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Technology

Nanotech: "Smart Fabrics" 131

Posted by michael from the they-know-what-you-did-last-summer dept.
Reidar Gunn writes: "This article is about nano technology... I read it over to make sure I was really reading what I read! Red to Blue cloths, sizes going from bigger to smaller... Wonder if they'll make wireless clothes with a subscription service, Yah never know! Logo changing shirts eh!"
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Nanotech: "Smart Fabrics" More

Nanotech: "Smart Fabrics"

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  • Think of nano-suits that exert force on the wearer.

    The field of tele-dildonics can finally come!

  • subscription service (Score:5, Funny)

    by paranoic ( 126081 ) on Saturday August 11, 2001 @10:17AM (#2112838)
    Just what I'd want, a Microsoft shirt that reads "Hacked by Chinese"
    • Great, a subscription service for my nano-clothes. What happens when I'm late with a payment? Do they come to resposes? I suppose if they did, I'd be forced to give them the shirt of my back!!!

      • Re:subscription service (Score:1, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Nahh - it just starts showing advertisements on your shirt, and if you get far enough behind, starts putting "Kick Me" signs on the back, and ranting about what a deadbeat you are.
        • After all you're just licensing the shirt! You don't own the shirt and must comply with the EULA or else the clothes will stop working! i.e. disintegrating into threads at the most inopportune times. I like this idea!
    • Back in my day we didn't need a shirt that changed colors or went from one size to another.

      Our clothes would come in one respectable size and respectable color and it stayed that way. Nowadays all you kids and your fancy schmancy rayon or neon colors think that your clothes need to glow and look fancy. Now you even want your shirts to change sizes as you grow up.

      When I was a kid, I wore all of my older sisters shirts once she outgrew them and I liked it. When I outgrew these shirts I kept wearing them until my younger brother grew into them. This would often take about 2 years and the shirt would develop respectable worn marks and tears. My kid brother would eventually wear these clothes after they were thread bare and see-through and he liked it.

  • Wonder if they'll make wireless clothes with a subscription service, Yah never know! Logo changing shirts eh!"
    Yes, just make sure you pay your service bill, or your clothes might disappear at an awkward moment.

  • I can see it now... (Score:4, Funny)

    by krugdm ( 322700 ) <slashdot&ikrug,com> on Saturday August 11, 2001 @10:18AM (#2115027) Homepage Journal
    Know someone you want to see killed? Hire someone to hack into his new turtleneck and set the size to "Petite" and strangle him to death.
  • The spokeswoman says the clothing will even be able to do the same things as the uniforms on the Enterprise. So, uhhh, I guess the jackets will ride up and the shirts will get ripped in fistfights :)
  • ever expanding geeks.... you sign up with service where you give them your calorie consumption habits, and they slowly expand your jeans to keep a perfect fit...

  • Towelly! (Score:1, Funny)

    by CerebusUS ( 21051 )
    I just want my Okama GameSphere.
  • Any man of history, a proper Renaissance man gifted with an intelligence that appraises not just the technical, but the artistic & historical too, will be aware that the first modern political revolutionaries were spawned from the 19th century revolution in the textiles industry in England. We called them the Luddites - they smashed looms with an anti-technological passion first expressed among the Satanic Mills of 19th Century Lancashire.

    Do we really want to bring those days back?

    A man is nothing without a job, unless man has a reason for existence, be it tilling the soil or repetitively inserting screws on an assembly line, he is nothing, for work maketh a man.

    Nanotechnology changes all this - the technology does the work. With this new technology, it looks as though the textiles industry will be the first to suffer once again. Clothes will manufacture themselves, and the honest worker in the clothing industry will become as the ancient hand weavers, non-existent.

    This is the stuff revolutions are made off gentlemen. By supporting nanotechnology you are supporting revolution, both technological and, much more dangerously, social.

    I for one support nanotechnology for I believe it brings the day of revolt closer, the day when we can throw of thw chains of government, corporation and society comes ever closer with ever little gear wheel an MIT professor makes.

    Nanotechnology will change the world, and bring the vision of Trotsky that little bit closer.

    • A man is nothing without a job, unless man has a reason for existence, be it tilling the soil or repetitively inserting screws on an assembly line, he is nothing, for work maketh a man.

      Nanotechnology changes all this - the technology does the work. With this new technology, it looks as though the textiles industry will be the first to suffer once again. Clothes will manufacture themselves, and the honest worker in the clothing industry will become as the ancient hand weavers, non-existent.

