Smart Clothes to Change Everyday Life
B R U S S E L S, Belgium, Dec. 8 -- Clothes that tell you you’ve forgotten your keys or warn you when your wallet is stolen.
A jogging suit that puts you through your paces.
It’s not the stuff of science fiction, but a five-yearproject by the Brussels-based research group Starlab to come upwith a form of “intelligent clothing.”
“[The tracksuit] monitors you starting to run. It configuresdata on your heartbeat. It plays a certain type of music andadapts the rhythm of the music to push you harder or slow youdown,” said Walter Van De Velde, head of the scientificthink tank whose embryonic designs could revolutionize clothing.
“The mobile phone function in the clothing sends the data bye-mail to your sports club, which receives the report on yourtraining by the time you’ve taken your shower.”
For the uninitiated, Van De Velde’s outline evokes theworkout from hell: a relentless personal trainer and no way ofcheating the results.
But intelligent clothing need not just be practical, itcould also indulge nostalgic yearnings, Van De Velde says.
“I like the idea of clothing as memory, which accumulatespart of the impression of the place you are staying, say, onholiday. It would record the freshness of the air, thebackground noise, it would take snapshots like a tourist.”
He even suggests “sound perfume” to revolutionize heat sensors, which wouldpick up the wearer’s mood, detecting panic or embarrassment, andplay music via small speakers to match it.
“The sound of the wind blowing could represent turbulence,”Van De Velde suggested. “As you relax it becomes gentler.”
Artificial Intelligence
Founded by Van De Velde two years ago, Starlab has so farreceived funding from the U.S. space agency NASA, nationalgovernments and the European Commission.
Known as the project’s godfather, Van De Velde left BrusselsUniversity, where he was co-director of the artificialintelligence unit, to help establish the new firm.
