October 21, 2004
Move over bossy boots: the handbag that speaks
I want one! A handbag that reminds you if you forget your cell phone. From The Guardian.
"There is now so much research going into smart fabrics and wearable computers that scientists have come up with a new name: pervasive computing. Now a team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's world-famous media lab are working on a variation: wearables that you can design to order.
Michael Bove, Adrian Cable and Gauri Nanda have fashioned a build-your-own bag for the forgetful. Its little smart patches, linked by Velcro wired for electrical current, will listen for signals from radio frequency identification tags on cellphones, keyrings and wallets.
A sensor in the bag's handle will "know" that the owner has picked it up, and then check its own contents for those things it would be exasperating to forget. If one of them is missing, a voice synthesiser will say: "Cellphone: yes. Wallet: yes. Keys: no!"
More here on Smart Fabric or Washable Computing and in near near future.
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