Thinking Of Going Wireless? Think The Shirt On Your Back

[caption id="attachment_4187" align="alignleft" width="179" caption="Courtesy of The Ohio State University"][/caption]

What if you were able to talk to someone on the phone without having to put your phone to your ear? John Volakis, a scientist at The Ohio State University, is developing clothes that go hand in hand with your cell phone. Ritchie S. King of The New York Times discusses further in his article Wired Textiles for a Phone as Useful as the Shirt on Your Back:

John Volakis wants to make the world hands-free.

The director of the ElectroScience Laboratory at Ohio State University, he is trying to end the need for cellphone hardware like the Bluetooth earpiece by fabricating communication devices out of something that most states require we carry with us all the time anyway: clothing.

“You won’t have to hold your cellphone to your ear,” said Dr. Volakis, an electrical engineer. “We’ll eliminate all that. It will be part of your attire.”

His effort is part of a broad technological effort to make “smart textiles”: wearable fabrics with embedded electronics that can collect, store, send and receive information. His lab is focusing on the sending-and-receiving part, trying to transform military apparel, hospital gowns, even everyday T-shirts into antennas.

Aside from enabling a science fiction luxury — simply speaking into your collar when you want to talk to somebody — antenna clothing could offer covert communication for soldiers, wireless monitoring for the sick and much better reception in general.

Read more at The New York Times