January 9, 2012

Fabric that works like a touch screen.

The new smart fabric.

Touch it... swipe it.... and... what? What do you want to have happen as a result of touching fabric? I mean stuff that a computer would do for you. The article suggests controlling your car radio by touching the fabric of the car seat or dimming your lights by rubbing your armchair. Who wants that? What are the applications for this? All I could think about is... some kind of sex machine....
Because you can clean it, the material will be practical for everyday use.
Phew!

30 comments:

rhhardin said...

Electrify it and use it to keep cattle in fields.

Sloanasaurus said...

O.L.E.D. will, in the near future be incorporated into fabric, meaning that in the future everyone will be wearing "video shirts, powered by micro batteries. Put another way, you will go down and get your "blank" shirt specially tailored for you and then you will merely change the design/color of your shirt each day based on software.

This isn't science fiction - its in the next 5-10 years.

OLED is so revolutionary and potentially so cheap to produce that it will replace blank paper.

Scott M said...

It would have a huge market in couch and easy-chair armrests. You would NEVER, EVER loose your remote again because it would be built into the fabric of what you're sitting on. Ditto for TV's in bedrooms and bedding/pillows, etc.

I don't know about you guys, but with a wife and three small kids in my house, Find The Remote is a constant battle.

Sloanasaurus said...

OLED should replace the current flat screen TV. OLED is higher quality than any current HDTV because it has real black colors.

INstead of purchasing a TV, you will just purchase OLED (paper thin), and affix it to all the rooms in your house. IN that way you can have the walls be what ever color you want, what ever design you want. You can have your whole wall play video or what ever size you want. You could have your whole wall display a beach scene so yo ucan pretend to be on the beach.

IN addition, OLED will be used to exactly reproduce any painting. You just to a 3D rendering of say the Mona Lisa, and then fill in the rendering using OLED to get an exact reproduction of the masterpiece down to every micro point of texture and color. All for probably less than $100.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

I wonder what a couch would say to us.. if it could talk.

Something about the walls having ears..
I cant put my finger on it.

Henry said...

[impress] guests by dimming your living room lights with a languid swipe along the arm of your sofa

Or turn lights on and off by clapping! That would so cool!

UI expert Bret Victor has written a fantastic critique of the "swipe" experience. Here he is writing about "visionary" movies put out by the likes of Microsoft and RIM in which everything is a touch screen:

It's a timid increment from the status quo, and the status quo, from an interaction perspective, is actually rather terrible.

As the man says, read the whole thing.

KCFleming said...

Robert Palmer's song now has a different meaning:
"I'm sorry, baby
I didn't mean to turn you on
"

raf said...

If you can integrate a video receptors into your clothing, you could constantly upload your experiences. Think of it as ongoing protection from mistreatment by authority figures or resentful others claiming you mistreated them (Date-rape? Would it be suspicious if you refused to undress?). Or as self-incrimination, I suppose, depending....

wv: numodis. The new mode is ...

Anonymous said...

All I could think about is... some kind of sex machine....

The hilarious new Althouse epigraph.

OLED - it cleans your floors and is also a delicious dessert topping...there's nothing it won't do.

Scott M said...

If you can integrate a video receptors into your clothing, you could constantly upload your experiences.

1) How bright can clothing be dialed up? If the front rank of a line of protestors is approaching the line of riot-geared cops, and they all dial up their white to it's highest, brightest setting (assuming it could be dialed up that high) could that be construed as an act of violence that the cops can react to?

2) A nightmare for teachers. You could easily run scrolling text across the back of your shoulders, unseen by the instructor, to the amusement of those behind you...or to cheat.

bagoh20 said...

Clothing that writes poetry from the random touches it receives throughout the day from your body.

Of course fencing suits and boxing shorts to catch the low blows.

Sloanasaurus said...

You could use OLED clothing to make yourself invisible, like the Harry Potter Cloak. Tiny cameras in the cloak would be connected to the pixels on the opposite side so that the camera would be taking pictures of what was behind the person wearing the cloak. Who knows, maybe this already exists somewhere....

You could use the OLED fabric invisible technology to make yourself thinner. At the sides, it would be invisible to shave off a few pounds.

Certainly an OLED mask is not out of the question... Mission Impossible is not that impossible.

edutcher said...

