With the begin of the cold season many users new to the world of touch screen cellphones, Music player and iPad style tablet devices might not be aware that operating this devices is not possible with gloved hands.

Taking a call or checking up some infos on the tablet means taking off the gloves, putting them somewhere and finally to what one wants to do. Sounds quite cumbersome.

First solutions to this usability dilemma surfaced around two years ago coming from the DIY community which added some stitches with conductive yarn on the index finger. This conductive yarn makes the necessary connection between the skin and the touch screen surface.

Last winter season first companies emerged offering touch screen enabling gloves by integrating electrically conductive dots or fabric patches at the finger tip.

The Fall/Winter season 2010/11 started and a next generation of touch screen compatible gloves come to the market that give back to the touch screen the natural bio-electricity of your skin while keeping your finger cozy warm.

Agloves, a US based company makes this miracle happen by knitting gloves with silver fiber yarn which transfers the natural bio-electricity of your skin to the touch screen. Agloves  gloves do not have the restriction of having just one or two fingertips touch screen friendly but all 10 fingers.

talk2myShirt got some gloves to test the performance and after ‘playing’ around for 3 days – they work like a charm. Not one single miss of scrolling, sliding, wiping and touching.

Not one single scratch on any of the devices my friend and I used extensively during that time. The silver fibers seems to be very fine but still get the skin conductivity transferred to the screens.

The gloves stretch nicely, snuggle around your hand with a comfortable feel. Yeah, I am living actually in a place with 365 days per year of hot summer weather so I made a trip to one of our shopping malls with an ice skating rink to get into the mood of glove testing and got the attention of curious onlookers turned into test participants from the ice skating community.

Agloves are available in Unisex style in various sizes and retail for $17.99 a highly recommended investment if you want to keep warm fingers and stay away from glove on-off-on scenarios during the next few month.

In agreement with the people who touched their devices with Agloves we give all 10 fingers up for this digital-age gloves because of their simplicity, flawless performance and sensible pricing – most likely the best investment among your touch screen device accessory portfolio.

Adding a bit of technology, even if the technology is very basic, to clothing is a fascinating field that has been triggered by the wearable technology movement.

Point in case, the HoodieBuddie™, a hoodie which uses the drawstring as carrier, as concealment for in-ear headphones. Why should one do that you may ask.

As user of these little ear-bud headphones know, having the cords freely tangling down ones chest interferes not only with hand movement at times, it also catches other objects while we go our daily ways.

People started to be very inventive in fixing these headphone cords on the body, putting it inside a jacket or clipping it down to the outside of clothing to keep the cord close to the body.

Using clothing like t-Shirts, sweaters, hoodies for headphone cable management is a smart idea as there is no need to dress up with the headphone cord before moving on.

The HoodieBuddie™ has in the front right pocket a 3.5mm jack to connect to almost any personal audio device and runs inside the hoodie up to the drawstring with integrated ear-buds.

Remarkable is the statement of the product page which says the drawstring earphones are machine-washable.

Available in different colors with different prints, the HoodieBuddie™ retails for $42.- at this and other online and off-line stores.

A simple design concept but insightful from usage perspective and as I might think encouraged by the spirit of wearable technology as such design could have been made already many years ago at times when portable, personal electronic devices came into existence in form of the Walkman.

[via: CrunchGear]

The Winter Olympic are in full swing (although physically I am far away from Vancouver) I revisited the iPod enabled jacket market to check out what is available right now for people watching the winter games on the spot.

The first pleasant surprise is the prices of interactive, iPod ready jackets came down again this winter season which make them as affordable as any other jacket in the same category.

The next surprise, there are many different styles of interactive jackets from a wide range of brands, too many to beam up all of them. The following tip is based on my personal style judgement but a quick scan on the internet will give you a much wider choice of iPod ready jackets.

Tog24 has been having interactive jackets in their online store since the early days of wearable electronic and this seasons offerings look great, the women styles as well as mens styles.

The jackets are powered by the CONNECTEDwear modules from Fibretronic making it easy to pick up additional modules for other than iPod devices like Bluetooth cell-phones.

The women jackets can be found here and here, retailing for £99.95 ($158.-) each, mens styles can be found here and here with a price tag of £129.00 ($203.-) each.

Operating a touch screen during the cold, icy season either requires to have some control over them via the outer clothing or alternatively, you can get you hands on/into one of the touch screen enabled gloves. The third option is to get icy fingers each time you change a song or pick up a phone call. The choice is yours.

Just in time at the eve of the iPad launch, new gloves technology could be seen on the MacWorld last week.

iTouch gloves are different to all the other touch screen compatible gloves we have seen so far. The iTouch leather gloves don’t have any style interrupting dots or conductive squares that make the fingertips conduct electricity between you and the iPhone and other touch scree devices.

iTouch gloves use a ‘patent-pending’ technology called TouchTec which begins during the leather tanning and stretching process and involves nanotechnology treatment while it’s being stretched giving the whole glove the skin to touch screen connection.

