Keith Kirkland: Wearable tech that helps you navigate by touch
Keith Kirkland: Tecnología ponible que ayuda a navegar por medio del tacto
Keith Kirkland is the cofounder of WearWorks, a company that builds products and experiences that communicate information through touch. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
the roof of your mouth
or duck, duck, goose as a child?
o al gato y el ratón de pequeños?
we're using touch to understand something.
para entender qué pasa.
the sense of touch.
con el sentido del tacto.
our entire lives.
when my friend,
trabajar en la computadora,
walked over behind me.
se me acercó por detrás.
into the left side of my lower back,
a la izquierda de mi zona lumbar,
around to the front of my right shoulder.
de mi hombro derecho.
how to improve my posture.
cómo mejorar mi postura.
at that very moment
en ese preciso momento
to teach movement using technology.
enseñar movimiento utilizando tecnología.
that could teach a person kung fu.
enseñarle kung fu a una persona.
to communicate movement
it became crystal clear: touch.
me quedó muy claro: el tacto.
where she had placed each of her fingers,
había puesto cada uno de sus dedos,
of my current and optimal posture,
movimientos de mi postura actual y óptima,
needing to be in the room.
estuviera conmigo.
of the puzzle that was missing.
importante del rompecabezas.
two inches off of your lap,
unos cinco centímetros
so you know to lift up?
para que puedas levantarla?
at the bottom of your wrist,
si te estuviera empujando?
agreed-upon haptic language
comúnmente acordado
set out to create that language.
nos propusimos crear ese lenguaje.
was not a kung fu suit.
no fue un traje de kung fu.
of navigation,
de uso de la navegación,
simplificada de movimiento.
orient a user toward a destination,
orientar a un usuario hacia un destino,
que se dieran vuelta
was the right way to go.
creyeran estar de frente.
with hundreds of people,
con cientos de personas,
within about 15 seconds.
en unos 15 segundos.
people out of their phones
que la gente dejara sus teléfonos
who stood to benefit most from our work
más se beneficiaban por nuestro trabajo
a blind organization, they told us,
a un grupo para ciegos, nos dijeron:
for the blind experience."
with three guiding principles:
nuestra empresa WearWorks son:
in our lifetimes
en nuestras vidas
designed for touch.
diseñado para el tacto.
of the New York City Marathon
de la maratón de Nueva York
due to the heavy rain,
impidió terminar la carrera,
a complex route using only touch.
usando solo el tacto.
to recognize millions of colors
de poder reconocer millones de colores
complex pitch and tone.
de poder reconocer tonos complejos.
Morse code-like cell phone notifications.
tipo código Morse de los celulares.
a kiss or a punch,
un beso o un puñetazo,
instinctive and immediate.
catch-up on the back end
trataría ponerse al día
of what just occurred.
de lo que acaba de ocurrir.
conscious thought is pretty slow.
el pensamiento consciente es más lento.
of language acquisition.
de la adquisición del lenguaje.
German and currently Swedish,
alemán y actualmente sueco,
of how different languages are organized.
de cómo se organizan los varios idiomas.
of well-established languages
de los idiomas bien establecidos
an entirely new haptic language,
un lenguaje háptico completamente nuevo,
mechanics wasn't the best way
del lenguaje no era la mejor manera
across every culture,
en todas las culturas,
underlying mechanism of touch
subyacente del tacto
and cultural boundaries?
lingüísticas y culturales?
buzz-buzz-buzz, buzz-buzz,
vibration means "stop."
significa "detenerse".
we challenged ourselves.
nos desafiamos a nosotros mismos.
of being in a vehicle
la experiencia de estar en un vehículo
along with our body's reaction to it.
así como la reacción de nuestro cuerpo.
a vibration pattern, sure.
feel like it was the right thing to do.
assignment of haptic cues to meanings.
señales hápticas para entender el sentido.
human experience into meaningful insights
experiencia humana en algo significativo
gestures and products.
the human ability
la capacidad humana
how we all see the world around us.
en que todos vemos el mundo que nos rodea.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Keith Kirkland - Haptic designerKeith Kirkland is the cofounder of WearWorks, a company that builds products and experiences that communicate information through touch.
Why you should listen
Navigation is inherently visual, and nowhere is that more clear than for the 285 million people in the world living with a visual impairment. With WAYBAND, a wrist-wearable haptic navigation device for the blind and visually impaired, WearWorks has created and patented an intuitive way to guide a person to a destination using vibration, without the need for any visual or audio cues. In 2017, WAYBAND was used to help a person who is blind run the first 15 miles of the NYC marathon without sighted assistance.
Kirkland is a public speaker, mechanical engineer, accessories designer and industrial designer with experience developing innovation-based concepts and experiences. He has worked with organizations ranging from the MET Museum, The Cooper Hewitt Design Museum, Unilever, Futureworks, Mini Cooper, Discovery Channel, Dropbox, The Yokohama Government, Coach and the National Science Foundation.
Keith Kirkland | Speaker | TED.com