      Feh. The degree to which we can coopt a technology for ourselves is the degree to which we remove control from the hands of our masters.

      There's not much we can do to get our hands on our masters' looms, but once the replication is done by nanomites, we've gotten our hands on the machine - the control has moved outward as it did when mainframes gave way to PCs where Linux and the likes were born - the control has moved outward as it did when huge bandwidth went from just a few sites to everyone who could afford cable and DSL and peer to peer file sharing became/is becoming the norm - and when we can capture and successfully reprogram the little knitting machines that comprise a sweater, we'll find a new wealth there as well.

      Don't fear the nanobots. Fear the legislation that will attempt to stop you from using them yourself.

    • A man is nothing without a job, unless man has a reason for existence, be it tilling the soil or repetitively inserting screws on an assembly line, he is nothing, for work maketh a man.

      Wrong.

      Most people hate their jobs, and given the freedom to do whatever they want with their time, they'd turn to other more gratifying activities, such as hobbies, family, travel, writing, painting, or... maybe the orgazmatron. :)

      A work ethic is traditionally valued because it HAD TO BE in order to survive. But once we are able to assemble food from dirt, etc., it won't matter what you DO with your life because the necessities will be essentially free.

      Oh... and a few of those former textile workers' hobbies now might include fashion design... and EVERYONE could then benefit from their [Open Sourced] designs, and only need to repay them with gratitude.

    • A man is nothing without a job

      "It pisses me off every time I think about anybody thinking that work will liberate." --bell hooks
      See also Bob Black's "The Abolition of Work"
      You can find more here:The Zero Work Movement [whywork.org]

    • Luddites ... (Score:3, Informative)

      by ian stevens ( 5465 )
      Luddites - they smashed looms with an anti-technological passion
      I did a research paper on Luddites a while ago where I delved into first-hand accounts of their actions as written in newspaper articles of the time and found that the Luddites were more against poor working conditions which the looms brought about than the looms themselves. The common misconception is that Luddites were anti-technology. This was not necessarily so. The looms were a symbol of oppression which included dangerous working conditions and low wages.

      If I could only find that paper, I'd be able to further argue my point.

      ian.

      • Actually the Luddites were against the technology, because of the social changes that it brought about. ie....luring people off the farms and into the cities, 12-14 hr working days, etc..

    • Well, I'm worried I'll buy a shirt made in a sweatshop and occasionally it'll have "HELP US, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD" in some language on the front and back of my shirt.
    • The future I fear is one where their is unlimited wealth and resources and limited access for society overall to enjoy them. I'm afraid that every task that a human can perform will eventually be automated away. The only people who will enjoy this scenario are the landed and capital holders who made their fortunes while a human still could. As for the unlanded and non capital holding poor, the future will be to either starve or do the most menial and unrewarding of work, no matter what their abilities or inclinations are. What will happen when the working and middle class are completely irrelevant to the production of the very goods and services they need? In America, cheap foreign slave labor is already giving us a small taste of what automation is going to do to us.

      What good will nano-technology do for the poor and middle class when the "Intellectual Property" to make and use it is licensed and locked down? People who are fortunate enough to own land could try living in an efficient and self sufficient manner. The only problem with that being, property taxes demand cold hard cash which you need to be able to provide a good or a service that someone is willing to pay for to acquire it in the first place. So watch as you can't afford to license and activate the nanotech
      that you need to generate revenue to keep the property that you are "renting" from the government.

      As much as I would like to see a Star Trek scenario of infinite wealth and plenty for everyone, I envision a darker future. I think that things will devolve into more of a state of feudalism where society is stratified into classes of haves and have-nots. Not because there isn't enough wealth to go around either. Rather, the people holding the ability to create wealth will never part with the least bit of any of it to give back to the society that enabled them to become wealthy to begin with. Don't get me wrong, I believe that for the time being there are opportunities for enterprizing individuals who are intelligent and willing to work. It's just that I believe that the capitalistic base of laws that we live under today in regards to real and intellectual property are only going to lead to poverty, oppression, and artificial scarcity in the future. Too bad, it doesn't have to be that way. I hope that nanotech does become an enabling resource to the average person like some other posters have suggested. I'd rather live to see that happen than what I think is going to happen.

