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MIT Media Lab Fashions
robyn217 writes "At MIT's Media Lab, researchers are developing fashion accessories on which patterns and designs can change according to the wearer's whim, and fashion prints can be shared virally via wireless communication. This technology will be a real boon for fickle New York City baseball fans at the Subway Series in the future (they can simply flip a switch to change from a Mets to a Yankees jersey."
A virus makes people appear naked? Nude patch for reality?
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
According to the laws of war if you are fighting out of uniform and you are captured you are considered a spy and not a soldier and do not get pow status. They have status very similar to unlawfull combatants. This is a reason lot of commando raids are done by people wearing uniform even though the raid would be easier to do if you could just be dressed as the enemy. So my question is why not use this kind of material to create a uniform which matches the enemy's uniform and if you think you are about to get captured flick a switch and switch to full uniform. Voila you are no longer an unlawful combatant and rather a POW
**Life is too short to be serious**
Does this hint at the possibility of 24bit truecolour mexican waves?
Malike Bamiyi wanted my assistance.
It's called relevance. Specifically, unless you're doing stuff that people care about, you won't be relevant for long. From this perspective, MIT's Media Lab is thus ensuring its continuing relevance.
By the way, evolutionary biologists understand that fashion, like geekery, has a direct and clear purpose (in the context of natural selection). Perhaps it's something you should look into before condescending to your evolutionarily more successful peers.
Bonsai Kitten: TNG
I should probably submit a shameless plug for some of the related work that our collaborators in Colorado are working on:
An LED tank top playing Conway's Game of Life and an extensive guide on do-it-yourself sewing circuits. Very nerdy, and very cool. The idea here is that you can have computationally enhanced stuff available for people doing craftwork. They have a lot more awesome stuff, but you'll have to click around for it.
new slogan - Hypercolor for '06
but the inventors are not thinking this through... Have you seen what some people wear with 'regular' materials? Anyone ever want to kill the person that thought "hmmm, spandex will look good in XXXXlarge canary yellow" ???
Have any of you seen what gets worn at high schools? (no, I'm not a pervert) but there are groups of people that would take self expression to an entirely unexpected new level if they could change it before getting caught...
Have you ever seen the gay pride parades? Mardi Gras? Imagine that in the mall or your local TGIF's on occassion. If clothes could make it look like the wearer was naked, but not be, more people than you think, and certainly people you wouldn't want to, will think its fun to do so.
Not that I think such innovations should be held back, but there are some serious consequences to our laws and society with the introduction of such things... and trust me, the judiciary is NOT ready to deal with it, whether it is innovation or change, they are not prepared to deal equitably with either.
Just what do law makers do with someone that creates a virus that makes little girls clothes go transparent? There are some serious things to think about with technology, and UNFORTUNATELY, our law makers have NO CLUE what to do with it other than react like they were born with the patriot act in their mouths (or pick your preferred orrifice).
Yes, I'm paranoid... at least when it comes to anything that requires law makers and politicians to have common sense and good humor.
sigh...
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
What does it say about you when you wear a t-shirt with a Nike swoosh on it?
I'd rather see people walking around, freely exchanging memes on their shirts instead, something more complex than a band name or an athletic wear logo. Ideas, slogans more profound than "just do it". That would be a nifty way to exploit new technology to facilitate human communication in ways that haven't been as widely experimented with until now.
it's a blue bright blue Saturday hey hey
not to mention easier to use large crowds of people as giant LCD screens.
think of the stadium applications!
Asking people to think is like asking them to buy you a new car
You're missing the entire point. Its about what is shown and how its shown--namely that images appear that signal your social status--how clse you are to the source of that particular image. For example, if you goto an underground rave/concert, they can hand out 100 limited copies of the image wirelessly. These can then be passed on within the communicative framework virally, but each time degrade purposely in quality, thus signalling how far you are from the source. This is coupled with tracing functionality, and you can have something like an inverted digg.com to understand how your image/social signal spreads in the wild. Just look how how customizing ring tones is so popular, and you might understand that this is about moving fashion itself from something that you buy every so often to something that you can digitally change and spread daily. Besides--the scope of this project is a masters thesis so don't expect a refined/commerical physical implementation. It simply isnt necesssary for research.