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More on E-textiles: Electronic Smart Fabric
Little Hamster writes "The IEEE spectrum has an article on e-textile, where conductive fibers woven into fabric using standard textile techniques carry power to sensors, actuators and microcontrollers embedded in the cloth. The result is snowmobilers jacket that can detect crashes and txt an SMS message for help, carpet that can detect motion, or a T-shirt that shows videos. Oh, and the smart fabric is washable too."
I'll let you have it.
This is the kind of thing we need for Invisiblity Cloaks, chameleon camouflage and Invisible Cars. Of course we still need a revolution in computing to handle the optic information but it's a start.
"I can not bring myself to believe that if knowledge presents danger, the solution is ignorance" - Isaac Asimov
/me glances over today's headlines So, what we can look forward to seeing are t-shirts that can answer homework questions. Rock on!
I know nothing
What happens when my shirt or pants lock up?
--- #@$DF@#2%@^%3^&*$%FRHG%%[NO CARRIER]
I told you not to bleach my monitor, it causes all the colors to wash out!
~S
What video inputs can I get on my T-shirt?
2 seconds after posting and it's already loading slowly...gotta love /. :)
The AC
Ready To Ware
Electronics and fabrics woven together will make smart dressers of firefighters, football players, and fashionistas alike
By Diana Marculescu, Radu Marculescu, Sungmee Park & Sundaresan Jayaraman
With cellphones hanging off shoulder bag straps, pagers hooked to our belts, digital cameras dangling from our necks, PDAs bulging in our pockets, and MP3 players clipped to our shirts, we're all beginning to look like electrogadget pack mules.
Like a pack of ravid gorillas with ants stuck up their anuses, the editors of slashdot behave in a quite odd manner when it comes to censorship and poor journalism. Readers should rise up in sacred jihad against these practices; the moment draws near.
We have a more versatile and, we dare say, elegant alternative: e-textiles. Your shirt, coat, or sweater, even your carpeting or wallpaper, is the device. Conductive fibers woven into the fabric using standard textile techniques carry power to sensors, actuators, and microcontrollers embedded in the cloth. Software controls the communications inside the on-fabric network and can send radio signals using Bluetooth or any flavor of the IEEE 802.11 wireless standard to PCs and PDAs, and over the Internet.
Applications are astoundingly diverse. An Army commander, for example, could monitor a platoon of soldiers clad in SmartShirt gear developed by two of us (Jayaraman and Park) at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. The shirt communicates vital signs in real-time, and when all hell breaks loose on the battlefield, the commander sees at a glance who's been hit and who hasn't--and who is gravely injured and in need of immediate attention.
Closer to home, a fire chief could keep tabs on a unit as it enters a burning building. He could order his team out when the sensors they're wearing transmit data back to his command center telling him that the firefighters are inhaling hazardous fumes or too much smoke or that the fire is too hot to handle.
Imagine the boon to athletes. A swimmer stroking through the water, vital signs monitored by electrodes attached to wires hanging off her body like the tentacles of a jellyfish, would welcome a sleek, instrumented training suit. And five-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong, who lost an estimated 6.5 kg during the first individual time trial of this year's Tour, could have used a racing suit dotted with moisture, temperature, and pulse sensors. Such attire could have warned the U.S. Postal Service team manager that Armstrong was becoming dehydrated as he was warming up. In turn, the manager could have ordered Lance to drink replacement fluids before he launched from the starting line on his way to a rare time-trial defeat.
Similar performance- and safety-enhancing garb has already been prototyped by Finnish researchers at Tampere University of Technology and the University of Lapland, and at outerwear maker Reima Oy in Kankaanpaa, Finland. They developed a machine-washable jacket, vest, trousers, and two-piece underwear set for snowmobilers. The jacket is embedded with a GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) chip; sensors monitoring position, motion, and temperature; an electric conductivity sensor; and two accelerometers to sense impact. If a crash occurs, the jacket automatically detects it and sends a distress message to emergency medical officials via Short Message Service. The message conveys the rider's coordinates, local environmental conditions, and data taken from a heart monitor embedded in the undershirt.
O.K., you don't plan to join the Army, rush into a towering inferno, or compete in the Tour de France. You have no interest whatsoever in swimming and snowmobiling. Nevertheless, e-textiles are soon going to add functionality, fun, and style to whatever it is that you do like to do.
Just last May, German chipmaker Infineon Technologies
I can't wait until the first time someone says, "Hey, you have a loose thread", yanks it, and gets a voltage shock.
:)
Hmm...come to think of it, that'd be a worthwhile application...I'd buy one.
Clothes that report whenever they are being removed to the spouse.
