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Toys Technology

Chic Gear to Suit Net Generation 208

Posted by michael from the wearing-out-your-welcome dept.
Roland Piquepaille writes "In this article, BBC News Online says that fashion specialists and engineers are preparing the next generation of wearable computing fashion accessories. Current ones are too conspicuous and expensive. Joseph Dvorak, a researcher at Motorola US, predicts the computers and technology we wear in four or five years time will not draw attention to ourselves. And Dr. Dianne Jones from textile company SOFTswitch, maker of the Burton Amp jacket which integrates an Apple iPod, thinks that the wearable computing industry will grow rapidly. She says that in ten years, 20% of our clothes will incorporate some kind of electronic components. This summary contains more details and references."
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Chic Gear to Suit Net Generation More

Chic Gear to Suit Net Generation

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  • I'm a skeptic. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by grub ( 11606 ) <slashdot@grub.net> on Thursday September 11, 2003 @08:19AM (#6929775) Homepage Journal

    She says that in ten years, 20% of our clothes will incorporate some kind of electronic components.

    Unless she's including RFID tags, that 20% figure sounds far too high. I can't believe that one-fifth of socks, pants, underwear, shirts, etc will contain electronic components in 10 short years.

    Also, how will all these clothes be cleaned? Will they be safe to throw in our 2003 "stone age" washing machines when 2013 rolls around?

    • Re:I'm a skeptic. (Score:5, Funny)

      by TopShelf ( 92521 ) * on Thursday September 11, 2003 @08:24AM (#6929821) Homepage Journal
      Also, how will all these clothes be cleaned?

      I'm sure Symantec will come up with something...

      • Re:I'm a skeptic. (Score:2, Insightful)

        by grub ( 11606 )

        Well, the person quoted works for SOFTswitch, the manufacturer of the fabric. I don't doubt they'll come up with a proprietary detergent needed to clean their fabrics without harm.

        She has a vested interest in making this fabric's future sound inevitable. Certainly it is coming but consider the source when reading fawning quotes.

      • subscription laundry detergent (Score:5, Funny)

        by SuperBanana ( 662181 ) on Thursday September 11, 2003 @08:29AM (#6929862)
        I'm sure Symantec will come up with something...

        Yeah. The world's first yearly-subscription laundry detergent.

        • so "patching your clothes" will have an entirely new meaning, i suppose.

          think of the new meanings to other expressions, though:

          1. emperor's new clothes--windows security.

          2. "threadbare"--you should really update the BIOS on that old concert jersey.

          3. "flash"-anything--ick. or potentially, "oo", depending on the wearer... ;>

          ed
    • Dry cleaning [imdb.com], man; it's the wave of the future.
      I like having technology at hand, but I also don't like having it touching me.
      Given the complexity of human life, I wonder if all of these gadgets will be a modern lead pipe
      The hyperlink on 'pipe' looks clogged:
      http://www.nipissingu.ca/department/history/muhlbe rger/orb/lead.htm

    • Re:I'm a skeptic. (Score:3, Interesting)

      by watzinaneihm ( 627119 )
      Or maybe she is saying that we will be wearing 20% more dresses. A large (though probably not 20%) percentage of the US and Europe has cellphones, and I would assume they carry it round with them. It would be great if one could integrate it into clothing, maybe removably , just a new pocket with wires running into it would do. Include handhelds, mp3 players and even a small computer and there is a large market of applicances which can possibly be integrated into clothes. Add vision goggles and probably your

      • Re:I'm a skeptic. (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Rogerborg ( 306625 )

        So, your great plan for next gen clothing is... the pocket?

        If only you had a time machine, you could go back to 1998, start a .com, and cash out before the crash.

    • Also, how will all these clothes be cleaned?

      Geeks don't clean their clothes.

    • Not to mention the fairly fundamental and kind-of-related question: "Can it be worn in the rain?" (or snow) because if the answer to that is no, it might be an idea to go back to the drawing board.

      Also, how will all these clothes be cleaned?

