German chip maker Infineon will make your clothes sing in a couple of years.
They are developing electronics embedded into fabrics so that jackets, pants and other items of clothing can be made smarter. The company rolled out its eye-catching vision in Singapore July 17, 2002, with a catwalk parade of models decked out in its "smart clothes".
On show were leisure clothes with working MP3 players built in, featuring both voice controls as well as fabric buttons on sleeves and hems. The clothes become electronic when a basic module (shown below), comprising a power source (a lithium-ion battery), an audio module featuring a processor and a Multimedia Card (MMC) and conductive fabric strips are literally sewn into the clothes.
To speak about the clothes was Dr Werner Weber, Senior Director of Corporate Research at Infineon. A full interview with the good doctor and his work with smart fabrics is featured here.
He also told the Singapore press that besides MP3-playing clothes, in a few years we may see clothes with built-in electronic ID tags.
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