Now we're only a step away from having Spammers make our e-clothing so congested with crap that it won't be of any use.
Even worse, what would happen once Spammers figure out how to broadcast video through the e-clothes, would we have people all over the place with Penis Enlargement ads on their new Old Navy cargo pants?
IGB: More fun than eating oatmeal!
That's what I want animated on my T-shirt.
Life is not for the lazy.
pr0n spam to scroll down my jacket during an interview.
/really/ the target market?)
Better, 'targeted' ads -- penis enlargement posts on boxers (hm, or panties? who's
This'll be fun. No, really. It'll bring the BSOD to the level of a fashion statement!
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
a high tech chastity belt!
Wondering what that guy is doing with your daughter? This sensors on her clothes will monitor everything from body temperature, to heart rate, to surface contact! Using this you can determine if articles have been removed and remotely activate an electric shock - or using the builting GPS, track down the guy and beat him to a pulp the old fasion way!
Furthermore, the dancing images of Hello Kitty displayed on the clothing will ensure that any girl will be dying to have them! Yours for only $199.99!
So if I want to clean these fabrics am I able to just reset the screen memory? o.0
The Army has also been a big backer of this sort of technology for their Land Warrior program. They want the ability to dynamically update their cammo for a variety of conditions from light to dark, from desert to urban to forest.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
I was staring at your video, honest.
Great, just what the world needs, a Tommy Hilfiger jacket that can implement the [marquee] tag.
KFG
someone walking down the hall, passes someone with a small handheld computer.
the handheld computer quickly negotiates with the clothes on the walker's back, when bingo! the break in happens.
from that point on, the subject walks around with Kick Me! labelled on their back.
another victim, and a smile breaks out on the person holding the handheld computer.
detect when you've run out of TP in a public toilet and send txt for help?
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
for the underwear to short out.
How well will "e-textile" hold up to moisture??
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
How about a T-shirt that shows a video of the snowmobile crash?
Otherwise your friends won't believe you when you say how big that cliff was
Actuators. The spammers could program your clothes to walk you to their offices...forcibly.
Oh, and Ashcroft wants regular updates on this technology.
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
Now that's what I call multi-threaded computing!
Let's hope Microsoft doesn't get involved with this. All our clothes will be blue...
how 'bout shoes that can detect someone is trying to light a fuse stuck into them?
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
How long until your house gives you a call at work to tell you it's burning down?
Left 4 Dead Gaming Group - http://www.l4dgg.com
Why have you remolded your e-jacket into the shape of Darth Vaders Helmet?
Its ok, I've modded it..
"You lied to me! There is a Swansea!"
Before we see the Blue Shorts of Death? Will we have to drop our pants to "reboot"?
I can see a lot of potential here if the technology gets far enough...instead of a wrist-mounted little GPS device that shows "you are here" info, you might have the length of an entire shirt-sleeve for a display. Maybe Big Brother can implement some sort of forced personal information display so that wi-fi sensors in the shirt respond to remote commands issued by police to display your name, address, etc. across the front or back of your shirt. Heck, they could just forget that and track you using the homing signal in your cyber-undies.
And, of course, the obvious: the day somebody ports an emulator or three to ThreadIX, the Clothing Operating System of the Future, "pocket pool" will take on a whole new meaning.
"Linux doesn't exist. Everyone knows Linux is an unlicensed version of Unix"- Kieren O'Shaughnessy
Besides, the site isn't even remotely slow. Sheesh.
Do not read this sig.
So now when I get my coffee from that darling teeny-bopper downstairs I'll be forced to see Brittany Spears and Justin Timberlake VIDEOS on her shirts. Oh the pain.
Well, at least that gives me an excuse to stare.
Operator, give me the number for 911!
So now when I stare at a girl's butt, I can say "No, no. I was just watching TV." Maybe criminals can walk around in jumpsuits that constantly replay their crime on it. So anyone who sees them can see exactly what horrific act they have done. Instead of pinning a note to my kid's shirt before they leave for home, now the teacher can just download a little movie clip of exactly what they did do. "No I wasn't grabbing your ass, I was adjusting the reception." The ideas are just endless.
Dear Slashdot-community,
I am tired of my windows-friends always bragging about how many girls they get with their pretty XP-desktop and great games and about they always get all their holes exploited.
So I just wanted to know:
- how can I find a girl if I use Linux?
- how can I make my Linux desktop so that it doesn't suck?
- will anyone ever exploit my holes?
Thank you,
Your friend
Fagomir Diroll
a Beowulf clusterfuck?
I'm still waiting on my spiffy new polo shirt made from unstable molecules, Mr. Fantastic.