      A very valid question considering the cleanliness of the type of people most likely to be attracted to these clothes ;-)
    • Really, Michael J. Fox tried to tell us this in the 80's in BttF3. ;) Self-cleaning and self-sizing jacket, self-tying shoes... very cool. ;)
      • Really, Michael J. Fox tried to tell us this in the 80's in BttF3

        That's Back To The Future II.

        In the third movie they go back to the old west. Cowboys and whatnot. Its in the second movie that they have the power-lace nike sneakers and the auto-fit auto-dry talking jacket.
    • This is terrible. Having computers in clothes will just set off primitive alarms in huge department and food stores.
      This will give sleezy creepy $8/hour 'security guards' an excuse to take female customers into back rooms and strip search them in lieu of threats, detainment, or arrest.
      Sure, if you're rich, you can sue, threaten, or avoid stores with oppressive and primitive alarm systems (like Fred Meyer).
      But if you're not rich, it's just one more mean stupid thing that the technological community
      • That's ok, we already thought of that: The poor won't be able to afford these clothes.

        But we don't want them to feel left out, either, so we've created these handy ID-tracker collars for them... they're very hip, urban, and fashionable.
      • This is probably a troll, but it is something that many people are not aware of so I will respond to it.

        At first, I thought perhaps you were living outside of the U.S. but then I saw you reference Fred Meyer, a west coast chain. Hired security are not officers of the law. They are not allowed to carry firearms, and the only badge they sport is their security company's logo, and maybe their name tag.

        They do not have the authority to detain you, unless you have been seen, either with video survelliance or

        • I should add to this, shop lifting is two things. Being seen taking a product, and leaving the store with it, without claiming it at the checkout stand. Putting product in your pockets is not grounds for detainment, as you can always claim you were going to pay for it. It is only when you leave the premise with the unpurchased product that they have seen you take, that you can be detained under citizens arrest provisions (where they will often try to make a "deal" with you) and when an officer of the law ar
      • > This will give sleezy creepy $8/hour 'security guards' an excuse to take female
        > customers into back rooms and strip search them in lieu of threats, detainment,
        > or arrest.

        This is in reply to just this point, and thus is now off topic, and nothing to do with the thread.. but:

        Those security guards.. or anyone that works at the store.. They are NOT allowed to physically touch you or force you to do anything legally.
        They may be able to attempt to prevent you from leaving the store by, say, holdi
        • Just FYI, if you have witnessed them committing a misdemeanor (shoplifting?) or have reason to believe they have committed a felony, you can then execute a citizen's arrest. At this point you have the right to use "necessary force" to detain the person you are arresting, just like a cop. Also, resisting arrest carries the same penalty as if you are a cop, and furthermore, anyone interfering is subject to the same penalties as if you were a cop.

          Of course the flip side is that a wrongful arrest suit could c

    • Clearly not for the Slashdot audience (Score:4, Funny)

      by mblase ( 200735 ) on Thursday September 11, 2003 @09:04AM (#6930159)
      Joseph Dvorak, a researcher at Motorola US, predicts the computers and technology we wear in four or five years time will not draw attention to ourselves.

      Heck, what's the point of being a geek if your wearable gear doesn't draw attention?

    • Re:I'm a skeptic. (Score:3, Insightful)

      by iainl ( 136759 )
      Forget cleaning, I'm more concerned with replacing things.

      Right now, I can stick my PDA, Walkman, Phone and watch (or even leave behind those bits I'm not needing) in the pockets of any item of clothing with pockets big enough to store them. This way, I only need one of each, and replace the one component that needs to be done if it breaks or is replaced with a better model.

      Stick it all built into clothes, and you've not only massively increased the price of the clothes, but I need to worry about which ja

  • Oh, great... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Thjorska ( 694711 ) on Thursday September 11, 2003 @08:20AM (#6929785) Homepage Journal
    If the impending war against machines wasn't bad enough, now we're gonna have to do it naked.

  • ahh dvorak (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 11, 2003 @08:21AM (#6929795)
    Didn't he also say that in four to five years, everyone would be using his keyboards? We see how well THAT turned out.

