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Ready to Test a 'SmartShirt'?
Roland Piquepaille writes "In a very brief article, Health Data Management reports that Sensatex Inc. is looking for beta testers for its SmartShirt system. These fully washable shirts are using nanotechnology to weave a conductive fiber grid into the cotton fabric to monitor your movements or your heart rate and transmitted wirelessly to a central computer. If the tests are successful, these shirts could be used to remotely check old people living alone, but also soldiers in the field or athletes. Read more for additional details and pictures of these 'smart' shirts."
I've fallen and -- oh you're here already. Thanks.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Now, if you want to be a beta tester, please contact the company (link under the "Press Room" tab).
Just thought you should know.
Your sig(k) has been stolen. There is a puff of smoke!
Frankly, I'm signing up to be a beta tester for several reasons. First, wireless anything is attractive to me.
Biometric information is wirelessly transmitted to a personal computer and ultimately, the Internet.
And I'd like to sniff the packets just to see what they are actually sending/what kind of encryption they are using/etc. Secondly, as someone who is trying to lose weight via an exercise program (I mean program literally - I play the dance game In The Groove) the following is also attractive:
The Athletic SmartShirt System allows the comfortable measuring and/or monitoring of individual biometric data, such as heart rate, respiration rate, body temperature, caloric burn,
Your sig(k) has been stolen. There is a puff of smoke!
Considering all the abuses of privacy going on recently, who knows who gets to see the data collected by the smartshirts? What privacy are we getting about the data collected by the smartshirts? And would they even be required by law to keep that data confidental?
There's too many privacy concerns, so until I feel secure enough in knowing that my private health information is not being sold or even placed into a national database, there's no way in hell I'm using those shirts.
If these things can monitor your movements, how about making a set of tights that can be used for motion capture.
Technoli
Embedding software into softwear...
My shirt and I having a conversation in a club.
Shirt: "You do realize that deodorant is not in limited supply?"
Me: "Shut up damnit I sprayed the pits."
Shirt: "Yeah but what freakin' century and what is with those dance moves I mean Anthony Michael Hall doing the geek moves in the Breakfast Club had more grooves than you."
Me: "Ok crap this is the last time I take you out."
Shirt: "So, you are saying you are actually going to start having a social life?"
Me: "Life critiques from my apparel, wonderful."
Shirt: "Listen if you want to ditch me to the floor man that is all you there is a hottie right over there that is just dying to rip me off of you."
Me: "Really? Damn, point that out dude."
ACK
Underlords anyone?
to ask "But does it run linux?" gets a punch in the face... from Sensatex.
Perhaps then we'll actually believe you.
Apparently it does not unify GPS data with the heart rate, and other things like body temperature/caloric burn/respiration rate/etc either can be derived from the HRM/GPS or are just not that useful.
Also, while in the midst of training, the last thing you want to do is have your coach have to haul a laptop out - a simple stop watch and asking you about your own HRM readout will do the job.
In theory, there are some better products out there that can be developed, but this is not one of them.
Ohhh, now I get it.. T-Shirt, T-600, T-700, T-1000...
Now we know how it started. Well who's keen on testing nano technology bent on world destruction and extermination of the human race on his shoulders.
Anyone?
I can see it from here:
Soldier #1: Where is the enemy hiding?
Soldier #2: Let me do some packet sniffing.
ID: the nose did not occur naturally, how would we wear glasses otherwise? (apologies to Voltaire)
...something like this have been around for years in academic labs. Georgia tech for example has had a smart shirt for years.
If you're being mugged, you probably cant use a cell phone. But with this when a sudden elevated heart rate is detected, you may auto activate GPS and mics/video. Maybe even alert nearby people or police. Good for protecting kids etc.
Thered have to be reliable inputs or signal processing to detect the difference between fright/panic and running around etc.
Now the NSA can monitor my shirt. Great.
If the tests are successful, these shirts could be used to remotely check old people living alone, but also soldiers in the field or athletes.
I'm sure that on the battlefield of the future nobody is going to want to wear a shirt that makes them glow like someone who killed one of their teammates in Counter Strike.
All they will figure out from /. users is a correlation between fast heart rate and trying to get first post on the latest article.
... like "Attention! This person is WANTED. If possible, DETAIN this person!"
You are aware the shirt you're (presumably) wearing now is constructed of nano-scaled materials, right? They're called "molecules".
Why you're worried about *a* nanofiber when you're inundated with billions and trillions of nanoparticles a day from wind, water and earth I don't quite grasp. Not even touching on the fact that nanotubes are based on buckyballs terrestrially found in smoke which is an ingredient in the smog you breathe every moment of every day, why are you specifically concerned about this shirt?
Any why, pray tell, are you worried about *a* fiber in your *lung* where it alone will cause virtually no damage when a particle this small could just as easily wind up in your brain where a single fiber could conceivably cause a real problem by messing with your synapses?
I just found out there's no such thing as the real world. It's just a lie you've got to rise above. - John Mayer
>You are aware the shirt you're (presumably) wearing now is constructed of nano-scaled materials, right? They're called "molecules".
Yup and you notice that to make those shirt we use materials that have been known to be harmless to man for centuries, we don't know anything about the new materials, they could be harmless or they could be a new abestos.
>nanotubes are based on buckyballs terrestrially found in smoke
Bah, arsenic in dose low enough is used as a drug, because there are buckyballs in smoke don't mean that the same material used in a different concentration shape wouldn't be dangerous: all the types of abestos are not dangerous after all, but some are.
As for the lung, brain, agreed there are dozen of way a new material (nano or not) could be dangerous for the body, this just means that instead of creating a new desaster like abestos'one, we ought to test new materials on animals before making them widespread not after.