AT&T researching "Smart Slippers." Foot-signature telemetry in insole to detect or even prevent falls.

AT&T researchers want to combine comfortable, wearable health devices with home networks and broadband network connections.

One example is demonstrated by AT&T Labs Research’s Lusheng Ji in this video: Wireless monitoring technology to detect – and perhaps prevent – falls in the elderly.

Investigation continues with AT&T partners on understanding how position, acceleration and pressure measurements on areas of the foot can be used with signal processing. This would identify “signatures” representing either a fall or unsteadiness that could lead to one. A trial for a smart insole is about to begin.

Another research project is a networked pill-minder. It provides a gentle voice reminder to take a pill when required, but also sends information on which pill was taken and when to a database that can be examined by a physician.

Laser tag with mobile phones or help for disaster victims with network down. AT&T researching GeoCasting.

Imagine augmented-reality GeoGaming, in which people holding mobile devices could play laser tag or even lob intercontinental volleyballs for other players to “catch.” Or consider GeoAlerting, in which first responders could locate or send messages to disaster victims through their mobile handsets without needing to know their phone numbers. Scalable wireless GeoCasting, being tested at AT&T Labs Research, lets mobile handsets communicate without a cellular or data network by creating an ad-hoc 802.11 network on-demand.

Creative GeoCast applications could be used for games, training simulations, advertising or stressed network conditions — such as disaster sites with the wireless network damaged.  In this video from this week’s 2009 AT&T Technology Showcase in San Francisco, Dr. Robert D. Hall, an AT&T Labs Research investigator, discusses his team’s work.

AT&T researchers testing AirGraffiti concept. Leave a location-based message that others can find in air.

AT&T researchers are experimenting with a mobile concept prototype called AirGraffiti. Users could leave videos, photos and songs "in the air" at physical addresses for friends or others to retrieve when they visit that location. The research concerns Location Based Services (LBS) platforms. The prototype, explained by Dave Kormann of AT&T Labs Research in this video, would allow users to digitally "tag" buildings, street corners, or even AT&T researching "Smart Slippers." Several AT&T researchers are demonstrating their work at this week's 2009 AT&T Technology Showcase in San Francisco.

AT&T researchers working on virtual home/office of future. Avatar would open a door & real door opens.

Imagine navigating an avatar through a 3-D map of your home and turning on lights and adjusting temperatures, and seeing an open door in need of closing. When you do it in the virtual house, it really happens in yours. In the picture above from the concept demonstration, the TV image playing in the virtual room is the real TV image that is playing.

Complex business systems could be monitored and controlled within such a virtual world, and again trigger real-world outcomes. Far-flung coworkers could interface to collaborate on systems and materials, virtually and securely. Indeed, the security lab is setting up a virtual workplace for researchers and engineers to collaborate across several physical office locations.

Imagine your TV identifying, displaying traffic cams of your personal commute

At this week's AT&T Technology Showcase in San Francisco, researchers from across AT&T are showing their projects and prototypes. One area is AT&T U-verse, a 100 percent Internet Protocol-based television service. Some of the "proof of concept" prototype features that are being shown include:

• A personal traffic page, (shown right) created when the viewer enters the starting and ending points of a commute and saves it on AT&T U-verse. The application automatically chooses the appropriate traffic cams along the route and pulls up live views.
• A TV-display component for FamilyMap, a tool that currently lets customers see the location of family members on a map from a PC or AT&T wireless phone.
• A personal horoscope page (it could be any subject) with a component that allows the viewer to call an expert. The expert is seen and heard live on the individual viewer's screen, and the viewer talks to the expert via telephone.

In three years, more than 1.8 million customers have signed up for AT&T U-verse. AT&T's IP strategy combines TV, broadband, home phone and wireless in ways that continue to evolve.

Isabella Products' Digital Photo Frame Connects Families and Friends

Isabella Products, Inc. and AT&T* announced today that the industry's first two-way, fully interactive digital photo frame -Vizit-will be powered by the AT&T wireless network. Read more »

View images of the Vizit Digital Photo Frame.

View Vizit Features and Specs.

AT&T Donates Netflix Prize Money To Advance Science, Youth Organizations

In an effort to support educational programs that advance science and foster growth for the innovators of tomorrow, AT&T* today announced plans to donate AT&T's share of the recently awarded Netflix Prize to four organizations selected by prize-winning researchers Chris Volinsky and Robert Bell. Read more »

Meet the AT&T Scientists behind the Netflix recommendation system and other recent groundbreaking research

Innovation at Your Fingertips

AT&T has a 130-year heritage of communications innovation, and we maintain a strong focus on "the art of the possible" today.  We maintain one of the communications industry's largest and most productive research organizations at AT&T Labs.  Our scientist and engineers are driving development of new network technologies that enable us to support the constantly growing demand for broadband and new applications. And we're developing many of those emerging applications as well, leading the industry in advancing new capabilities like telehealth, speech recognition and data management.

It all boils down to developing new, meaningful capabilities for our customers.  If we can develop wirelessly enabled sensors to determine when an elderly person is in danger of falling, we could help to prevent injury and to reduce health care costs.  If we can consolidate all of the real-time information that a customer might be looking for and put it all on the TV screen when it's flipped on in the morning, we're helping to save time and increase productivity.  If we can develop new ways to manage vast amounts of information, we can enable people to get more out of the overwhelming volume of content that's available to them.

And if we can enable people to throw a virtual tomato at their TV screen, well, that's just fun.

This Tech Talk forum will be a destination for you to learn about the latest research and technology development advances at AT&T.  Starting Friday, Nov. 6, we'll post video and photos fresh from our Technology Showcase event for media.  And moving forward, innovators from throughout AT&T will provide updates on key innovations and emerging capabilities.  We hope to use this page to explore the art of the possible from every possible angle, reflecting our work day-in and day-out to deliver new capabilities for AT&T customers.

We hope you visit this site often for the latest updates.