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."

Comments

It's a start

[(54)T-Dub]

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.

Re:It's a start

[dustmote]

I just want a t-shirt that changes picture every so often. Maybe one that I can set for "work mode", so it plays mostly subdued patterns that are suitable for work, and "casual mode", which has whatever t-shirt templates I have downloaded into it from iShirt, or the equivalent. (99 cents a pattern, although I hope some of you will still get seven of them, I know us geeks' reputation for BO already)

Landwarrior

[BWJones]

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.

a likely scenario

[sl0ppy]

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.

Impractical

[AKAImBatman]

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.

Look at transmetropolitan for the alternate view.

[Unknown Poltroon]

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

Black Berets from China

[spartan]

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.