    • Re:ahh dvorak (Score:3, Insightful)

      by smittyoneeach ( 243267 )
      My completely untestable theory is that you really need to be an order of magnitude "better" than whatever currently exists in order to overcome the static friction of the end user.
      People hate the current state of affairs less than they hate change.

    • Re:ahh dvorak (Score:2, Informative)

      by mclaugh ( 130321 )
      RTA- wrong Dvorak.
      The Dvorak (Joseph) in the article works for Motorola, while the Dvorak you are referencing (John Dvorak) writes for a PC mag.

      • I don't think he was referring to John Dvorak either...

        • Joseph Dvorak in the article works for Motorola
        • John Dvorak is the PC columnist
        • August Dvorak is the designer of the alternative keyboard layout
        • Antonin Dvorak is the classical music composer.
    • Wrong Dvorak.

      But lets see how this one turns out. Clothing is getting more revealing, and at the same time we want to incorporate technology into it?

      Fit an ipod in a gstring if you expect anyone to be wearing it by 2013 :P

      Cuz thats all girls will be wearing! If that!
    • I know you're trolling....

      ...but I use Dvorak.

  • It has to be asked....? (Score:3, Funny)

    by troc ( 3606 ) <[troc] [at] [mac.com]> on Thursday September 11, 2003 @08:22AM (#6929807) Homepage Journal
    I guess this means we'd be wearing a Beowulf cluster?
    Interesting, it would mean computing power was greater in winter with more clothing layers.

    Sorry for using "interesting" and Beowulf cluster" in the same post.

    Troc

  • hmm (Score:4, Funny)

    by kurosawdust ( 654754 ) on Thursday September 11, 2003 @08:25AM (#6929829)
    i wont be convinced until I have a pair of nano-khakis that don't force me to "shake" for three goddamn minutes after I take a piss

    • Re:hmm (Score:3, Funny)

      by sczimme ( 603413 )

      Three minutes of "shaking"?

      I do not think it means what you think it means.
    • You know what they say, if you shake it more than twice you're playing with it.

      Alternately, if your dick is dripping that much, I don't think shaking is the answer. Consider intravenous penicillin.

  • Clothes (Score:2, Funny)

    by mrsev ( 664367 )
    I guess we need to update the story of the emperors new clothes to include vapourware, coredumps and segmentation faults.

  • ... Why ? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Shiifty ( 704247 ) on Thursday September 11, 2003 @08:26AM (#6929836) Homepage
    Why would you want to 'wear' a computer? There are very few of us who need to stay connected 24/7. And how do you wash the clothes? I don't want someone able to track me wherever I go (not that I'm hiding anything lol)

    Seriously, PDA's are really coming along, in a couple years you'll have a fully functional computer inside a PDA with free wireless and everything you need. And if you need to hide for a while, its easy to 'forget' your computer in the house or car. You can't really do that with clothing.

    • You see, I'm addicted to information.

      And also, I just want the tech developed so I can have a wearable display. My ultimate goal is to be fed intravenously while lying in a bed with half a keyboard under each hand. I need the wearable display.
    • And if you need to hide for a while, its easy to 'forget' your computer in the house or car. You can't really do that with clothing.

      I heard this argument a lot from friends who don't (or didn't) have cell phones - "But I don't want to always answer the phone!"

      I have a cell phone. I even leave it turned on all the time (good standby time, and I plug it in every night). Guess what, tho - I don't always answer it. I let calls come in, I look at the caller ID, and I answer it or let it go to voice mail. The

    • " Why would you want to 'wear' a computer? There are very few of us who need to stay connected 24/7."

      I would ask why WOULDN'T you? If you could have easy access to the internet or your files whereever you went, and didn't need to carry a handheld constantly, it would be a godsend. Not to mention I have an almost fetish-like fantasy for becoming a gargoyle like the ones in Snowcrash.

    • "Why would you want to 'wear' a computer?"

      Because you live north of the Arctic Circle and the computer you'd be wearing has an AMD processor.

