THE WORLD'S UNIFORM

Soon, any of our five senses will be able to be stimulated in any way. We will be made to see, hear, touch, taste, or smell anything - through our computers, televisions, radios, clothing, imbedded transducers and accelerometers. What is now mainly fantasy will soon be our accepted reality.

Electric Cloth technologies

Microvision Projector

Microvision Inc. recently introduced a new working prototype of a tiny projector that plugs into small devices like cell phones and handsets. This feature was presented at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas January 2007 and allows users to project slide presentations, videos, pictures, etc. onto a flat surface. The development of new high-tech lasers allow the projector to display clear images from two to ten feet away on screens, including curved or distorted surfaces. According to Microvision Inc., their projector-phones will be on the market likely by mid-2008, and projectors embedded in cellphones will also be available by the end of that year. They expect the projector to add $100 to the price of a cellphone. I am waiting for them to figure out how to use the projection as a touch screen, and then I will be excited.

Speaking Plastic Microchip

Plastic Logic, a British company based in Cambridge, will embark on building the world's first plant for making semiconductors using plastic rather than silicon. Considering that plastic semiconductors are cheaper and simpler, this advancement could significantly reduce the price for electronic circuitry by 90%. The technology will apply a set of spoken commands and instructions to ordinary itmes informing the individual of his or her agenda. This speaking plastic microchip can lead to an era of low-cost electronics in which intelligent circuitry is embedded in daily objects, such as clothes and grocery items.

Textronics

Textronics™ Inc is a pioneer in the field of textile electronics.
The convergence of high-tech fiber science with electronics and optics is at an early stage but has the potential to revolutionize fabrics from clothing to industrial textiles and significantly impact other textile sectors in the next decade. Our mission is to explore and exploit the market opportunities this will create.
We have a number of technology streams under development that bridge the divide between the two sectors and will enable energy-active fabric systems to deliver entirely new kinds of functional benefit. A world of possibilities for fabrics that warm, illuminate, conduct, sense, and respond.
These benefits will be most immediately relevant to specialist applications in the worlds of medicine, sport, communications, personal security, among others, but will ultimately have broad consumer relevance

EMF Safety: Action You Can Take Against the Body Penetrating Effects of Electromagnetic Fields

Silver Lining Garments: Very sheer, comfortable undergarments you can wear over your regular underwear to shield yourself from powerline and computer electric fields, and microwave, radar, and TV radiation. This silver-plated, stretchable, washable nylon mesh is electrically conductive. It provides EMF radiation protection by reflection. Plus you won't get those static shocks as you used to in dry weather and your clothes won't cling to you! Fabric provides up to 35dB of shielding at 100 MHz. Made in USA. Surround what you want to protect!

Outlast Phase Change Materials

Textiles with phase change materials (PCMs) are used in numerous products and applications from apparel, underwear, socks, accessories and shoes to bedding and sleeping bags. Currently, PCMs are likely to be found in specialty items, such as antiballistic vests, automotive, medical or special industrial applications, where warmth and energy play a role.
How it works:
Outlast® technology’s phase change materials (PCMs), incorporated into clothing, interact with the skin’s temperature to provide a buffer against temperature swings.
PCMs are materials that can absorb, store and release heat while the material changes from solid to liquid and back to solid.
Outlast microencapsulates phase change materials. Microencapsulation is the process of capturing small amounts of phase change materials in a shell material so that the phase change materials are permanently enclosed and protected. The protective polymer shell is very durable and designed to withstand textile production methods used in fiber, yarn spinning, weaving, knitting, and coating applications. Microcapsules can also be applied as a finishing on fabrics or infused into fibers during the manufacturing. Other uses of Microencapsulation are: the release of vitamins, UV-Blockers, medication, anti-bacterial/anti-microbial agents, mosquitoe and insect repellents, moisturizers, and perfumes.

