Last year, MIT and Stanford debuted a new type of robot that could crawl over the surface of your clothing with the use of magnets. Now, it appears to have gone high fashion. It’s no longer a “rovable,” it’s Project Kino (kinetic wearables).
The small robots now house an array of colorful shields and will ideally serve both functional and aesthetic purposes. The video shows them moving about a dress as “shape changing jewelry,” its wheels leaving marks across velvet in what Project Kino calls “etching,” and a brooch moving up a garment to become a microphone.
“We’re thinking of wearables as a personal assistant. We think in the future, when they can have a brain of their own, they can learn your habits, learn your professional style, and…