    • In response to a bunch of socialist crap Give me a break! You socialists had your chance and you screwed it up, so quit whining. All we need is more bomb throwing fanatics on the street.

      You name me one person who actually likes to sit in front of a sewing machine all day for 12 hours a day sewing blouses for some fashion designer in New York city along with the two thousand other slaves, and I buy your argument.

      You sewage souled socialists killed more people in the last century than all of the crusades, holy wars, and barbarian raids combined.

      Trotsky was a murderer, as were his followers!

      What's this about making a virtue of slave labor by calling it honest labor? What in the world happend to the work ethic in socialist countries then? There aint none!

      Give me a time and effort saving device that replaces the ratty slave labor sewn garments I buy at the chain stores any day of the week.

      You want revolt: I find your opinion of technology revolting.

      err... I hope I didn't come on too strong

    • I think you have had enough time to read up on all of your revolutionary idea's because of not breaking your back all day plowing some little tract of land. You would be much better off focusing your energy on the more salient dangers of nanotechnology, namely the grey goo scenario where an uncontrolled nano-replication accidently turns all of the Earth into copies of itself.
      Moreover, I find your idea of revolution to be a little outmoded, Trotsky's Theory of Permanent Revolution [anu.edu.au] was written under a government that did not allow the right to demonstrate. To take the kernal of the idea into today's realities, consider it in idea space. Convince people it's a better way then vote for them. In old style revolutions things tend to get broken, and I for one do not want my things to get broken.
      Go eat your cake.
      • You would be much better off focusing your energy on the more salient dangers of nanotechnology, namely the grey goo scenario where an uncontrolled nano-replication accidently turns all of the Earth into copies of itself.

        Is this still considered a threat, or has it been debunked?

        To me it seems rather like a "worst case scenario" by SF writers. From what I've read on nanotech (Which admittedly is not much but articles.) it seems like building generic little machines is very hard. Sure, you might be able to make a self-replicating machine which can reduce a block of an alloy into a lot of copies of itslef. (No not today.) But unleash it on a lump of dirt and it won't do anything. It can't just magically transform everything into copies of itself. Only the few structures that are suitable for the task.

      • Trotsky's Theory of Permanent Revolution was written under a government that did not allow the right to demonstrate.

        Good thing we have nothing [aclu.org] like that [cnn.com] these days.
        ...

        • Your right, I'm am very sorry. I was reacting from my own conservative political viewpoint. I have not felt the pinch that pushes a nation over the edge.
          Quote:Martynov's implied conclusion is that the working class should impose self-restraint on itself so as not to 'frighten' the bourgeoisie; but at the same time he states that it should persistently press the bourgeoisie to lead the revolution: 'The struggle to influence the course and outcome of the bourgeoisie can be expressed simply in the proletariat's exerting revolutionary pressure on the will of the liberal and radical bourgeoisie, the more democratic 'lower' section of society's compelling the 'higher' section to agree to lead the bourgeois revolution to its logical conclusion.' (A Martynov Dve Diktatury, Geneva, 1905, pp 57-8).
          Do you think the US falls under this category?:
          Dissolving cultures give rise to a powerful urge for a new integration that must be total and dynamic if it is to fill the social and spiritual vacuum, that must combine religious fervour with militant nationalism
          • You know, here's a few more thoughts:
            I wonder if socialism must achieve world domination to succeed lie's in the fact that it's expensive. It cost's money to keep your people healthy, send them to school, and generally do good things for everyone. A lone socialist state is at an economic disadvantage compared to right wing states.
            Another thought, the conditions the G8 is imposing on the third world has a strong projection of actually instilling socialist values in them once they develop fully; they will remember the pain and it's lesson. 70 years from now it might be a whole different ball-game.
            And pity the Taliban, just wait until some biotechnologist develops a 'sanity plague' that suddenly educates them on the dangers of not proceeding with technology.
    • We called them the Luddites - they smashed looms with an anti-technological passion first expressed among the Satanic Mills of 19th Century Lancashire.

      Its a commonly known fact that luddites were more against working conditions in cramped spaces costing about 2 fingers per hour than the technology itself. The term was later picked up and changed into Neo-Luddite which is more or less what you're describing.

      I don't think a Trotsky-esque world will emerge after Nike unleashes underwear that makes farts smell like roses.
    • Maybe you don't get it.

      I hate to quote lunatics, but it was Ross Perot that said "We want jobs to make microchips, not potato chips." The idea is that the higher up on the food chain you are, the better the view.

