GloveOne Brings The 'Call Me' Hand Symbol Full Circle
Universally accepted as the ‘Call Me’ gesture – pinky finger and thumb outstretched, interpreting the mouthpiece and speaker respectively – the hand symbol that has otherwise been relegated to use in packed nightclubs and seedy bars as way of grabbing the attention of the opposite sex might soon be used as a way of literally calling others.
Conceived by Milwaukee-based designer Bryan Cera, the GloveOne is a ‘wearable communication device’ that can be worn as a replacement to your mobile. While features are skimpy at best – we’d like to see future designs incorporate a flexible OLED screen of some kind into the palm to double as a more rounded mobile phone – the glove incorporates numbers on the fingers of the glove to let wearers dial out and features a glowing hand symbol at the back of the hand that presumably lights up to indicate an incoming call. A sim card fits snugly into a slot on top, as does the glove’s USB charger.
Made up of jointed bits of plastic, the GloveOne can be produced using typical 3D printing techniques that involves building up thin layers of material (in this case, plastic) on top of each other to form a solidified 3D object.
Its designer says of the glove, it is the “literalization of [the] notion of technology as a “phantom limb”, in how we augment ourselves through an ambivalent reliance on it, as well as a celebration of the freedom we seek in our devices… GloveOne is not an exercise in innovation, but rather this project asks the question ‘What are we willing to sacrifice in order to participate in technology and social media?’” Slightly pretentious art critique and analyses over, the GloveOne might well be a relatively pointless (get it?) invention, but by heck if it doesn't ooze cool.
Source: Bryan Cera Online
Richard Birkett