I am always fascinated by innovative design concepts that merge our virtual existence with the physical space in which we live, especially if it includes technology enhanced clothing.

A team of designer formed at the Canadian Film Centre, Interactive Arts and Entertainment Program, Kathleen Climie, Rose Bianchini and David McCallum created the ‘Neighbourhoodie’, a hoodie that combines the fun and dynamic of street games like ‘zombie tag’ with the technological experience space young people grow up today of online or computer games.

Integrated into the hoodie is a system of proximity sensors, speakers and lights to augment game play.

To start the game ‘Survival Tag’ as shown in the video clip below, players connect the iPhone / iPod touch to the ‘Neighbourhoodie’. Once the hood it put over the head the game starts and the hunt is on.

Lights, sounds in the hoodie are activated to indicate various players stages and proximity of others with the aim to ‘knock’ out, to tag opponents until one survivor is left over. Pull down and up the hood again and the next battle starts.

The Wii gaming system made a first step to get people out of the couch and become again more physical engaged while playing games. The ‘Neighbourhoodie’ has the potential to motivate us to leaving not only the couch but the house by playing hybrid games that partly happen in the real world and partly in our all important virtual world.

Along the lines of this creative design concept the is a huge inspirational space envisioning many variations of this design weaving  interactive garments and game interaction. An amazing project triggered by the combination of clothing and technology.

Winter is the time when beanies become an essential part of our wardrobe to keep our sensitive ears – and everything between – cozy warm. But covering up the ears makes it a bit cumbersome to use earphones especially the ‘over ear’ type.

Beanies with integrated speakers are one option which emerged just a few years ago, gaining momentum judging on the new releases that pop up continuously this  autumn/winter season.

Aerial7 is currently making sound waves on the internet with the Sound Disk Beanie, offering built in headphones with a 35mm driver diameter for big sound in a small package. Anything with an 3.5mm audio connection will work fine with the Sound Disk Beanie.

The unique twist of this sound beanie is the addition of a in-line microphone that works with the iPhone and other mobile devices.

It will be available globally on December 1st but if you can’t wait, you can order it on Aerial7’s website now for $59.99

[via: ChipChick]

It is always enjoyable to write about the amazing inventions from Aniomagic, the magical eTextile wizards who create cute, simple components and projects with eTextiles.

The latest additions to their e-textile treasure chest is the smart dock connector for iPhone and iPod.

The Aniomagic dock connector is an easy to do e-textile project which adds a unique remote control to every iPod and iPhone with a dock connector. It not only looks cute, it represents an alternative, next to the special iPod gloves, to control the Apple ‘i’ products during the cold winter season when many wear gloves which makes it impossible to operate those products without taking the gloves off.

The magic dock can control the functions: ‘Play/Pause’ with a single click, ‘Next/Previous Track’ with a double click, ‘Next/Previous Album’ via a triple click and ‘Volume Up/Down’ by pressing and hold the button.

A tiny chip on the smart dock connector monitors the resistance between the two sewable holes. If the resistance is less than 1kΩ it will activate ‘forward/volume up’ and if the resistance is around 50kΩ means ‘backward/volume down’.

This smart dock connector can be used with actual resistors, conductive fabrics, tilt sensors or other types of sensors. The chip speaks the ‘Apple Accessory Protocol’ which allows it to communicate with iPods and iPhones over the dock connection.

The magic dock connector can control the following functions: ‘Play/Pause’ with a single click, ‘Next/Previous Track’ with a double click, ‘Next/Previous Album’ via a triple click and ‘Volume Up/Down’ by pressing and hold the button.

The remote control kit is available for just $20.- and contains everything you need: magic dock connector, conductive yarn, conductive fabric and conductive thread. There are only a few steps to make your own, textile remote control: Cut the conductive materials to size, sandwich the pieces and sew together and attach them to dock with conductive yarn. The complete assembly instruction can be found here.

If you are not a ‘Hello Kitty’ fan you are free to design your own style with the DIY-Kit, as accessory like in this example or integrated into your favorite jacket or bag … only your imagination is the limit to a cool looking cold weather remote control for this winter season.