  • Wow! From 0% to 20%. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by 110010001000 ( 697113 ) on Thursday September 11, 2003 @08:26AM (#6929838) Homepage Journal
    From 0% to 20% in ten years? That means about 220 million articles of clothing will be produced in the year 2013 for sale in the U.S. market alone.

    Riiight.

    Its amazing how much these researchers get blinders on and inflate the importance of their research. There must be a term for this.
    • That means about 220 million articles of clothing will be produced in the year 2013 for sale in the U.S. market alone.

      And? There are almost 300 million people in America. I expect that number to grow by quite a bit by the year 2013. If each of those people purchase only ONE item of clothing in a year, they will need to make a lot more than 220 million articles of clothing in 2013.

      Even if you're referring to 20% cyber-clothing being 220 million articles, that doesn't sound exorbitant. That would assume
    • Its amazing how much these researchers get blinders on and inflate the importance of their research. There must be a term for this.

      "Research Grant Application"
    • Nah. They probably meant to say production will be up 20% from where it's at today. Since production is at 0 today, add 20% to find that it will still be at 0 in ten years. And ten years past that, expect production to increase by a mind numbing 8000%, all the way up to 0.

  • Wow... (Score:3, Funny)

    by HiQ ( 159108 ) on Thursday September 11, 2003 @08:27AM (#6929847)
    A computer in my clothes.. Talk about a dress code!

  • she's an expert? (Score:5, Funny)

    by sbma44 ( 694130 ) on Thursday September 11, 2003 @08:27AM (#6929850)
    And Dr. Dianne Jones from textile company SOFTswitch, maker of the Burton Amp jacket which integrates an Apple iPod, thinks that the wearable computing industry will grow rapidly. She says that in ten years, 20% of our clothes will incorporate some kind of electronic components.

    um... sewing an ipod-sized pocket into a jacket somehow makes her an expert on trends in embedded systems?

    Well hell, I can fit five AA cells in my mouth -- I say in 6 months we'll all be living underwater on the moon!

    Now where's my consulting fee?

  • All together now... (Score:5, Funny)

    by HarveyBirdman ( 627248 ) on Thursday September 11, 2003 @08:29AM (#6929859) Journal
    Take a deep breath.

    Let it out slowly.

    Now chant.

    "It's OK to spend part of my day away from computers and the Internet."

    Repeat as necessary.

    Wiggle your toes and clench your buttocks if that helps. Actually, that's good advice for any time of day.

    • >"It's OK to spend part of my day away from computers and the Internet."

      Yeah, you say that. I'm not taking the risk.

    • I don't personally see the public using the internet on wearable devices as we use it at home today. I suspect we'll be using more automated services ala mlife (is it just me or do you see "milf" every time you see that name, too?) In other words, you won't interact with web pages directly except when you can't avoid it, some kind of automated agent will do it for you, and give you the results in some format more convenient for mobile use.

  • ISWC 2003 (Score:5, Informative)

    by Tekmage ( 17375 ) on Thursday September 11, 2003 @08:30AM (#6929865) Homepage

    On a related note, the International Symposium on Wearable Computing [iswc.net] is being held this October 21-23 in White Plains, NY.

    One of these days I'll attend one...

  • In the wash.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by adeyadey ( 678765 ) on Thursday September 11, 2003 @08:32AM (#6929886) Journal
    Now wheres my mobile phone?
    Oh damn its in the wash..

  • What I want (Score:4, Interesting)

    by bmongar ( 230600 ) on Thursday September 11, 2003 @08:33AM (#6929889)
    What I want out of wearable computing is an eyepiece or specs that connect to a pda/computer wirelessly that overlays what I see with information.
    Doing things like facial recognition and putting people's names under them and maybe some information you wanted to remember about them. Like 'don't ask john about his wife'.
    • I was thinking you could have glasses with a mems actuated mirror at the hinge location and either just use pupil tracking or put a contact lens over the eye and use it for aiming and perhaps for reflecting the image to your eye. Furthermore you could probably build the mems scanning mirrors into the contact lens, though how you would power them I'm not sure. Perhaps with a tiny photovoltaic cell, but I doubt they're efficient enough for that at this point.

