France Telecom has invented a flexible fiber optic screen that can be embedded in clothes, allowing static or animated graphics to be displayed. See the exclusive pictures!
If you've ever found yourself annoyed by the relatively small displays of mobile phones and handhelds, France Telecom's R&D department has come up with something that might suit you better (no pun intended). The research department of the French telecom operator has designed a prototype for a flexible screen made of woven optical fibers capable of downloading and displaying static or animated graphics (such as logos, texts, patterns, scanned images etc) directly on clothes.
Clothes utilizing the new technology can now act as a graphical communication interface, displaying visual information in real time, and offering an interface to telecom services such as the Internet, m-commerce and 3G mobile phones. France Telecom sees the technology also finding its way into other spaces such as public safety (firemen fighting large fires), advertising, the automotive industry, interior decoration (furniture and wall fitting applications), fashion (development of fiber optic fabrics), leisure activities (personalized signing on roller blades at night) and more.
Downloading logos to your mobile phone will be so passé in a few years
The screen is like a simple fabric, onto which users can download all kinds of visuals from Internet and fixed desktop (computer) or mobile terminals (PDAs, laptops). The development of the prototype includes a suite of software with which users can create and publish their own illustrations, drawings and texts online via a dedicated server. A flexible remote-control hidden in a lapel can trigger the display of visuals stored on the garment and will enable new visuals to be selected from a server over the Internet. It also handles effects such as scrolling, intensity or brightness, and interaction with sounds and gestures.
"The display technology comes from optical fiber woven into standard textiles. This combination of properties intrinsic to weaving and optics provides a natural solution to the problems of rigidity, volume and weight encountered in current wearable video screens, and anticipates the future embedding of HD textile screens in everyday ware, such as bags, scarves, clothes and furnishings," says André Weill, director of France Telecom’s communicating garments project.
According to the Gartner Group, 60 % of the population in developed countries are likely to own a communicating garment by 2010, so don't be too surprised if in a matter of years, the mobile phone logo craze is dead as a dodo while everyone will be downloading the latest graphics for their always-online jacket.
Additional hi-res pictures of France Telecom R&D's prototype garment are available on the following pages.
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