DecafJedi
my weblog: apropos of something
Put a uniquie indentifier in your razor and everyone is pissed put an ENTIRE F***ing COMPUTER in your shirt and noone thinks that might be a little open to abuse?
A flexible data bus in Sensatex's SmartShirt prototype carries signals from various sensors plugged into connectors in the shirt to a controller at the waist. An optical fiber woven through the shirt can detect penetration by a bullet.
I'm not sure I'd need sensors on my shirt to be able to tell if it had been penetrated by a bullet-- unless I was far enough away from my shirt, and then I'd wonder why it was getting shot at.
I'm suprised there's no mention of the Burton Amp Jacket with sleeve based controls for your iPod. mmm.. me like.. They only mention this goofy looking jacket. Looks like he's got a PCB up his sleeve by the outline of the control surface surrounding the buttons. Burton/Apple did a better job IMHO.
Wisest is he who knows he does not know.
Clothes have been smarter than many of the people who wear them for years.
to hack someone's pants and make them fall down.
Chaos reigns within.
Reflect, repent, and reboot.
Order shall return.
snowmobilers jacket that can detect crashes and txt an SMS message for help, carpet that can detect motion, or a T-shirt that shows videos
What about some moral fiber that can detect corrupt CEO's?
(rimshot)
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
Kentucky Fried Gorilla?
This would make "Being Goatse'ed" all that much more hillarous!
Well I almost laughed..
Finger lickin' good.
The biggest problem with ideas like this is that they sound so great in theory and work so poorly in reality. The CyberJack fans (Neuromancer (sp?), Tek War, etc.) would have you believe that in the future everyone will want technology integrated into their bodies. Yet look at the most popular Sci-Fi such as Star Wars and Star Trek. Note the general lack of bodily implants and the revulsion such ideas produce. Sure, use the technology to make a blind man see or change one's appearance for spy work, but as a standard procedure? Nobody wants it! They simply want their technology like a protective cocoon. The very idea of mutilating one's self in the name of "progress" is seen as evil. (Case and point: The Borg)
Electronic wearables are an exciting field with tremendous possibilities (such as clothing that stays a constant temperature) but don't expect people to be too excited about anything more than passive systems.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
"Drying mode on...
"Your jacket is now dry."
now another thing to plug in every night... come on... let's perfect the solar cell first, huh?
Other than military use, why is there such an obsession here with being Invisible?
Is it really necessary to accomplish what you're attempting? Besides wouldn't it be dangerous if other's couldn't see you and potentially put you in harm's way? Who would be at fault then, and how would the legal system handle those battles?
How about using this technology to better society and do something practical, rather than the immature comments about porn and sex, usually found within every Slashdot article.
Come on guys, you're smart...do something with this that is important to society.
This could be applied by a frustrated, untrusting citizenry.
we could force all elected and appointed government officials to wear "lie detectorware". the fabric turns beet red whenever they spout bullshit.
...when I read this part:
... I'll give ya a little piece of advice: If you see an agent, you do what we do. Run."
Eventually, buildings could also be augmented with camera arrays inconspicuously embedded into wallpaper fabric to scan for intruders. In CMU's prototype, every sensing node uses small cameras and Atmel 8051 processors, running at 70 MHz and consuming up to 500 mW each, to analyze images for possible security breaches and then stream the video to a central display. Redundant devices keep the system running in case of local battery depletion or other types of failures.
But then quickly a quote from everyone's favorite movie sprung to mind:
"There's way too much information to decode the Matrix. All I see anymore is blonde... brunette... redhead.
And once again I realized that no matter how bad it gets, ultimately it's all the same as before, and no one can actually control or design any kind of dystopian future as described in the book 1984. All ya gotta do is reconcile whether you want to embrace the new technologies and make the best of what we've got, or if you want to relegate yourself to living "the old way" like an Amish person.
Software controls the communications inside the on-fabric network and can send radio signals using Bluetooth or any flavor of the IEEE 802.11 wireless standard to PCs and PDAs, and over the Internet.
.
I am sure someone can find a way to hack it and put malicious content on your t-shirt. Let say you are walking down the street and suddenly someone put some porn on your shirt, that can be very embarrassing
I don't have a sig.
----
--- Just say no to negativity.
now you can wear a white shirt to eat spaghetti, and leave with a spaghetti sauce colored shirt...maybe italian food WILL have a second coming...
Linux is to the internet as Duct Tape is to the Universe.
How about using this technology to better society and do something practical, rather than the immature comments about porn and sex, usually found within every Slashdot article.