Hope it can stand up to Lysol.

gbarto said...

I met a person working on nanofibers about five years ago, when these were just starting to be practical. One really great use: The carpet in a nursing home can tell the difference between someone walking on the floor and someone lying on the floor and let a nurse know if it's the second.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

You could use OLED clothing to......

Advertise your favorite candidate, publish your pet peeves, stump for PETA, advertise soup and soap, show movies of your kids as you walk down the street, show porno films scrolling across your ass (which could also be a form of advertising.

What if the price of wearing the clothing is decreased if you voluntarily (probably involuntarily later) agree to be a scrolling billboard for the manufacturer.

Just THINK if we could incorporate sound in addition to the visual advertising we could also bombard anyone within eye or earshot with clever jingles, music and voice over sounds of the next Billie Mays.

There would be no where that you could go that you won't be subjected to every-one's free speech rights. Visually and auditory assault worse than pulling up to a stop light next to a boomba boomba box in the next car.

No thanks.

In addition for the fabric on the seats of the car controlling the radio. The next time your husband (or you) leans over to do a silent fart.....the station changes or the volume goes up. Or worse....the trunk blows open on the car.

No more secrets!!! No more silence or privacy.

KCFleming said...

It would be useful for identifying who dealt it.

Pastafarian said...

Leave it to a woman to think that when she farts in a small enclosed space, it's going to remain a secret.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

Leave it to a woman to think that when she farts in a small enclosed space, it's going to remain a secret.

:-D

Well, of course. Women's farts smell like roses. Right?

Maybe the fabric could make the windows roll down automatically in such cases.

Sloanasaurus said...

Since OLED could be applied to a clear surface, your clothing could be see-through skin tight spandex material. Thus, for those who wish to dress as scantily as possible, the OLED clothing could be programmed to cover up the private spots by just a pixel, while providing blemish free perfect skin for the other spots..

Of course you could go as any color a person you wanted too as well. You could have blue skin as from Avatar, or green Skin from Star Trek. Or you could pick any race: white, black, hispanic, Asian... anything you want. It would totally open up a new kind of fashion.

edutcher said...

Dust Bunny Queen said...
You could use OLED clothing to......

show porno films scrolling across your ass (which could also be a form of advertising.


Also a form of evidence on the divorce.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

The fabric of spacetime..

I can see it now..

Cigarrete Burns a Hole in Spacetime.. call mayor Bloomberg.

Sloanasaurus said...

It seems to me that if OLED could be embedded into fabric it could perhaps be embedded into your body itself, or that you could grow OLED as part of your skin.

One of the first used of OLED will be to revolutionize lighting. So instead of having light bulbs in your bathroom, you will just have a wall of OLED that will emit the light. IN this way people could glow with OLED clothing - kind of like the Aliens in Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

So when people comment after getting a tan that you have "that nice glow." It would be true!

chickelit said...

Material lifetimes and photobleaching (common to many organic dyes) are the bane of this technology. The good news is that if they are cheap enough, they can be doffed and replaced as easily as fashions.

It's cool stoff!

Sloanasaurus said...

Remember the receptionist in Total Recall who worked at the memory center place where Arnold goes at the beginning of the movie. She was changing the designs on her fingernails instantly in what was a neat special effect.

With OLED, this is reality. Just have a OLED fingernail cover. Change it to any design or color you want instantly.

Dust Bunny Queen said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Sloanasaurus said...

I wonder how liberals would deal with such technology. OLED clothing and disguises would bring a lot more "equality" to the masses in that people would have a lot more choices in their appearance. This in turn would take power away from the government.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

You could have blue skin as from Avatar, or green Skin from Star Trek

Aaaand... instead of just ludicrously fabulous clothing we could take a clue from Spaceballs andgo to PLAID

Dust Bunny Queen said...

Dang. Link doesn't work. here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mk7VWcuVOf0

Actually, I'm serious about the abuse of advertising and free speech issues in programable OLED clothing.

Hazy Dave said...

Wipe your boogers on it, and it acts like a kleenex!

I used to work for a guy who had his car upholstered with that fabric. One of the jobs I miss least.

wv: spingies

Andy Freeman said...

> I don't know about you guys, but with a wife and three small kids in my house, Find The Remote is a constant battle.

Attach a 10' long ribbon to it.