Over the past decade, wearable technology such as smart wristbands, watches, rings, and patches have gained immense popularity. According to The Economist, smartwatches are catching on as fast as early mobile phones in the United States, and the most recent study on wearables estimates that about one in four Americans owns a smartwatch or fitness tracker. Wearables have successfully entered the mainstream, and their popularity doesn't seem to be slowing down anytime soon. In 2021, the global wearables market was valued at $116 billion, and analysts forecast it will grow to $265 billion by 2026. The success of these devices is primarily due to the insights they offer users about their health.

Wearable tech is often helpful, but rarely as comfortable as your favorite sweater. MIT CSAIL might just make that tech downright comfy, though. Its researchers say they've developed smart clothes whose "tactile electronics" can track even subtler body movements while looking and feeling like the soft, breathable apparel you'd wear every day. The textiles are machine-knitted using both conventional material and piezoresistive fibers that react to pressure and hold arbitrary 3D shapes. Machine learning helps calibrate and correct the sensors so that they produce consistent output.

Until a few years ago, clothing served only to protect people and at the same time still had fashionable aspects. But meanwhile, our second skin can do more and more. The measurement of body data such as pulse value or calorie consumption by means of integrated sensors is almost an old hat. Now, however, the clothing will also take on teaching functions through artificial intelligence: On the one hand as a trainer for humans, on the other hand as a programmer for robots. The latest development comes from Turing Sense.