  • Bugs of the future (Score:5, Funny)

    by ArmenTanzarian ( 210418 ) on Thursday September 11, 2003 @08:33AM (#6929893) Homepage Journal
    It appears that your boxers are out of date, there exists a security hole that could allow your wang to show. A patch exists that could repair them, would you like to install it?

    OK

    Always Trust the Microsoft Corporation

    I've been violated

  • I bet they don't (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Moderation abuser ( 184013 ) on Thursday September 11, 2003 @08:33AM (#6929894)
    Tenner, anyone?

    Integrating electronics into clothing gives you a many to many problem, you have to be wearing this for that to work etc. Then there's the batteries, washing, changes in fashion, worn out clothing etc.

    The ability to stick this electronic device into that pocket gives you a many to one relationship and will remove any market demand for integrated devices. In fact they are a disfeature[1].

    [1] Is that a real word? Go on, pedants you know you want to look it up for me.

    • Re:I bet they don't (Score:2, Interesting)

      by rabbitfood ( 586031 )
      "..., you have to be wearing this for that to work etc. Then there's the batteries, washing, changes in fashion, worn out clothing etc." Assuming a 'thin-client' model, this mightn't be a problem. Energy could be supplied ambiently (thermal or kinetic), washing can be done using supercritical CO2, fashion is probably irrelevant to the target market and well-built clothing typically has a lifespan greater or equal to 5 years in normal use. What you haven't taken into account is the inevitability of moth-bo
  • She says that in ten years, 20% of our clothes will incorporate some kind of electronic components.

    Hopefully she isn't referring to RFID tags
  • Current ones are too conspicuous and expensive. And geeky!!!
  • "Joseph Dvorak, a researcher at Motorola US, predicts the computers and technology we wear in four or five years time will not draw attention to ourselves."

    He may be good at technology integration, however, he doesn't understand anything about fashion...

    The more noticable, the better. However, it needs to be still comfortable and wearable. There is a difference between his picture and mine. When will we get solar-cell fabrics?

  • Read the article's caption... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Dirk Pitt ( 90561 ) on Thursday September 11, 2003 @08:35AM (#6929924) Homepage
    I didn't know the BBC could so easily master the venerable Russia-style joke:

    Wearing technology or technology wearing you?

  • What a playground for hackers/crackers!

  • Imagine an LCD-like dress that can be easily reprogrammed to show any combination of colors and image. I would like to be free from a fashion dictated by somebody else then me.

    From a techincal point of view, a shirt calculating your blood pressure , sugar or alcool level in your blood and other medical parameters would be a very valuable tool, as long as it doesn't also broadcast the data like the nasty RDIF tag in theory could.

  • Phillips Design (Score:2, Informative)

    by datawar ( 200705 )
    The Design group [phillips.com] @ Phillips [phillips.com] have been thinking about wearable electronics for a long time. Check out their webpage for it: http://www.design.philips.com/what_we_do/research_ projects/wearable_electronics.asp [philips.com].

    They published a super-cool book called New Nomads [philips.com] a few years back where they propose some interesting ideas. The book is reeeeeeally hard to find, [you have to order it directly from 010 Publishing from the Netherlands], but the ideas in it, as well as how it is made is way interesting... It even ha

  • Ob joke (Score:4, Funny)

    by frozenray ( 308282 ) on Thursday September 11, 2003 @08:42AM (#6929980)
    "Is that a 30 GHz Opteron beowulf cluster in your pants or are you just glad to see me"?
  • Shirt. Pants. Skivvies. Left Sock. Right Sock.

    How many people carry one or more of the following devices with them in a pocket or attached to their beltloop nearly all of the time:
    * PDA
    * pager
    * mobile phone
    * music player (LP/walk/disc man, MP3/Ogg, whatever)
    * Gameboy

    That's 20% ladies and gentlemen. Please deposit $10 consulting fee in that slot in your computer. I collect them using the Internet.