      The same is true with knowledge: the more you know about the world, its people and how to control it all, the less shit you are forced to eat. Now, a little excrement is consumed by all, but the people with the knowledge get to say who eats the most. Same with any technology: train our people to use it so they are at the top of the food chain.

      Nanotech will be in the hands of those who understand it and can use it. Its benefits will trickle from the haves to the have-nots only if those in the know benefit from it. Capitalism reigns, Trotsky remains dead in Mexico with an axe in the back. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

      My brothers and sisters: the only path to freedom it the one you make for yourself. Learn what other people value, use it industriously and bask in the warm glow of capitalism. Let untrained, unwilling to learn, undisaplined people till the soil and turn the screws.
      • My brothers and sisters: the only path to freedom it the one you make for yourself. Learn what other people value, use it industriously and bask in the warm glow of capitalism. Let untrained, unwilling to learn, undisaplined people till the soil and turn the screws.

        You couldn't be more right. Every inner-city Chicago Tom, Dick and Jerome who hasn't ever had the opportunity to even -touch- a PC by the time they graduate from high-school has only himself to blame for not capitalizing on the big Internet revolution.

  • Too bad Douglas Adams is gone, he would have incorporated THHGTTG into the towel...
  • So they'll be able to track you, not only will they know where you go, who you're with, but they'll know when you violate good fashion sense.

  • I hope we can control this stuff remotely (Score:3, Funny)

    by billcopc ( 196330 ) <vrillco@yahoo.com> on Saturday August 11, 2001 @10:42AM (#2117997) Homepage
    Red to Blue cloths, sizes going from bigger to smaller.

    How about an IR-remote that changes baggy t-shirts into semi-sheer micro-bikinis ? :)
    • ...until someone inadvertently uses it on Aunt Martha instead of the cute, petite college girl walking next to her. Just think of the damage to society you could cause with one of those things.
  • I wonder how long it will take before we will all be wearing one AlwaysClean(tm) Wrinkle-B-Gone(tm) T-shirt for your entire life, having it change color, shape, texture, even brand-name as fads come and go... It's going to be great!

    • If we have self-cleaning, color changing, size-shifting shirts, what am I going to do with all my trade show accumulated shirts from now-defunct .com's that come in the "one size fits all - or else" XL? I have shirts I haven't even worn yet. From 1996....

      tim
      • If we have self-cleaning, color changing, size-shifting shirts, what am I going to do with all my trade show accumulated shirts from now-defunct .com's that come in the "one size fits all - or else" XL? I have shirts I haven't even worn yet. From 1996....

        Instead of giving you a t-shirt those now-defunct dotcom's would have given you a license to wear their logo.

        The subscription service will not be for wireless service, it will be for designs and logos and phrases. Want to show off your enjoyment of the latest boy-band? Buy a license for their logo and go download their mod for your shirt. (aside: if it was named similar to winamp, would that be licensing a new "skin" for your shirt?)

        Personally, i prefer to make my own shirts [blackant.net], though making a silk screen for one or two shirts is a laborious process and CafePress [cafepress.com] just doesn't cut it (industrial iron-on? *shudder*). A technology whereby i can easily show off a new design would be nice.

        Clothes that change colour reminds me of Rorschach from Watchmen [dccomics.com].

  • First, random hackers attacked my severs.
    Then, random friends hacked my server.
    Now, they'll hack my pants? I can just imagine walking in a room, and having my pants get 10 sizes bigger and falling off. Or, when I'm out on a date with my girl, porno videos start playing on my shirt. I can imagine the first T-Shirt eMail virus now...

    Joe User gets his email
    **ATTN!** NEW TSHIRT DESIGN JUST 4 U!!
    Joe User downloads new_tshirt.tsht to his shirt
    Joe User's T-shirt starts sending out more mail viri and then catches fire

    Or, your shirt could be rented out as ad space to any advertiser who could pay...JUST THINK OF THE POSIBILITIES!

    No, really, I dont hate tech, I just hate people!

  • Could be embarrassing if you're out in public when you forget to renew your subscription and the clothes disappear.
  • Did anyone see South Park this past week? Trey, ever the visionary had the RS 450 SMART Towel, with synthetic fibers to fluff itself to adjust to the users level of wetness. Embedded chips and everything...

