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Chic Gear to Suit Net Generation
Roland Piquepaille writes "In this article, BBC News Online says that fashion specialists and engineers are preparing the next generation of wearable computing fashion accessories. Current ones are too conspicuous and expensive. Joseph Dvorak, a researcher at Motorola US, predicts the computers and technology we wear in four or five years time will not draw attention to ourselves. And Dr. Dianne Jones from textile company SOFTswitch, maker of the Burton Amp jacket which integrates an Apple iPod, thinks that the wearable computing industry will grow rapidly. She says that in ten years, 20% of our clothes will incorporate some kind of electronic components. This summary contains more details and references."
Well, the person quoted works for SOFTswitch, the manufacturer of the fabric. I don't doubt they'll come up with a proprietary detergent needed to clean their fabrics without harm.
She has a vested interest in making this fabric's future sound inevitable. Certainly it is coming but consider the source when reading fawning quotes.
Trolling is a art,
My completely untestable theory is that you really need to be an order of magnitude "better" than whatever currently exists in order to overcome the static friction of the end user.
People hate the current state of affairs less than they hate change.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
This is terrible. Having computers in clothes will just set off primitive alarms in huge department and food stores.
This will give sleezy creepy $8/hour 'security guards' an excuse to take female customers into back rooms and strip search them in lieu of threats, detainment, or arrest.
Sure, if you're rich, you can sue, threaten, or avoid stores with oppressive and primitive alarm systems (like Fred Meyer).
But if you're not rich, it's just one more mean stupid thing that the technological community has inflicted on the general population in order to find reason to continue to exist.
Thank you,
That means about 220 million articles of clothing will be produced in the year 2013 for sale in the U.S. market alone.
And? There are almost 300 million people in America. I expect that number to grow by quite a bit by the year 2013. If each of those people purchase only ONE item of clothing in a year, they will need to make a lot more than 220 million articles of clothing in 2013.
Even if you're referring to 20% cyber-clothing being 220 million articles, that doesn't sound exorbitant. That would assume that each of 300,000,000 people were only buying about 3.5 items of clothing a year on average.
Personally I think the idea that 1/5 of all clothing would be cyber-clothing is a bit optimistic. But I can see one in five people buying an accessory-type garment that contained a computer or other electronic gear. Computer belts, cell phones as jewelry (as if they aren't already a form of jewelry in some cases), PDAs built into vests, etc, all seem reasonable to me.
I do not have a signature
Its amazing how much these researchers get blinders on and inflate the importance of their research. There must be a term for this.
"Research Grant Application"
"Because it's there." - George Mallory, when asked why he wanted to climb Mt Everest, March 18, 1923 (New York Times)
So, your great plan for next gen clothing is... the pocket?
If only you had a time machine, you could go back to 1998, start a .com, and cash out before the crash.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Forget cleaning, I'm more concerned with replacing things.
Right now, I can stick my PDA, Walkman, Phone and watch (or even leave behind those bits I'm not needing) in the pockets of any item of clothing with pockets big enough to store them. This way, I only need one of each, and replace the one component that needs to be done if it breaks or is replaced with a better model.
Stick it all built into clothes, and you've not only massively increased the price of the clothes, but I need to worry about which jacket I've stored the record I want to listen to, the fact that I've lost my diary information because the trousers it was stored in have a hole in the knee, and what to do when my favorite T-Shirt is Orange, and won't take a Vodaphone Sim card.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"