  • An iPod built into a jacket?? You have to wear the jacket whenever you want to use the iPod! What if it goes out of style?

    How about a network-aware wireless microdrive stitched into your wallet, to hold your personal data, PIM info, and for temporary file storage? Now that's useful.

  • I will get a cell phone. Not all tech people are obsessed with this crap.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • While to go yet (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ianscot ( 591483 ) on Thursday September 11, 2003 @08:52AM (#6930063)
    Take a look at any cell phone belt clip. Our on-call phone has a lame (p)leather-and-plastic cover on it that bulks up the relatively sleek little phone, making the surface squishy to hold and dial. It's the IT Support Guy's version of plumber's butt, that phone.

    Went to CompUSA and looked at the only armband they have for my iPod. It's a huge, too-wide band of stretch fabric with the same stupid black leather-and-plastic cover over the iPod itself. Black? Bulky? Did they notice the iPod itself is white and pretty danged sleek? I wanted something that'd be like a watchband to wear, and they gave me scuba gear.

    Take a look at technologies that are more mature, and you have a different level of refinement altogether. Binoculars, high end ones, really do give a rip about balance, the strap design distributing weight, and every little detail of focus speed and so on. My Swarovskis cost just under a grand retail, and every little detail of their design reflects thought about how you can use them for days at a time in comfort. No ostentation, just good design.


  • She says that in ten years, 20% of our clothes will incorporate some kind of electronic components.

    Has anybody thought about the cost of washing this stuff. It already costs an arm and a leg to get stuff drycleaned. If I could afford these clothes, the washing bill would finish off my bank account.

  • In some respects I see this happening... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Chanc_Gorkon ( 94133 ) <gorkon.gmail@com> on Thursday September 11, 2003 @09:00AM (#6930125)
    I bought a ScottEVest and I have been immensely happy with the purchase. The only way it looks real geeky is if I am wearing it in the summer with shorts or using it as a vest and even that is not bad. When the sleeves are on it is great. Very non geek. The PAN conduits are a great idea. Almost every pocket has a hole for the pan. Some pockets can be 2 pockets or one pocket depending on your use. My one pocket in the front of the jacket holds both my Walkman (for radio) and my MP3 Player. There's a strip of velcro sealed and it separates the two and prevents them from clanking together. When I want to switch, I pull out the one I want to plug into and pull the plug out of theon still in the pocket, Plug the headphones in, start it and put it back in. I am using regular headphones until I find some COMFORTABLE ear buds. Most buds are either too small or to big. I have found none that are adjustable.

    For my GPS, I have a Radio Shack digitraveler and I run it's cable from the pocket near the sholder to the pocket on the front. When I need to use it, all I have to do is pull the iPaq out of the same pocket and plug it in.

    There are so MANY pockets that so far most of mine are empty. I have the storage to take almost everything I want with me all of the time except my laptop and I don't always need it. Now all I need is ScotteShorts for the summer! :) It would be VERY hard to make those and have them look non geeky! :)

    Now my question for Slashdotters is why are you TRYING to hide taht your a geek? To me, either you are or your not. You can't alter your appearance much to hid eyour tech obsession. That GPS watch just gives it away! :) IN any case, judging from the general public's opinion of the ScottEVest when I was in DC at the International Spy Museum (Very cool place.....check it out if you can...even the store is cool), I'd say she's right. The couple who was in the store in the same section of the store as I was saw the jacket when I was poking at the pockets and such and when I showed them the pan that the guy could hide his earbud for his cellular the WIFE thought it was great! Not just the guy! People want to be able to take their MP3 Player with them but they are leary of belt clips and other accoutrements to hold these. A pocket in a jacket or pair of pants is a much more secure method of carrying around these things. Backpacks all over the place now have holes for the headphone cable to come out of. Until bluetooth comes down to a decent price, cables are the way and some people will STILL want to use the cable because it sounds better or is cheaper. Even then you'd want pockets. Most conventional jackets have like 3 pockets. Only one of those somewhat sealed. People don't want to lug a bag and guys definitely don't want to carry a purse or risk an expensive device flying off the belt clip. The Scottevest and those Levi Dockers with teh extra pockets are very appealing...not just to geeks either. Case in point, the burton amp jacket is just too cool....too bad I don't own a iPod!

