By Guest Contributor: James Frater
I have been extremely disinterested in all the news in the last 10 years about flexible electronics and electronics/computers that can be integrated into our clothes. Just because you can do something, does that mean you should?
Now, it will be cool someday when I can set up a simple metal frame in my hotel room, and unroll a 60″ hi res monitor, so I can see some applications for flexible monitors.
In Daniel Suarez’s outstanding contemporary thriller, Daemon (What, you haven’t read this yet? It has autonomous robot Hum-Vs, both armored and armed to the teeth, among other geeky kool things), a guerilla subculture walks around w/glasses that incorporate heads-up displays which are integrated w/all the data aggregated from when you swipe your customer-loyalty card and credit card at the grocery store. Combined w/smart phone GPS signals, these heads-up display glasses show callouts for each person you look at in real time, so you can see their actual name, address, debt load, criminal record, and other interesting facts. All the technology for these glasses is here, so I’m surprised they’re not available and flying off the shelves already. (No, this wouldn’t be legal, but it makes for a great plot device in Suarez’s books.)
But do you want SSL in your shorts?
Do you really want a smart phone built into the armpits of your tee shirt? Other people in the crowd think your are just checking to see if your deodorant has failed you, but really you are saying hi to mom. A scientific calculator in your socks? You didn’t remove your shoes to keep the carpet clean in your friend’s house, you really needed to make some quick 10-key calculations on your big piggy. OK, maybe you would actually want to do that one.
You know, after wearing my clothes, I noticed they start to smell and I have to wash them. I don’t care how slick they say these electronics are, washing them in detergent cannot be good for them. Do you wash plastic products in your dishwasher just because they say they’re dishwasher safe? I don’t – and they last a lot longer.
With that proviso, I can open my mind to the Facebook jacket project, because a group of Norwegian students set out to make something that could help first responders in an emergency situation, where a conventional smart phone device is less handy. It might not be the final solution, but the research could lead to more usable devices. Read the story here:
http://www.alphagalileo.org/
