Wearable Customizable Displays

igargoyle writes "France Telecom has done some fun R&D to display pixilated images from your cellphone on your shirt or sleeve. These raver garments can even be used as a standalone device that can animate based on sounds and gestures. With better resolution, designer memes and logos might become the hot intellectual property being shared by the young hipsters. Then again, maybe it will just be another place for advertisers to exploit."

Ads

Oh dear. Penis enlargment spam saying the following: Is your penis this tiny?....

animation ?

Could be cool to wear a demo or a game of life :)

Will be really interesting ...

... if T-Shirt spammers start to sent typical spam messages (probably with the help of virii). Imagine your T-Shirt suddenly turning to "cheap Viagra at www.somewhere.com". But even more interesting would it be for girls if suddenly a typical porn message shows up on their back ...

Re:Will be really interesting ...

Ummm, why the hell would you expect the clothes to have camaras, yet alone support the execution of custom software?

Is this a knee-jerk reaction to find an excuse to put on your tin-foil hat? It's nothing more than a semi-intelligent display which will let you upload an animated GIF. And even if they did have cameras (I still have no clue where that came from), they will be less flexible than your average mobiile-phone or digital camera. AFAIK my digital camera is NOT spying on me and my family because I didn't run adaware on it (!)

Medical uses

This could be very handy for medical purposes. In normal uses, you can do whatever you want. But sensors inside the wearable can pick up that you're having a heart attack for example and provide the appropriate display on the wearable, eg. "I'm having a heart attack, call for help" etc.

If you suffer a grand mal for example, it could give life saving instructions to people around on how to assist you in such a scenario.

Re:Medical uses

"I'm having a heart attack, look at me, make fun of me, and stare at me for a few minutes before you realize this is not Real TV but real life..."
I'm afraid this kind of behaviour is unacceptable, but people don't help each other anymore these days. I understand it's an off-topic rant about society, but I doubt this kind of display would help anyone, especially if you look at what happen to handicapped people...

Re:Medical uses

I'm afraid this kind of behaviour is unacceptable, but people don't help each other anymore these days

How about this, when people stop suing each other for chickenshit things, I'll start helping. If it's truly life or death, I'll get involved: Choking, CPR, major life-threatening bleeding and I'm there until the medics arrive. Anything otherwise and I'll be more than happy to call 911 for you but that's where my involvement ends.

It makes me sad to look at the world this way, but I'm also unwilling to put myself at risk unless the outcome is certain death.

Re:Medical uses

If you suffer a grand mal for example, it could give life saving instructions to people around on how to assist you in such a scenario.

A: That guy's freaking out, I think it's a seizure or something... Hey, look at this display on his chest.

B: Cool. Check it out, it can play Tetris.

A: Don't you think we should help him?

B: Two-player Tetris.

A: Oh yeah?

Nothing new with ads...

Then again, maybe it will just be another place for advertisers to exploit

People are already paying for the apparent privilidge of advertising nike and Abercrombe and what not. If anything, it'll just become the rotating billboard of the fashion industry, every thirty seconds it changes to another advertisment. Now, the real problem is when the wrong types of ads flash across your chest. Think about it, you're trying to pick up chicks and an add like "Levitra helped me with my erectile dysfunction" comes up. Bad news all around.

is this the "within 5 years" category from ars?

they're right - if anybody could properly exploit this technology, it would be burning [livejournal.com] man [livejournal.com] people. much better than the high-tech iteration of the guy who stands on the street corner waving a big arrow pointing toward the pizza joint or the apartments for rent.

if they sell them as individual units that you can affix to fabric, I'd buy a bunch and make a shirt covered with them. with cameras in every haphazard direction.

two things I would not do is use it to display pacman. nor would I make my outfit a star trek tng get up.

Fashion to Finance

If these were available widley, I have no doubt that people would link them up to mp3 player and walkmen so an avatar would bop to the music for all to see as they walked around, or the name of the song floated across.

But how long before we see people walking around with T-Shirts displaying scrolling Benneton or Nike logos, animated unpaid advertisements, possibly updated wia the same AP that loads new avatars displaed on the side. We already have logos on our cloths anyway? maybe some would be proud to a 30 second commerical arounf with them

Sooner or later, your shirts will display softcore porn ads as you eat breakfast and wait for the bus. Along with bilboards, TV, radio, signposts and probobly the pavement as well!

This will bring...

..."Kick me" into the 21st century!

Projected garments

I can see this developing.

