'Cognitive' Dress' That Reacts To Social Media Now At The Henry Ford

DEARBORN, MI — In the 1970s, mood rings told everyone how you were feeling. Today, IBM and Marchesa’s “cognitive dress” shows how the social media world is feeling about what you’re wearing. The one-of-a-kind dress will be on display at Dearborn’s The Henry Ford starting Thursday.

Model Karolina Kurkova wore the dress during its debut at the 2016 Met Gala, according to a CBS Detroit report. The dress uses IBM’s “Watson” technology, which is capable of tapping into sentiment from social media posts that include a specific hashtag and extracting context around the tone of the message. During the Met Gala, the LED lights embroidered into the flowers on the dress changed colors in real-time based on public social media conversations related to the dress, the radio station reported.

“IBM and Marchesa’s cognitive dress is an excellent representation of innovation at work today, from the collaboration behind the dress to the technology involved to make it possible,” Patricia Mooradian, president of The Henry Ford, told CBS Detroit. “We are delighted to bring this into our collection and give our guests the opportunity to be inspired by the innovators changing our world today.”

Watson is a cognitive computing system that understands the world in a way similar to humans, through senses, learning, and experience, the radio station reported. Watson can quickly analyze massive amounts of data to reveal insights and patterns previously undiscovered.

The IBM and Marchesa dress collaboration is just one example of how cognitive computing is unlocking discovery and human creativity, according to The Henry Ford. These same technologies used in the creation of the dress are also being used in other industries, including healthcare, engineering, finance, retail, and education, CBS Detroit reported.

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