So you’ve come home from grocery shopping and you’re wondering what kind of dishes you can create with the ingredients that you’ve bought. Thanks to the work of Microsoft and researchers at multiple universities, they have developed a smart fabric system called Capacitivo that can sense and recognize objects placed on top of it.
This means that by laying out the food items you’ve purchased, the fabric will be able to tell what kind of items they are and might even be able to suggest dishes you can cook with it, or even help you plan your diet. In addition to food, Capacitivo can also detect things like liquids or non-metallic objects.
According to Microsoft, based on their small 10-person study that involved using 20 different objects, Capacitivo managed to achieve a 94.5% accuracy rating. This is quite impressive, although the small study is not necessarily indicative of its success at identifying all kinds of objects, although initials tests do seem to be good.
That being said, it’s an interesting development and we’re not sure what Microsoft plans to do with it. We’ve already seen companies like Google attempt to make smart clothing and fabric with Project Jacquard, although we’re not sure how much of a commercial success that was.