitation even in patients who had sustained the injury more than a year earlier -- a point at which improvements tend to be minimal at best.… Read more

Mobile phones: they're pretty handy, right? But holding one does mean your hand is tied up -- unless you don Glove One, a glove with a phone in it. Best of all, you can make it yourself.

Glove One is an art project by Milwaukee-based designer Bryan Cera. The numbers are located on the fingers, so you dial and chat away by holding up your thumb and little finger in the universal symbol for "call me."

It's made out of jointed bits of plastic, and here's the really clever part: you can print the plastic joints with a 3D printer to build your own gloved phone, making you look like Michael Jackson dialing out.

Read more of "Talk to the hand with a phone in a 3D-printed glove" at Crave UK.… Read more

Those who dwell in cold climates know how it feels to be helpless when a phone call arrives and they're wearing gloves.

It just doesn't work.

Because smartphones don a capacitive touch screen--meaning, it responds to the static electricity in your fingertips--gloves block this "signal" and disable you from using your phone.

To fix this issue, some simply remove their gloves, while others cut off a couple fingertips, or even resort to flip-top mittens.

Luckily, there's an even better solution that allows you to transform almost any pair of gloves into touch-screen-compatible accessories so your … Read more

The growing evening chill has many a person's fancy turning to the slopes. But as you're picturing yourself shredding a glorious mountainside, you might also be remembering how annoying it is controlling your tunes with fat gloves.

The Mix Master Glove from snowboard maker Burton aims to keep you from fumbling around in your pockets to control the music player on your iPod or iPhone. The glove sports a removable wireless remote. A wireless receiver plugs into your iPod or iPhone. The remote lets you change tracks, adjust volume, and hit play or pause. Check out the video below. (Is that really what shredders listen to these days?)… Read more

Combine the words "vibrator," "touch," and "heightened sensitivity," and the subject is obvious, right? A tricked-out glove that heightens your sense of touch.

The glove, developed by Georgia Tech researchers, includes a tiny vibrator that sits on the side of your finger. Turn the vibrator so low that you don't quite notice it vibrating, and voila, your fingertip is more sensitive to touch.

Prototype tests showed that the heightened-sensitivity glove enabled people to sense lighter touches and distinguish sensory points that were closer together than they could without it. People correctly distinguished among different fineness levels of sandpaper 15 percent more often with the glove.

The glove could help surgeons and others who rely on a fine sense of touch, and it could help people with an impaired sense of touch.… Read more