    Oh, and the towel likes to get high [southparkstudios.com]
  • sizes going from bigger to smaller...
    If only my body worked that way.

    Salesman: Work, huh? Let me guess. Computer programmer, computer magazine columnist, something with computers?
    Homer: Well, I use a computer.
    Salesman: [quietly, to self] Yeah, what's the connection? Must be the non-stop sitting and snacking.
    -- [3F05] "King-Size Homer"
  • Until the porn industry finds a way to exploit this.
    • Bras that sense sagging breasts and lift and separate automatically?
      • What about non-sagging breasts? Inter-cellular nanites which monitor and adjust the callogen content of breast tissue could be a rather interresting mod. The first sales guy who opens the door on that one will have foot prints all over him women firght over the product. Or am I wrong?
  • i hate to slag, but this isn't really announcing anything new. this is the same kind of gee whiz article that pops up from time to time letting us know that a couple little developments have taken place and then going on and on for paragraphs about how cool smart clothes will be once they get here.

  • Baby pajamas could be fashioned with a cellphone, so anxious parents could call home from the theater to listen to their infant's breathing, check his heart rate or even sing a lullaby.

    Oh great, I can see it now; "Little Johnny's stopped breathing, we better get home and check him". heh, and all from a wrong phone number. oops.

  • Yeah, the fashion designers would be suing everyone.

    I see a nice suit design I like, program the material to stretch and shrink in the right places, and presto -- my outfit looks just like what I saw. Armani sees this and sends a pack of lawyers after me. I press a few keystrokes, it is now a shark fighting suit.

  • From the article:

    Baby pajamas could be fashioned with a cellphone, so anxious parents could call home from the theater to listen to their infant's breathing, check his heart rate or even sing a lullaby.

    English translation:

    Rather than being involved in their childrens' development and well-being, yuppie parents can simply rely even further on technology to be their babysitter. And as if their cell phones ringing during a movie wasn't bad enough, now they can be annoying at a whole new level by singing in the theatre!

    That's it. I'm never going outside again.

  • Does the CIA fund this? (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The last time I checked, MIT got a lot of funding from the Government.

    I bet some of it is from the TLAs. Do they have any involvement in the development of this technolgoy? I can see it now:

    TOP SECRET//NOPORN//ULTIMAC

    Classified by: X33

    Declassify on: X1

    Codeword: Astro Media

    Subject: Embedded Surveillance in Clothing

    Date: August 11, 2001

    To date, our research in digital clothing and embedding of complex circuitry has been hampered by the ultra-liberal activities of the MIT Media Lab and those employeed. There is no indication that they suspect our involvement. DSA is investigating but has not uncovered any leaks.

    With the recent discussion on the ultra-liberal, communist, open source site, Slashdot (www.slashdot.org), the redirection of our efforts appears to be successful. Our ultimate goals (and our financing of the efforts) have apparently been successful.

    The current goals are as follows:

    1. implement commercial features (size chages, color changes, and the like)
    2. develop passive tracking using passive embedded microwave responders
    3. create active tracking using embedded GPS
    4. implement active audio monitoring using sub-vocal detectors such as those around the throat
    5. prototype active video systems
    6. create active systems that can resize portions by 50% at a repetitive frequency of about 0.5 Hz (this will stimulate the use of our technologies by the skum of scoiety and the PORN industry)

    Believe it! Its real. Its here now. The TLAs are behind it. Watch yourselves! Is that new shirt really just a shirt?

  • Never get caught wearing the wrong gang colors in the wrong hood ... wessyyyyyde!!

    sTrAiN
  • "The clothes that we wear might not look like the uniforms on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise, but they will be able to do the same things," DuPont product manager Stacey Burr says.

    Hmm... shirts that come with a toggle switch that flips the integral girdle and chestplate from "buff" to "buxum" depending on your gender?
  • Imagine how great this will be for a night out: No more worries about dress codes, your clothes will always match to the club you're in!
  • Just imagine, you walk into Radio Shack, and your tshirt turns into a huge X10 ad...
  • the thought of pop-under ads in my jeans... whooo hooooo
  • Now I can wear a t-shirt of whatever team is winning at the moment and say I've had it since before they were big!

  • I keep seeing you guys post "Oh, haha, let's make clothes that you can hack to turn into a micro-bikini or see-through..."

    Screw that,what about the big hairy Yeti-rednecks with a gut hanging five inches over the waist of their jeans and a wife beater tanktop. Can you hack these things to cover that UP and keep people from going blind?