Ooops. ;)
-T
THe same people who are getting multiple piercings and tatoos with green hair and punk clotes today are the same ones who in 100 years will have the video screens built into their chests and the headlines playing across their forehead. Everyone else will just have animplanted hone and nanotech medical devices. Exelent comic series BTW
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
Whatever turns you on my friend.
to the first person who develops the hack to make a woman's clothes show me what's on the other side.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Little Johnny might just find Suzie's daddy waiting shotgun in hand when he arrives home....electronic pants paged him...
Not only that but magine the other possibilities:
furry bush for the first dance, landing strip for the second dance, slip & slide clean for the third dance, and back to furry bush for the fourth dance.
If the guy requesting a lap dance likes big round nipples, no problem. When the next guy wants small nipples, he's happy too.
Excuse me as I go to the ATM!!!!!
Why would I want a cell phone/pda/mp3/etc. in my shirt/pants/jacket/etc? That would mean I would have to either wear the same shirt/pants/jacket/etc every day, or several articles of clothing would need to be wired.
And if that happened, which one would ring when I got a call and was in the shower?? The towel or the toilet cover??
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
Teeshirt which can display text +
GPS tracking of Daryl McBride =
The perfect "I'm with stupid" teeshirt.
www.eFax.com are spammers
This is probably what China did when US Army GEN Eric Shinseki, formerly Chief of Staff of the Army, ordered the Army to wear Black Berets. China actually landed some of the contracts for producing these berets and are now tracking US soldiers as they deploy around the world.
Norton AntiVirus for Clothing 2003 3-Ply Edition
Karma: Excer..ex...excellahhh...realll good (mostly affected by drinking not done in moderation)
to go with my computer-in-an-overcoat. 10-20 years and maybe we'll all wear our entire business. Just put on your glasses and start working.
-Tim Louden
For some reason, it seems like that is kind of redundant for slashdot readers..
Oh, and the smart fabric is washable too.
Are you saying that us slashdotters would pursue technological godliness even if it meant we had to be stinky and sweaty all the time?
I am a viral sig. Please copy me and help me spread. Thank you.
...the point isn't to stare at the "video" on some hottie's clothes. The point is to hack the zipper/clasps/belts/buttons HOLD the clothes on the hottie. Duh!
Those are going to be some old people.
sounds like a plan to track people down, all hail big brother, it could have noble uses, but also have uses (which are usually used) that will spy on people.
scary, really.
woohoo! DeCess tshirts!
my blog
Mod parent up...
C'mon, this sounds like what the Tuxedo (starring Jackie Chan in a computer super-suit) could do...
And hackers would become big bullies, remotely causing people to become victims of "Stop hittin' yerself. Stop hittin' yerself. Stop hittin' yerself."
Mod parent's parent up.
Every oldtimer and HAM radio operator knows that you XMT for help, not txt. And for you newcomers and softies, that stands for "transmit".
Ok, not that I in any way doubt that there are immense applications for this technology, but the person/people who came up with the possible applications is/are morons. "A fire chief...could order his team out when the sensors they're wearing transmit data back to his command center telling him that the firefighters are inhaling hazardous fumes or too much smoke or that the fire is too hot to handle." How about just telling THEM so THEY can get the hell out under their own initiative? And "Such attire could have warned the U.S. Postal Service team manager that Armstrong was becoming dehydrated as he was warming up." Lance didn't lose 6.5 Kg of water warming up, he was cycling the fricking Tour de France! That kind of water loss is inevitable. As it is there is an entire cadre of team members for each team just to carry water in the pack so that he can replenish during a regular road race; during a time trial he is only able to carry one or two bottles and is not accompanied by other riders who can carry additional water. And in this example, what the HELL is a set of sensors going to do to change that?
I guess what I'm saying here is that technology is wonderful, but before people start fawning over the possible applications, they need to actually KNOW about them first. Otherwise, they blow their proverbial load on a complete non-issue, discrediting themselves and jepoardizing the adoption of the tech in general. This is, in some cases, what happened with the dot com boom/bust.
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
MAybe in 1000 years my brain will have a built in spellcheck.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
Yes, I agree, I would love to put on my e-textile t-shirt, hop into my flying car, and fly it to my vacation villa on the Moon. But, as far as I can tell, these technologies are a long, long way off from actual implementation. Our current limits right now are power storage (all that Bluetooth needs to be fed), durability and size (small chips are fine, but we are talking hundreds of pretty powerful computers), architecture (implementing that automatic handoff on failure is hard), cost (buy an e-shirt now ! Only $9999.99 !"), and dozens of other things. Until we can overcome these problems, I am not holding my breath.
>|<*:=
When you take your clothes to the laundry
(C) Kaki Sain, 2011. By reading this, you have illegally copied my property to your brain.