Cotton circuit breakthrough paves the way for computers in your clothes
A research team at Cornell University has taken a major step towards building a wearable computer that looks like an ordinary shirt.
Our geekier readers are no doubt familiar with a few examples of today’s high-tech clothing. Right now, most of the available options are about having fun, such as ThinkGeek’s Wi-Fi detector t-shirt or their playable syntehsizer shirt. But at Cornell University’s Textiles Nanotechnology Lab, they’ve recently demonstrated a technology that will take things to a whole new level.
What you see above is a very basic example of what their efforts will enable. By attaching a power source to two cotton threads that were infused with gold nanoparticles and then treated with PEDOT (a conductive polymer), the team successfully illuminated an LED. A humble demonstration, to be sure, but it paves the way for some seriously advanced clothing.
According to the Cornell team, the process isn’t any more complicated than dyeing fabric. The resulting material is both marginally stiffer and more elastic than untreated cotton, and it paves the way for “smart clothing.”
One anticipated use is clothing with built-in environmental sensors that could be used to help keep firefighters apprised of airborne dangers while on the scene. Intelligent garments that can monitor vital signs and report them to a remote monitoring system could be another. These examples could be implemented fairly soon, but based on the amount of material used to make a single shirt, Cornell’s Juan Hinestroza envisions that we could one day be wearing shirts with “pretty decent computing power.” Perhaps it could also allow sleep scientists to create something to help those with sleep apnea that’s not quite as far-out as thatrobotic polar bear pillow.
Wearable cotton computers should integrate nicely with those flexible Samsung displays Jeremy showed you back in October. In fact, they’re the perfect match. The conductive, transistor-packing fabric could supply the ultra-thin, self-illuminating displays with both video signal and power without the need for more obtrusive wiring.
Here in Canada, we’re accustomed to high tech clothing that aims to keep us warm and dry, but how do you feel about this new spin on fabric? Could you imagine yourself dress your young ones up in shirts that can report their whereabouts to your smartphone? Let’s hear your thoughts in the comments!
[Source: PhysOrg]
Damn! Great! More electromagnetic imposition on our fragile beings.. Furthermore, HEMP & CANNABIS are 100 x’s the material as is the propagated COTTON CARTEL’s measley cotton fabric, so GET WITH THE PROGRAM!
Great military use, medical use, search & rescue, on & on & on.. but the above sentiment still resonates with vigor.
[...] of material you saw back in January here on Sync. What the Cornell University team produced was conductive cotton thread. Intelligent Textiles, on the other hand, has interwoven conductive elements with the other fibres [...]