Think cloths whoese colours change to the beat of the music.

Sunglasses

I'm still waiting for LCD displays to appear on the outside of glasses - as the eyes are where all the emotion in expression is, it could become a reasonably powerful medium for expression.

... Assuming everyone just doesn't go for the red-crosshairs. Bleh.

Just what we need.

Fantastic! More distractions for those idiots that drive 11mph on the freeway and yack on their cellphones.

Now they're going to want to check their clothing for these images while they drive.

Perfect!

I still wish I had a little gizmo that would zap the cellphone calls on the freeway around me.

Maybe?

"maybe it will just be another place for advertisers to exploit."

Yeah, and maybe Microsoft would love to see SCO win their case with IBM...

Is there really any question that marketing people would love to exploit something like this? Any surface they can manage to slap a brand name onto, they'll use.

I'll leave you all with a little Bill Hicks:

"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself. No, no, no it's just a little thought. I'm just trying to plant seeds. Maybe one day, they'll take root - I don't know. Kill yourself. Seriously though, if you are, do. No, really, there's no rationalisation for what you do and you are Satan's little helpers, okay? Kill yourself - seriously. You are the ruiner of all things good. This is not a joke, you're going, "there's going to be a joke coming," there's no fucking joke coming. You are Satan's spawn filling the world with bile and garbage. You are fucked and you are fucking us. Kill yourself. It's the only way to save your fucking soul, kill yourself. Just planting seeds... I know all the marketing people are going, "he's doing a joke..." There's no joke here whatsoever. Suck a tail-pipe, fucking hang yourself, borrow a gun from a Yank friend - I don't care how you do it. Rid the world of your evil fucking machinations. I know what all the marketing people are thinking right now too, "Oh, you know what Bill's doing, he's going for that anti-marketing dollar. That's a good market, he's very smart."

Pixilated images

France Telecom has done some fun R&D to display pixilated images from your cellphone on your shirt or sleeve. These raver garments can even be used as a standalone device that can animate based on sounds and gestures.

I dunno, but it's not my style to put pictures of animated drunk people on my shirt. ...

Oh, you mean pixellated.

(Previous comment might sound snobbish, but I learned the meaning of aforementioned word the hard way -- after the graduate aptitude test I took, where the friggin' word showed up. Not fun.)

Videos

Two videos are available here [francetelecom.com]. The page is in french but you can easily find the videos.

Political use

Groups of demonstrators could use them en-masse to project messages onto prominent political persons or buildings.

More Pictures

Here [fullsix.com] you can see other photos, including the electronic board [fullsix.com].

Natural Development of Technology

I claim that

1. Pr0n drove the continuing development of the internet
2. Internet pr0n is becoming increasingly technologically sophisticated and interactive
3. Mobile devices are the natural extension of the internet
4. Use of cell phones among children is increasingly prevalent
5. Graphics from cell phones can now be projected on to your shirt
6. Oh dear...

Star Trekkers^H^H^Hies^U Star Trek people?

Is it me, or does the shirt remind anyone else of a Star Trek Medical Uniform? Certainly the type of person that would want to wear one of these shirts. (For the record my parents were members of a Star Trek club in Sacramento, and I participated some when I was a child)

fun research?

"France Telecom has done some fun R&D"

it may be fun but its definitely not "fun reasearch" ... giant telecoms just dont do that kind of thing

Other Research

More fun R&d [203.217.77.217]

It's just wrong. Oh so wrong.

I can'e believe the stupid demo videos. In one segment, a guest arrives at a conference or hotel or something, he is greeted by a woman with a high-collared jacket with a panel right above her tits, it's scrolling the message "bienvenue." I wasn't aware that women needed any technological assistance to get men to stare at their chests. If the women in this scenario truly wanted to make the men feel really welcome, they'd ditch the high collar and show some cleavage.
But what went way beyond stupid was the video of the girl walking down the street, she sees a sk8r b0i, she wants to hit on him, so she grabs her cel phone and types a message "cafe" to the panel on her purse. Once again, a little cleavage would do a much better job of attracting a man. The purse's display panel was pointed backwards, hanging back off the woman's ass, so I guess if you wanted to attract people stalking you from behind, that would be the perfect way.

Hoorah for science!

How long until we can hack these? I have long awaited the day when I could popup goatse on someone outside of a computer monitor.

Invisibility Cloak?

