Articles
Frauenhofer IZM TexLab – wearable electronic innovation and industrialization
at the begin of this year the Frauenhofer IZM launched the TexLab concentrating it’s competencies and equipment to the integration of electronics into textiles.
The involvement of Frauenhofer’s IZM into wearable electronic goes back to 2001 when they started to investigate eTextiles with a strong focus on assembly and reliability.
Since then, IZM not only makes large [...]
Innovative, interactive fashion design from Novanex
During my TechTextil visit I had the opportunity for a short talk with Alexandra Baum, owner and general manager of Germany based Novanex, a design company specialized in design, product development and manufacture of innovative textiles.
Although her services are across the fashion business in general she has a high interest and years of experience with [...]
Plug-and-Wear: One-stop-shop for eTextile crafters
Plug-and-Wear, a one-stop-shop offering materials and components specifically targeted to eTextile creators has opened it’s shopping doors.
Plug-and-Wear is the brain child of Riccardo Marchesi, Managing Director of InnTex, an Italian based textiles and textiles machinery company with 55+ years experience in the textile industry.
The aim of Plug-and-Wear is to provide a place where wearable [...]
Intelligent Textiles for the digital soldier
Another highly interesting company I have visited during the TechTextile is ITL (Intelligent Textiles Limited) a UK based research and development company founded in 2002 specialized in the weaving of complex electrical circuits in conductive fabrics.
Starting in the traditional application areas of consumer apparel (eg. wearable music player and phone controllers), healthcare (eg. biomonitoring) and [...]
TechTextile trade show impressions
Coming back tired but energized from the great things I have seen around wearable electronic during a full day of walking and talking with interesting people in the smart textile area of the TechTextil trade show in Frankfurt, Germany, here are my first impressions:
The floor area dedicated for wearable electronic has been a bit smaller [...]
Early pioneers of wearable electronic
Fibretronic, creator and manufacturer of soft controls for interactive clothing and fashion accessories has started a review of wearable electronic, a trend that started about 10 years ago with the introduction of the first commercially available product in 2000 by Levis in cooperation with Philips Electronics, the ICD+ jacket.
Although simple in design, prohibitively expensive and [...]
Staying connected with the WiFi T-Shirt
talk2myShirt is on the way to a 4 week trip around Europe and will hit areas where Internet access is very spotty at times making it difficult to stay connected with the World Wide Wearable electronic community during those days.
Please be patient when we can not keep up with our daily posting but we will [...]
Wearable knee power generator
Wearable power is a hot research item which got high profile sponsorship last year with the Wearable Power Price from the Department of Defense.
The Electricity generating knee brace from a team of researchers of the University of Michigan has demonstrated one concept of how to harvest the power humans produce during physical activities as simple [...]
iPod Shuffle and the need for more interactive clothing
Triggered by the recent release of Apple’s new iPod Shuffle with it’s size barrier breaking and usability paradigm shifting design by eliminating every button on the device I revisited my presentation I gave 5 years ago on my view of miniaturization and wearable electronics.
Electronic products get smaller with every new generation and at the same [...]
Haute Tech during New York Fashion Week
Interactive clothing got attention during the recently held New York Fashion Week.
Marc Jacobs for example introduced the Fluorescent Winter Fashion collection by testing a more interactive color scheme for high street fashion.
Although fluorescent fabrics need UV light to shine brightly, interacting with the ambient environment, it is only a small step to a more active [...]
