Author: Amanda Giasson

IBM and Marchesa partnered to weave cognitive into a special dress worn at the Met Gala.

While wearable technology fashion isn’t anything new, one of the latest tech couture designs to have caught the attention of media was the light lavender dress, which featured over 100 gauzy white roses embedded with color-changing LED lights, worn by model Karolina Kurkova at last week’s 2016 Met Gala. The first-of-its-kind cognitive dress was born from a partnership between Marchesa and IBM. To create the garment, the design house used IBM’s technology and its Watson cognitive system, making it the ideal ensemble for the theme of this year’s gala which was “Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology.”

From smartwatches to designer dresses, wearable tech continues to spark human creativity.

From concept and research and development, to design and finished product, cognitive inspiration was woven into every step of the creative process. According to IBM’s Think blog, the collaboration showcased the creative potential of building with Watson and the technology’s ability to “enhance human imagination.”

The cognitive design of the dress depends on the combination of cognitive tools from IMB Research, Watson APIs, solution from Inno360 (Watson developer partner), and the creative vision from Marchesa’s design team.

The Wearable technology fashion changed colors based on five key human emotions.

The emotions that were selected by Marchesa, which they wanted the dress to convey, were joy, excitement, passion, curiosity, and encouragement. The belief is that color and images can indicate moods and send messages. IBM Research then fed this data into the cognitive color design tool; designed to understand the psychological effects of colors, image aesthetics and the interrelationships between emotions. This process also involved providing Watson with hundreds of images associated with the design house’s dresses so Watson could understand and learn Marchesa’s color palette.

Inno360 was then consulted to source the fabric for the garment, which needed to be made from woven textiles that would respond well to the LED technology that would be required to create the final effect. The team searched over 40,000 sources for fabric information to help it narrow down its options.

When the wearable technology fashion was finally debuted on the Met Gala red carpet, the roses on Kurkova’s dress changed colors based on the emotional responses that Twitter users had regarding the dress. Using Watson Tone Analyzer, the dress extracted context around the tone of the twitter messages. The result was the colors of the dress changed as public conversation around the Met Gala occurred online in real-time.

Proxama has launched the first of its mobile proximity ad campaigns on London buses.

This move, which has equipped 500 of London’s famous double-decker buses with Proxama’s Bluetooth-powered beacon technology, marks a key milestone in the industry. The buses will deliver real-time travel updates as well as relevant in-app ads to travelers who have signed up for the service.

Half a million travelers have already signed up for the service.

The project was developed by advertising giant Exterion Media and app developer Mapway. Proxoma’s beacon Mobile SDK was integrated into its Bus Times London mobile app, which deploys in-app ads to the mobile devices of passengers with the application. This allows marketers to capitalize on what is known as “dwell time”; the 17 minutes of idle activity that occurs during the average London bus journey.

More specifically, the half a million (and counting) users of the app receive contextually aware ads that “capitalize on the consumer’s exact physical context,” reported The Verge. Android users of the app started receiving the apps earlier this year and now they have also rolled out on iOS as well.

Location-based advertising using beacon technology drives higher consumer engagement levels.

According to a recent press release announcing the launch of the UK’s largest iBeacon consumer transport experience on London buses, brands that use beacon-triggered enhanced advertising have discovered that delivering contextually-relevant experiences boosts consumer engagement levels.

For instance, Sticky9 is seeing a 14.5% click-through rate average, which is much higher than the usually 1% or 2% of advertising that isn’t beacon-triggered.

What makes the particular enhanced Bus Times London app a particular hit with users is that aside from being sent relevant in-app ads that allow brands to capitalize on the consumer’s precise physical context and dwell time to deliver the best ads at the right time to increase click-through rates, it also provides users with real-time travel updates for the exact route on which they’re travelling.

Commenting on the partnership with Mapway and Exterion Media, Proxama’s marketing division CEO Jon Worley stated in the press release that “This collaboration is a huge milestone for the proximity marketing industry. App owners are looking for ways to increase active user numbers and establish new sources of revenue, and beacons can deliver on both objectives.” Worley added that the partnership is just one more indication “that 2016 is the year that beacon technology for marketing gains significant traction.”