Google and Levi’s first smart jacket is a wash

The moment you put on one of Levi’s products, it’s masterfully designed to elicit a

powerful sensation. A new pair of Levi’s jeans or one of its Commuter series denim jackets excels at that moment, reminding you of its 150-plus years of cloth craftwork experience and the familiar, but never tired, feeling of an article of clothing that just feels right. The same can be said of the first time you put on the Project Jacquard jacket, made in partnership by Levi’s and Google’s Advanced Technology and Projects group, or ATAP for short. Unfortunately, that’s about where the whole experience stops feeling right and starts feeling like you just bought a $350 jacket interwoven with technology you’ll only rarely use. Project Jacquard, the ATAP initiative to weave touch-sensitive fabric into everyday clothing, was announced back in May 2015 to lots of puzzled looks, but a fair deal of genuine fascination. The Jacquard technology, named after a 19th century punch card-controlled loom, is indeed impressive. Google’s ATAP group managed to weave capacitive threads with a copper core into cloth itself, without needing to make substantial changes to the textile manufacturing process.                                                     https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/6/16428338/google-atap-levis-project-jacquard-denim-smart-jacket-review