  • IP infringment (Score:4, Funny)

    by Doesn't_Comment_Code ( 692510 ) on Thursday September 11, 2003 @09:01AM (#6930130)

    I think Batman and his belt own the rights to this.
  • "She says that in ten years, 20% of our clothes will incorporate some kind of electronic components."

    To me, that seems like an unbelievably mediocre statement. Considering how logarithmic the expansion of other technologies have been, in much short time frames.

    I suppose if you put it in context(ile) you'll see that the garmet industry is painfully slow to adapt to new manufacturing techniques. This is mostly due to the nearly slave labor they employ.

    rant --
    Does anyone wonder where all the clothing assemb
  • Yeah, always a bad idea. That's why overpriced sweatshirts with texts like "Tommy Hilfiger" in 6" high letters have failed so miserably.

    Rich

  • I left it in my other pants.
  • My question is, why wearable? Why not implants, directly interfaced with the host's neurons? Surely, there's more geek factor in that.

  • DoS attacks in 2013... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Junior J. Junior III ( 192702 ) on Thursday September 11, 2003 @10:00AM (#6930727) Homepage
    Error 404: Server not found. User has been pantsed.
  • will always want to wear things that draw attention to themselvs.
  • I don't want to have imbedded technology in my cloathing. Heck, if they never wore out, I'd never replace my current clothing. Build me a nice oxford shirt that works just like cotton and lasts forever, and I'll be first in line to buy it.

    What I want is for them to design a cell phone/PDA/computer that's small enough to fit in my pocket, large enough not to get lost, and durable enough not to get scratched up by my keys and loose change or get broken when I fall on it. (This happens often. Don't ask)

    A
  • I attended the HelsIT [www.kith.no] conference on Healthcare Informatics last week.
    One of the speakers was from the Norwegian Centre for Telemedicine [telemed.no]. He presented various future scenarios. Some of those scenarios involved the use of wearable computers [telemed.no] for doctors and nurses in hospitals, including the use of PDAs and cell phones.
    He also talked about remote treatment of patients, such as robotic surgery, or patients putting on VR suits and receiving massage through a computer network. I immidiately thought "Of course the
  • Technology transfer is term used to denote the civilian adoption of technologies that were originally designed with a solely military use in mind. One of the most interesting with respect to wearable tech has to be the active camouflage fabrics the Army is developing. Think of it as a giant-scale LCD display that can be cut and stitched and worn.

    What this means is that a 300 pound chick will be able to project a photo of Britney Spears over her torso and you won't know what happened until the next day wh
  • I thought the industry only followed trends bubbled up to it (hence the need for cool hunters in areas ranging from music to shoes to fashion)? That whole defusion research on the adaptation of x into a population.

    And people (on average) are very finicky about what they wear. A common misconception is that clothing is just a utilitarian thing: carry your keys, protect you from the elements, etc. In fact, clothing is social shorthand for broadcasting certain things about yourself to others and this func

  • I can just hear... (Score:5, Funny)

    by softspokenrevolution ( 644206 ) on Thursday September 11, 2003 @01:30PM (#6934128) Journal
    I can just hear the excuse some girl will come up with to not go out with me on a Friday...

    "I'm sorry, I'm defragging my pants that day.
  • I predict that in 10 years 100% of the clothing people have on their bodies will be WEARABLE.

    From medicine, to science, to fashion "10 years" really means "someday we hope". The cure for Aids, alzheimers and celiac has been 10 years away for 20 years now.

    I think 'wearable' computing for the forseeable future (10-20 years) will be restricted to PDAs, Cel phones and watches with mix and match functionality, increasingly the difference between them will be a choice of 'style' rather than giving up major fea

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