Virtually Augmented Glasses

An increasingly globalized world became even smaller on Thursday when Carnegie Mellon University and German scientists unveiled technology that makes it possible to speak one language, yet be understood in another.
Although this speech translation system is probably a decade away from commercial availability, it has the potential to topple the Tower of Babel by bridging the language divide between countries and cultures, said CMU computer science professor Alex Waibel, who directs the International Center for Advanced Communication Technologies, or interACT...

No Contact Jacket

The No-Contact Jacket is a wearable defensive jacket created to aid women in their struggle for protection from violence. When activated by the wearer, 80,000 volts of low amperage electric current pulses just below the surface shell of the entire jacket. This exo-electric armor prevents any person from unauthorized contact with the wearer's body. If an assailant were to grab hold of the wearer the high voltage exterior would interrupt their neurological impulses which control voluntary muscle movement. The neuromuscular system would be overwhelmed causing disorientation and loss of balance to occur and of course pain. The pain experienced is non-lethal but is enough to effectively and immediately deter contact with the wearer and provide a critical life saving oppurtunity for escape. The goal of the No-Contact Jacket is to call attention to violence against women and to offer an alternative response to the body's vulnerable space and boundaries that society, culture and fashion have created.

Activated Charcoal Cloth

Activated charcoal cloth was originally developed by the British Chemical Defense Establishment as a highly efficient filter medium for protection against nerve gas and other highly toxic vapors that might be used in chemical warfare. This is the reason for its outstanding advantage as a decontaminating material in commercial air and water purification applications.
ACC is 100% activated charcoal produced in a flexible textile form and it absorbs more effectively than any granular form of activated charcoal due to its micro-porous character and higher internal surface area as compared to the granular form. Because the activated charcoal cloth is so much more effective per unit area in removing odors than any other known agents, the thickness of the cloth can be significantly reduced without loosing effectiveness. The use of special manufacturing techniques results in highly porous charcoals that have surface areas of 300-2,000 square meters per gram. These so-called active, or activated, charcoals are widely used to adsorb odorous or colored substances from gases or liquids. The word adsorb is important here. When a material adsorbs something, it attaches to it by chemical attraction. The huge surface area ofactivated charcoal gives it countless bonding sites. When certain chemicals pass next to the carbon surface, they attach to the surface and are trapped.

Hundred-Dollar Laptop Computer

Done by Design Continuum, and an MIT Media Labs project to deliver inexpensive laptops to children in poorer places, this Linux-based laptop now costs around $140 and has a hand-crank for electricity. I was feeling pretty strongly about the Simputer, an India-based development, $100 instruments somewhere between the palm pilot and the computer, but I like the size and windability of this machine as well as the durability. One Laptop per Child (OLPC) is a non-profit association dedicated to research to develop a $100 laptop—a technology that could revolutionize how we educate the world's children. This initiative was launched by faculty members at the MIT Media Lab. It was first announced by Lab co-founder Nicholas Negroponte, now chairman of OLPC, at the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland in January 2005.

Cubesat

The CubeSat program, developed at Stanford University and California Polytechnic State University, aims to give universities and high schools a chance to launch their own satellite into low Earth orbit (240-360 miles above). There were 9 Cubesats in orbit by Sept.27th 2005 with numerous institutes all around the world working on their own Cubesats. For $40,000 to build and $40,000 to launch, you too could have your own satellite network. Stanford Professors Bob Twiggs and Bruce Lusignan outlined a particularly attractive potential lunar mission for the initial efforts of Stanford On The Moon. An impressive point about CubeSat is the OTS, or “off the shelf” technology which describes the fact that these satellites are constructed from electronics readily available in local shopping centers.

Common belief is that Moore’s law, which dictates that the amount of computing power you can squeeze into the same space will double every 18 months, is set to run into a silicon wall by 2015 (Fortune Magazine, August 2006). However, as computers become an invisible nanotechnology, power will work off of this heat. Therefore, we can expect the digitization of reality by 2025.

Mind Reading Machines

Recent breakthroughs in brain science are enabling machines to get a step closer to comprehending people's thoughts and intentions. Researchers using this brain scanning technology can assess the valdity of someone's statements and how they respond to various consumer choices.