Could this be the basis for a viable invisibility cloak? You have a camera on the back and a camera on the front that hooks straight up to the shirt therefore making you appear trasnlucent. Would it be useful? Probably not. Would it be kickass? Yes. It does seem like a lot better of a method than the Japanese camera trick used to appear invisible. codeus.sexybsd.org [sexybsd.org]

men fake boobs!

Know what?
when a large area of the tshirt is used for display,one thing naughty guys can do is,display nice big dancing boobs in their chest , with a add-on " squeeze my boobs!!"

Maybe not for personal use - yet

...layered in a fabric layered sandwich, which they claim is fairly comfortable.

Maybe I'm not geeky enought, but given a choice I'll rather wear a t-shirt that is really comfertable and has a static picture than one thats fairly comfertable and interactive... but this may be just the next big thing in fastfood places and other retail related industries ("todays special is..."). And once the technology matures enought to show full colour video, we'll see teenagers walking around with not only the logo of their prefered shoes all over their chest, but actually the latest comercial for them.

For me, that will be the day I'll officially start to talk about the 'good old days' ;)

Our money in action ...

I'm glad to see that outrageous pricing this company inflicts me deserves such a really cool purpose. If this can bring more add and visible noise, that's just fantastic !

New Microsoft T-shirt available

Only in blue

hahaha!

Not sure if anyone noticed it, but the first comment on article's comments section at http://igargoyle.com/archives/000440.html [igargoyle.com] is:

You've been Slashdotted, brace yourself and/or redirect!

mods be gentle please! :-)

Practicallity? Battery use?

Looks kewl in the R&D stage, but a 16x16 pixel LED display has obvious technical problems.

Lets take the image in the photograph. It has about 3/4 of the 256 pixels illuminated. Thats 192 LEDs. Assuming the image is remain visible outside, in sunlight, rather than in a dark room, you would need bright LEDs, each consuming an average current of at least 2mA.

So that's 384mA current consumption. To get through a 12 hour day (hardly impressibe battery life), you would need a battery with a 12*0.384 = 4.6Ah capacity. Your average huge+chunky laptop battery won't provide more than 2.5AH.

The shirt is a great idea, but if I need to carry around a backpack with a car battery, or plug myself in to recharge every hour or two, I say no-thanks.

I'm shy

So I'd either look like your image or transparent.

Hmmmm...

So if i was to "hack" into your t-shirt, i could put any images i want on it. Sounds interesting, could be a lot of fun!!!!

Like it hasn't already happened...

Then again, maybe it will just be another place for advertisers to exploit.

Like advertisers don't already exploit clothing and apparel already. Look at Nike! All you are really paying for is the logo!

Paranoia..

Why is everyone talking about this wearable display as if it's already out in the marketplace and people have no choice but to buy it because it has made "legacy" clothing obsolite?

Holy crap - I, for one will not buy something that I cannot control. People are making it seem as if you won't be able to buy a damn thing other than these clothes which will put up Cialis adverts or flash 3.9% mortgage rates across your bum.

You know what I'm going to do - assuming that this stuff comes to market? Probably not buy it. I don't want to walk around looking like a dick at night and attracting the attention of strangers - whose motives may or may not be bad. I certainly doubt that the owner of ShadyAdCorp will decide that he will hijack this stuff to spam from and have everyone else follow suit but even if that does happen, how long do you think it'll take for people to toss this stuff? Shit, I would be much more likely to buy a shirt with an animated Nike logo on it that did what it was supposed to do than one that would change based upon what I walked by (RFID tag or transmitter or spam antenna, etc).

I guess to sum up - I doubt that this will be turned into the über spam tool that people think it will be. Even if it does happen, I doubt people would be stupid enough to become light-up billboards selling personal adspace for products from labels other than the one they bought in the first place.

dreams come true

so I finally dont have to work, only need to wear those shirts with advertisement in mall and other public places, to make my living, that's nice.

used in Minority Report movie

Any surface in the Minority Report movie becomes a video advertising display. An obvious extrapolation of flexible e-paper made cheap.

I can see hackers having fun here

Just as the guy walks by a group of Hell's angels, sombody hacks his t-shirt to display a prominant logo for a rival gang. Ouch!

Cybersex Love

Perhaps more interesting than the article itself, was a previous story on the site where this was found on robot sex!!! Here [igargoyle.com]

Better Camouflage?

they could make cloaking devices out of this material as well, cameras adjusted at the right directions and you could "see through" someone because like on the back, the camera would be facing front, on the front display, the camera for it would be on the back, same for the sides, etc.

fashion trolls

Imagine Britney Spears appearing on stage in electroluminescent garb, when suddenly some PDA-toting geek in the crowd hacks her pants and across her ass we see, "first post!"