    I'm not sure, but you might even be able to get federal funds to research doing that as a community service.

  • have your shirt display some kinda winamp visualation plugin (like geiss, etc) and watch them trip out. "whoa, dude is changin colors... or is it the acid?" too bad it looks like phish isn't coming back tho...
  • ...companies making micropayments to people who wear t-shirts with their logo on it?

    The shirt could track exactly how long the logo was worn, and you get $.01 per minute or something like that. The current marketing slogan would always be on the shirt.

    That might be the one thing that would get me to wear a non-plain shirt.

    Of course, how long before people hack the shirts and get Nike to drop $1M into their account? LOL

    ~Philly

    • You'd better hope the clothing doesn't involve too much targeted advertising.

      There'd be nothing quite like seeing an ad for Viagra flash across your girlfriend's ass right as you're undressing her to be intimate for the first time. (At least there she might not notice it...)

  • This plus sweat-eating bacteria:

    http://slashdot.org/science/01/07/06/0356218_F.s ht ml

    means some people may NEVER change their clothes!

  • Wow - and I just started reading The Diamond Age [barnesandnoble.com] this week.
  • My dad works for dupont as a ChemE...
    i wonder if he can get my first dibs on some prototypes.[right]
    i'll resell them to any slashdotters, for a price.
  • Just what I needed, banner ads on my underwear. Will there be any way to block porn sites? Maybe disable cookies?
  • Ever notice how clothes with a corporate logo tend to be more expensive than non-logo-wear clothing? I mean, compare a plain ol' gray Hanes t-shirt to one that has "Tommy" plastered on the chest.

    Now, imagine the price difference if, instead of just one logo, the shirt could display one of ten at any given moment. That sounds like justification for the clothing makers to charge ten times the price to me.

    Of course, these clothes could be CHEAPER instead of more expensive (free advertising and all), but the average consumer is just so gullible...

  • If my washer talked to my clothes, it would promptly shut the door and lock itself in...
  • The stupidest idea in the history of the world.

    If I want portable computing devices, I would rather have them just small, cheap, light, with long battery life. If I want to "wear" them, that's what I have pockets for.

    The only things I might want to wear would be a display on my eyeglasses, or something in the form of a wristwatch. Fuck anything else.

  • I can already see the Marty McFly's of the world, walking around pulling up the sleeves of their one-size-fits-all coats because they don't know to hit the patch that fits the coat to their body.

    But I can already see the controversy over people downloading graphics for their nanotech t-shirts on the internet. Today, we're downloading Metallica mp3's. Tomorrow we'll be downloading Metallica t-shirts. Oh well, we'll just hack James's t-shirt to read "I Sold Out" during the press conference to announce he and and [whatever equivelent of the RIAA for nanotech t-shirt designs will be] are filing a lawsuit against Textilester.

  • I'll bet the kids in school would have some fun with one of these babies. If you could customize the logos and whatnot on your shirt, you could put all kinds of funny stuff on there while the teacher has their back turned to you. Soon as you start getting too much attention and the teacher looks, you just switch it.

    I wonder how long before they'd come up with rules stating you couldn't change the look of your shirt in school, or that you couldn't wear any nanoclothes that can be customized...

  • The Hype vs The Reality (Score:3, Insightful)

    by InfoVore ( 98438 ) on Saturday August 11, 2001 @11:29AM (#2146020) Homepage

    The Hype: Nanotech clothes are coming!!!

    The Reality: Some innovations are being explored in the textile industry. Some of these are very good ideas (sports socks that absorb bacterial odors). Some of these are very bad ideas (a jacket with built in cell phone and mp3 player. where do I put the batteries? what if I want to wear a different jacket?)

    The one thing that intrigues me about the article is not that big companies like DuPont are exploring new "smart" textiles, it is that the popular media has absorbed the idea that molecular nanotechnology is coming and is going to be a Big Thing. The idea of smart clothing is no surprise to anyone who read Drexler's ENGINES OF CREATION back in the late 80's, or for that matter anyone who reads a fair amount of SF, or has the least bit of technical knowledge and imagination. I find it simply fascinating and funny that popular culture is "discovering" these ideas many decades after they were first proposed.

