In 2012, innovative studio frog hosted an internal competition across its eight offices in Amsterdam, Austin, San Francisco, Milan, Munich, New York, Seattle, and Shanghai, which challenged the regions to come up with the next generation of wearable tech. This was, as Creative Director Jonas Damon stated in his introduction,

…To celebrate the cities we call home. Cities are dense, rich troves of activity and their physical scale mirrors the amount of data we ourselves generate and have access to. As we move through our cities, our devices collect, transform, and give back the surrounding data to heighten our experience of the city.

Each office came up with a creative concept that explores the potential of wearable technology to create a more resilient and responsive urban experience by transforming the raw data of our daily lives.

These included ‘Mnemo‘, the product of the company’s Amsterdam practice, an interactive friendship bracelet that enables you to record, relive, and share memory reels of your friends’ pictures and songs from a single event.

‘CompassGo,’ the brainchild of creatives in Milan, is a palm-sized device that guides users to urban discovery using smartphone-synced personal data and GPS signals.

‘Icho,’ envisioned by the Munich office, is a helpful navigation aid that connects visually impaired users to public spaces in new ways, allowing them to navigate and discover them more freely.

‘MTA Relay‘ is a wristband that acts as a New Yorker’s subway companion and can retrieve instant snippets of information useful for a rider’s commute. Pretty useful after being stuck in a subway station for longer than you’d care to admit.

Other ideas include the Seattle branch’s ‘Hello World DIY,’ which aims to introduce tech to preteen girls using clothing–no programming necessary, Shanghai’s ‘Airwaves‘ vision to help citizens locate pockets of better air in a city that has long had issues with pollution, Austin’s ‘Tree Voice‘ and San Francisco’s ‘Kinetik.’

Frog