NO Ads!

We can't have this... it'll make people wear adverts on them all the time... oh wait, they're doing that already.

Great for creativity

If i had a shirt with a video screen i would place my art on it and have creative videos and stuff i have made play there it would be a simple way to get a small audience to see some of the stuff your doing.

Finally!

Now I really can wear my heart on my sleeve!

Re: "Wearable Customizable Displays"

Hello, boys & girls!
Can anyone say "cameleon suit"?
I know you can...

Smart Costumes

DailyWireless [dailywireless.org] has more on Wearable Communicating Costumes [dailywireless.org] and the Adidas Hot Shoe [dailywireless.org].

"Smart clothing" and wearable computing [wearablecomputing.com] developers include:

• France Telecom invented a flexible fiber optic system that can be embedded in clothes [dailywireless.org]. Static or animated graphics can be displayed.

• Chipmaker Infineon [wearable-electronics.de] has created a packaging technology that allows circuitry to be woven into ordinary fabrics, which can then be normally washed or even dry-cleaned. The company created a prototype jacket [wearable-electronics.de] with an embedded MP3 player.

• Orang-Otang Computers [orang-otang.com] has patented designs for gadgets like a phone that fits under a shirt sleeve, a wrist-mounted audio recorder, a wearable laptop and a wearable camera.

• California's Charmed Technology [wearable-electronics.de], an MIT Media Lab spin-off, is poised to be a world leader in affordable, wearable Internet products [21stcentury.co.uk]. Their CharmBadge [charmed.com] is designed for aiding the communication and networking.

• Fossil [fossil.com], best known for trendy watches, has created wrist devices [com.com] that exchange information with handheld computers and Microsoft's Spot.

• The Smart Shirt System [gatech.edu] uses biological sensors to monitor heart rates or the locations of those wearing the technology, says Jeffrey Wolf, CEO of Sensatex Inc [sensatex.com].

• Tactex Controls uses "smart fabric" for a touch-sensitive MIDI controller [dailywireless.org].

• Zigbee-equipped sneakers [zigbee.org] might record speed, body telemetry and even external sensors.

• Orientation, communications and geographic positioning electronics can all be incorporated [ele.tut.fi] into outdoor clothing. Heat can be transferred through conducting fibres to colder areas of the body

• The SCOTTeVEST [scottevest.com] shows the way traditional garments may be altered to meet the demanding needs of spies and undercover agents.

Interesting place to put ....

pornography.

Be funny to have a naked picture of someone of the same/opposite sex portrayed on me.

Probably only be allowed to wear it at sex-related businesses, but be funny.

Wearable Displays

This would be great for the back of a motorcycle jacket. a nice, bright, flashing display to warn off cage drivers. maybe even an integrated turn signal indicator.

choices choices...

With better resolution, designer memes and logos might become the hot intellectual property being shared by the young hipsters. Then again, maybe it will just be another place for advertisers to exploit.

What is "a playground for the spawn of Satan to run rampant?"

I'm sorry, it was "What is advertising space?"

That's what I said!

Um ...

With better resolution, designer memes and logos might become the hot intellectual property being shared by the young hipsters. Then again, maybe it will just be another place for advertisers to exploit."

Um ... isn't this just two ways of saying the exact same thing? Especially when the viral-marketing word "meme" is used.

Re:Something new for ThinkGeek?

I'm thinking this:
Cellphone w/ RSS feeds + Little parsing app + Text-to-gif + goofy shirt = Slashdot headlines on your sleeve.

Oh dear lord. :)

Re:modern day version...

You think that's fun, if they could couple it with a RFID tag reader, you could walk down the street and your shirt could comment on the people around you based on what they're carrying on them.

Why settle for "I'm with Stupid" when your shirt can detect the prescription bottle of Viagra that the guy next to you is carrying and display "The Guy Standing Next To Me Can't Get A Hard On!"

Or perhaps you can scan his shopping bag and say "This Guy Just Bought Cat Food And AstroGlide. Sounds Like Another Fun Evening With Fluffy!"

Actually, I really want a color-changing shirt that has built-in GPS, that way it can change color based on whether the Bloods or the Cryps have control of the neighborhood.

C'mon nerds, Get Crackin'!

Re:a link from a blog of a blog of a blog? why?

Is it just me or does that picture look horribly photoshopped to anyone else?