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A Plastic Designed For Wearable Electronics
aphexbrett writes "Researchers have developed a new plastic that conducts electricity, may be simpler to manufacture than industry counterparts and easily accommodates chemical attachments to create new materials. This new material could mean easier manufacture of paper-thin TVs and "smart" cloth. Developed by TDA Research in Wheat Ridge, Colo., Oligotron polymers are made of tiny bits of material that possess a conducting center and two, non-conducting end pieces. The end pieces allow the plastic bits to dissolve in solvents and accommodate specialized molecules."
I hope they don't intend to pass a lot, or even a little current through this plastic.
Given that solar cells (GaAs ones at least) pass relatively low amounts of current, this could have huge implications.
The endless hours spend soldering a solar array together could come to an end. Many of these could be shingled and encapsulated fairly easily, not worrying as much about materials shorting out all the time.
I look forward to more news!
~mingust
So, this could make clothing huh? I wonder if it could turn the jacket into one big neon light? Or maybe turn my back in a billboard and I could rent the space to someone. It sure puts a new light (yea pun intended) to making that Tron outfit seen in an earlier article.
"Your having a bad day when the voices in your head put you on hold"
Now the plastic bags I take the groceries home in, can have full video advertisements for even more products I should buy. Not only that, but Nike Swooshes are soon going to be full video on every hat and shoe.
Electronic condoms with speech syntesiser:
"Red Alert! Hull breach!"
"Bad news Jim, She's pregnant"
"Condom has detected user below legal age. Authorities are notified."
"Warning! Husband approaching!"
"Erection at 35%. Press OK to order Viagra."
"Virus scanner running..."
I want to weave a bunch of this into my clothing so if some fool wants to mug me the minute they lay a hand on me they will get 100,000 Volts of pure electric justice.
Of course I will have to start having an un-natural adversion to door knobs and handrailing.
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
THink of the possibilities of being able to just print out a cricuit on your home computer with an ink made from this stuff. "When we added photo-sensitive end groups to the Oligotron we created a material that could be printed using an ultraviolet light source. Using a patterned light source resulted in a patterned image that could conduct electricity" maybe soemday we will download and print out hardware upgrades for home computers.
quis custodiet ipsos custodes