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Cute Circuit has its Galaxy Dress on display aat the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. This dazzling dress features 24,000 LEDs and is a truly stunning piece of tech clothing. The dress is made with 2mm by 2mm LEDs woven into a silk chiffon and organza crinoline fabrics. This makes the dress more flowing and wearable. Power comes from several iPod batteries that are hidden into the garment itself. This is perhaps the most tasteful LED garment to date.
Brother might be know for printing and other office related products, but watch out. Brother is working on a retinal display that projects a 800 x 600 resolution image directly into your retina that’ll appear as a 10-centimeter wide image floating about one meter ahead of you. Brother has fully functional prototypes and is looking to bring this to market by next year. Sweet.
iKey, know for it’s rugged keyboards, had released its AK-39 wearable keyboard. It complies to MIL-461 standards and is intended for military use. It features right or left hand configuration, adjustable back light, night vision compatibility, and a Force Sensing Resistor pointing device. Right now its a military item but don’t be surprised if this kind of product comes to the general public soon.
Take a silicon keyboard and a pair of jeans and you can also attempt this. Zach, the brave builder, took a laser cutter to make the key holes and then stitched in the keyboard. Since the keyboard had to be cut, only the left hand works. For a DIY im sure someone can figure out how to get the other side to work. It is cool to see people attempt to make wearable tech. Keep it coming!
The ILLUM cycling jacket is the brain child of Goose Design and PDD, a creative design and product design agency respectively. This is the coolest concept cycling jacket that we have seen to date. Not only is it sharp but it uses tech clothing to bring style and safety to cycling.
The ILLUM jacket is a photovoltaic, aka solar powered, garment that uses electroluminescent ink to provide safety and sharp looks for today’s cutting edge cyclist. The design spans 360 degrees around the upper body of the cyclist and uses red lights to illuminate the back of the jacket while using white light to illuminate the front. These elements are sewn into ergo designed panels in the jacket. Also incorporated into the design are the solar charging elements located in ..read more
Hard-Wear Jacket from Paul Coudamy takes a small spy camera and embeds it into the back of this jacket. So now you can watch your back in style with this sweet jacket. And LCD screen located on the sleeve shows what is going on behind you. Great for people to lazy to turn around, or poorly dressed spys.
Now a days textile sensors generally monitor heartrate. BIOTEX, a European sponsored research project which is set up to develop biochemical-sensing techniques and their integration into textiles adds a new dimension to bio-textile-sensor technology: analyzing body fluids via textile sensors.Using a combination of hydrophilic (water-loving) and hydrophobic (water-repellent) yarns. Those two yarns can be woven to direct the sweat through fabric channels to a sensor area. It is a passive system that uses no power and so reducing the power demands of the BIOTEX system.Body fluids can provide valuable data about a persons well being. There are potentially many applications for such technology.
Architect Sheila Kennedy, known for her widely publicized Portable Light project where she proposes the use of Wearable Electronic for the other 90% by integrating solar panels into bags has applied the same principle to curtains: gathering solar power from everyday goods.Sheila’s Solar curtain is part of her ‘Soft House‘ showing how traditional architectural materials can be transformed into electricity generating elements which can one day provide a significant part of the electrical power needs for its inhabitants. The energy curtain was a research project funded by the Swedish Energy Agency.
Wearable tech is getting more and more common. Researchers at the Sungkyunkwan University in Korea and the University of Nevada (US) have developed a flexible tactile display that could be part of our clothing enabling us a more physical interaction with our electronic devices without relying on the visuals only. Ig Mo Koo, Hyouk Ryeol Choi, and co-authors from Sungkyunkwan University and the University of Nevada created an electro active polymer that can stimulate the skin without using any additional electromechanical transmission. The polymer sheet which consists of eight layers of dielectric elastomer actuator films is about 210 micrometers thick.The researchers fabricated an 11 x 14 mm sheet, rolled it up in the shape of a thimble to be worn on the finger with Velcro on the edges. ..read more
The Pacer Suit from the designer Nikola Knezevic and Danilo Zizic can turn you into a musical marvel.This suit transforms every move of your body into sound by transforming your body into a musical instrument. The muscle movements are detected via the strategically placed sensors integrated into the suit. The muscle movements are then amplified and converted into sound. A control panel on the front allows volume adjustment as well as selecting the type of sound, the rhythm to follow and more.