App-driven life: Smart ski goggle visor is like a dashboard

Oakley's Airwave ski goggles adds to its already futuristic line of eyewear. Earlier googles could connect to phones and now its newest pair of goggles can give their wearer data via a screen display on the visor. 

|
Associated Press
How much hangtime did Clemens Schattschneider get on this jump at the Snowboard World Championship in Quebec, Jan. 18? Oakley's Airwave would know.

Oakley Airwave ski goggles come with a little screen built into the visor. The screen displays your speed, altitude, and the air time of your last jump.

The sports accessories company dived into application-powered apparel early on. For several years, Oakley has made a pair of shades with built-in earphones and gear that can wirelessly connect to phones.

The Airwave steps deeper into science fiction.

If you carry an iPhone or Android device in your pocket, the goggles can pull in extra information, such as incoming text messages, caller ID, and the name of the song playing in your earphones.

The app also includes a buddy tracker that gives you the location of your friends who either have a pair of Airwave goggles (which cost $600 – about twice the price of normal Oakley goggles) or have downloaded the free Airwave phone app.

All of these data points pop up in the corner of your vision like the speedometer in a racing video game. Oakley assures the safety-minded that it placed the screen in the least intrusive spot possible. 

Still, the safety disclaimer kindly reminds you that "concentrating on the display while moving may distract you and cause injury or death."

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to App-driven life: Smart ski goggle visor is like a dashboard
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Technology/Tech/2013/0127/App-driven-life-Smart-ski-goggle-visor-is-like-a-dashboard
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe