Move over, Iron Man. This is wearable technology,
but closer to science fiction than perhaps you're used to
seeing.
Dubai is no stranger to innovation and spectacle.
So against a backdrop of skyscrapers and super yachts,
the City of Superlatives hosted the first ever Jetsuit Race
series.
The event was organised between Dubai's Sports Council and Gravity
Industries,
the makers of the Jetsuit.
Dubai I think is well known around the world for
embracing new ideas.
They want the biggest, the fastest,
the tallest. I think it fitted really nicely with their
ethos to bring a world first,
which has been the world's first Jetsuit race,
and it really did pull together that spirit of ambition
and technology and performance all in one very powerful,
punchy package. Gravity Industries is pushing the limits of the
potential for wearable tech.
What we're doing with technology when it comes to wearing
it is at the upper end of,
you know, maybe a watch at one end,
what we do is at the other.
However, it's still keeping true to the ethos of augmenting
human capability.
The the equipment we make by itself does nothing.
It would just sit on the floor,
you add a human being into the mix and suddenly
the magic happens.
So you are still wearing something.
You are still augmenting human balance,
human physicality, in a way that delivers an almost science
fiction outcome.
I've come to Japan, the land of gadgets and gizmos
both brilliant and baffling.
Here, one man is reimagining what wearable tech could be.
At the University of Tokyo,
Professor Masahiko Anami and his team have developed these robotic
arms.
How does it work? This consists of four extra robotic
arms.
And so actually this is attachable and detachable.
And so this each arm has several water here,
here, here. And these arms.
It's controlled with this small device.
This device.
Wow.
So would you like to try?
Yeah, lend me a hand.
Or several.
OK. Professor Masahiko Inami took inspiration from the concept of
Jezai,
a Japanese term meaning to move freely.
Are you ready? Are you ever ready to have more
arms?
As ready as I'll ever be.
It feels heavy, but not too heavy.
I'd like to enhance our ability by using technology.
That's the concept of jezai.
Oh, I can. I can shake my own hand,
shaking hands by yourself.
This is so strange. The
movement's good, so you can
you can move in all sorts of ways.
Imagine the possibilities with these arms,
The things I could do.
Our arms have not so much power.
So I want to enhance our dancing ability.
It's for dancing. Yeah, it's dancing.
I love this. I always thought my dancing was limited
by my by my skills,
but perhaps it's been limited by not enough arms.
First by right dancer tried our system.
She said she can dance more than one hour because
her inspiration can be affected by extra ribs
because her robotic arm is
moving radius, so her next motion can be induced
by movement of robotic arms
and so it's similar to her imagination to create her
next motion.
Where do you see the technology going in the future?
What would you like to be able to do with
the arms?
So currently so our arms is for dancing,
but so in your future maybe it can help our
daily task or of course we are able to establish
new type of sports that is superhuman sports,
superhuman sports, superhuman Olympics, yes,
with six arms, right, sometimes
six people.
As AI helps supercharge wearable technology,
we're likely to see these devices get smarter,
sleeker, more user friendly, more connected and seamlessly integrated in
our lives.
The line where our wearable tech ends and where we
as humans begins may get a little blurry.
In the future, wearable tech may not just be on
our bodies,
but in our bodies.
In Sweden, that's already happening.
Meet Joaquin Salen. He's about to show me what could
be the next step for wearable tech.
We've come to this convenience store to do a little
everyday task in the most extraordinary way.
All right, let's get some candies then.
Great Swedish salty candies. Nice salty licorice treats.
Yes, I mean, this will keep you in this country
for a long,
long time, right? But the real magic is,
how are you going to pay for it?
We hope so. OK, let's see.
Hi there. Go play. Here's the moment.
Authorising approved tech. It works.
Thanks. Mika Quacken is one of thousands of Swedes who
have had microchips implanted underneath their skin.
It's a form of biohacking,
integrating technology into your body.
So wearables I knew everything about and I see it
picking up.
You see, like all the trends are people love the
wearables.
But I want to take it to the next step,
to try. What would it be to have it even
inserted?
Does this make you a biohacker?
I suppose in one place,
human Cyborg Terminator. Yeah, you could call it whatever,
but I mean, aren't we all?
I mean, when you walk around downtown,
you track your steps, don't you?
Yeah. So you're a biohacking yourself because you want to
improve yourself.
Why do you track your steps?
You want to become something better?
Because if you only walk 200 steps a day,
you feel guilty and you go out there and walk
a couple of thousandths.
Yes. To pick up because you want to be healthy.
So you're a biohacking yourself,
right? There's no real official record of people who have
microchips implanted under their skin,
but thousands of people have put themselves under the scalpel
in Sweden and Norway.
The chip you have under your skin is for payments.
Do you see the use case for implantable wearable technology
changing
and going to healthcare and other?
I think that is, that's where it's going to pick
up.
So like right now you can you measure stuff with
your smart watch,
right? Blood pressure, different blood sugar and all that.
Let's say you have it inside your body instead and
automatically get that feed into your phone or.
And it's when when there's an alert,
it's it gets transmitted to you,
your your doctor.
It's given me food for thought.
From health monitors to AI assistance
to jet packs, the potential is endless.
The second tenet is environmentalism.
It has to connect us to what's happening inside us.
It has to serve us as humanity.
And by that I mean it serves all of us.
It it, it helps humanity
as a personal health companion that's holistic,
ultimately so that they can live a happier,
more balanced life longer.
We called ourselves humane because we care about the experience
of coexisting with compute.
How do we actually, if we could think about it
from day one again,
with all these new capabilities,
how would we want our relationship with technology to truly
be?