    What is even funnier is that the jounalists and speculators are making the same innane impractical speculations they have always made. Baby pajamas with a built in cell phone? Get a life. Remember these are the successors of those visionaries in the 50's and 60's who said we all would be driving nuclear cars, flying personal helicopters, and using too-cheap-to-meter electricity by now. Yeah, right.

    There were many good ideas mentioned in the article. I hope that Nano-Tex, et. al. are able to bring out some of these products: Bio-monitoring clothing, color/pattern changing cloth, variable permiability cloth, etc.

    Just do us all a favor. Leave the cell phones out of it.

    IV

    • Decades ago when things like these were being proposed, there were enormous leaps in technology required thus the ideas being the domain of Science Fiction. As you very well know, science fiction can become well understood technology and when the technology is close enough to make future preductions believable for the population, that is when the popular media will catch on. This is despite the fact that the true state of technology may be far from achieving the goal, it is only the perception of the media thinking that it is getting very close.
    • a jacket with built in cell phone and mp3 player. where do I put the batteries? what if I want to wear a different jacket?

      "Yeah...I know it's 12 degrees out, but I'm expecting a phonecall, that's why I'm just wearing a windbreaker."
    • Not to mention the possible problem of getting this wet and frying the wearer.
  • You'd never have to worry about incontinence because your clothes cold eat anything excreted. You could have built in pacemakers and biometric monitors. Nobody (male or female)m would ever have to "stuff" anything again--just set the parameters and be any size you want.

  • In New York, technology start-up Sensatex Inc. hopes to roll out an athletic T-shirt that will monitor heart rate, track body temperature and respiration and count how many calories the wearer is burning. It could even warn of a potential heart attack or heat prostration. Such a shirt might have prevented the recent death from heatstroke of football player Korey Stringer, the company says.

    Korey Stringer was well aware that he was very exhausted. He vomited several times during the practice the day before he died. He was pushing himself to beyond his limits and he knew it. A special shirt wouldn't have helped anything.

  • Hehe, just imagine it. 9/10ths of the population in clever-clothes and a virus strikes that makes everyones clothes all simultaneously go see-through. Ok, ok don't tell me you'll didn't think of that.
  • Having content delivered to your shirt gives new meaning to shrink-wrap licensing.

    Seriously though.. This is a step towards the future we all abhor: One where everything is licensed. Sure, it starts out simple, then the shirt gets an IPv6 address, and starts calling home, and before you know it, you're only allowed to wash a shirt 10 times before you have to choose between it calling home or being called home.
  • "Uh, sir, XYZ." "Oh, thanks." *zips up zipper* *A kid laughs on the other side of the store* *zips up zipper again* *again* *again* "Argv! Cursed nanoworm!"

  • Great... (Score:4, Funny)

    by ryanvm ( 247662 ) on Saturday August 11, 2001 @10:24AM (#2146858)
    Now I'll have to listen to my towels saying:
    Oh man, I'm so high I don't even know what's going on.

    Hint: It's not funny if you didn't see last week's South Park - and it's probably not funny even if you did.

  • That's nothing! (Score:4, Funny)

    by prototype ( 242023 ) <bsimser@shaw.ca> on Saturday August 11, 2001 @10:30AM (#2146916) Homepage
    I already have clothes that change sizes, fade and come pre-wrinkled. It's called being a bachelor. Why would I want some Borg technology injected into my laundry heap to do this? There's already something crawling inside of it, I just don't know what yet.

    liB

  • Most things get hacked, this wont be any different. The GPS tracker will let everyone know where your child is, and the colour-changing fabric will be changed every time you walk down the street. And companies will fight to gator your label-patch with their logo's. On the plus side, imagine - chicks, transparency setting-crack and bra-cleavage-adjuster-bug. And maybe someone will get around to fixing the bra_unhook interface..

    -tfga
  • anyone remember Back to the Future II? Marty got clothes too large - no problem - and they were the right size. Same thing when he got wet - no problem. Would be cool to have that kinda clothes :)

  • GPS in the collar? (Score:4, Funny)

    by gnovos ( 447128 ) <gnovos@ c h i p p e d . net> on Saturday August 11, 2001 @10:51AM (#2151487) Homepage Journal
    At least now the arrow underneath my "I'm with Stupid" shirt will always be pointing in the right direction...

  • From the article: A GPS unit could locate a wandering Alzheimer's patient.

    Or a wandering spouse...

  • Drying jacket.. VRRRRRRRRRRRRRR Your jacket is now dry!

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