I am quite impressed how the garment industry catches up on a rather new technology like touch screens which have been around on a larger consumer products scale for a few years. In these few years they had to figure out the fundamentals and bring them to an industrial scale production. Really impressive and innovative.

iTouch gloves are available in different styles with prices varying between $99.- to $195.- When the iPad hits the stores your well protected hands will be ready for the big touch on the iPad.

[via: Ars Technica]

While the market of controlling an iPod or iPhone via clothing is spearheaded and dominated by companies like QIO Systems with their PANiQ controller, Fibretronic with CONNECTEDwear and Skullcandy with the AMP’D system it seems the time is near where traditional textile companies add this material to their product portfolio.

During my search for news I came across X-breath Fabrics, a Taiwanese textile innovation company which offers next to waterproof/breathable fabrics the X-breath Pad, a component consisting of a flexible, elastic keypad, a textile cable and the connector to the iPod.

This module, like all other systems currently in the market, can be sewn into any kind of garments and is fully washable.

I have not yet checked the pricing or the condition of availability but the fact that this, for the textile industry rather new, component could soon become one of the standard parts like zipper or buttons.

Keypads in clothing is for sure not the only innovation wearable technologies can and will offer but each journey starts with the first step.

This step into a technology enhanced fashion future might very well be the inclusion of device controlling components – just like zippers offer and alternative to buttons when it was introduced in the 1920s and 1930s

Sessions added to their technology enabled clothing range a soft-shell hoodie with a Skullcandy custom made soft keypad not as usually placed on the sleeve but on the waist line.

That’s a nice and refreshing twist in placing the soft touch iPod controls to some other place than the sleeve which is used in 99% of iPod controlling jackets.

This jacket offers two unique features: the Soft-shell technology, mostly used for outdoor jackets seals out wind and moisture while the the hoodie style gives it a laid-back appearance.

Next to the unique location of the iPod controls, a circular keypad design with the volume up/down and previous/next song touch areas arranged on the outer ring and the play/pause/stop button in the center of the ring.

The iPod connects on the inside of the front pocket. A audio port near the collar keeps the headphone wires inside the jacket to avoid wire tangling around on the outside. A truly music optimized jacket for the cold season.

The soft-shell Sessions jacket with Skullcandy control retails for $179.95 as seen on this online store.

Let’s hope we will see more variations on textile keypad designs and the way it is integrated into the overall style of clothing next year to cater for the individuality fashion shoppers expect.

Spyder is one of the brands making use of the Skullcandy wearable electronic system we posted about a few days ago. The Spyder Destroyer Jacket is available in the colors black and red-white with a Skullcandy electronics compatible exterior.

Integrated into the jacket is a flexible keypad and the eTextile cable system which provides a connection between the soft keypad and a connector inside one of the pockets to hook up an iPod.

Spyder is no newcomer to the interactive clothing business, the most talked and written about product was without questions the limited edition jacket back in 2006, one of the first iPod compatible jackets with a price tag of $3000.- (including iPod).

Times have changed and with the arrival of wearable modular systems, the price of having a  touch pad in a jacket came down considerable so even Spyder is able to offer iPod compatible jackets for $499.- as seen here.

Yeah – still not in the low (price) range but hey – it’s a Spyder jacket after all and there is no price  difference in the Destroyer Jacket line between Skullcandy compatible exterior or plain old fashion exterior.

The last time I blogged about Columbia Sportswear‘s techno clothing collection I was ‘wondering’ what comes next after their launch of heated boots, heated jackets and the music super charged backpack.

Now we know – Columbia Sportswear added the Rockin Out jackets for men and women.

The Rockin Out jackets have of course the technology twist: they are compatible with the Skullcandy® wearable technology system we blogged about a few days ago. The flexible keypad in diamond shape was well as the textile cable to connect to the wearable audio system is fully integrated into the jackets and are washable.

If you decide it is time to activate your jacket with an audio feature or just to get the iPod controls on the jackets outside, you can order these upgrades by Skullcandy.

The jackets are made from Omni-Tech® fabric making them waterproof and breathable to prevent rain, snow and moisture from reaching the inside while allowing moisture inside the garment to escape and evaporate, providing a save place for your iPod and yourself while being in full control, at least of the iPod while venturing through the great outdoors.

The Rockin Out jacket retails for $199.99 and are available online via the links above in the colors Grey and Orange for men and Green (Kelly) and Pink for women.

Columbia Sportswear has put together for this winter season a nice lineup of technology enriched clothing, a collection where you can choose according your needs and likes.

Luxury fashion brand Cole Haan launched what must be the best looking interactive handbag for women, featuring a touch sensitive control pad on the front pocket of the handbag.

The soft eTextile controls from QIO Systems have been beautifully integrated into the style of the handbags, radiating classiness technology embracing  fashionistas will love.

The handbags are made from recycled fabric with vegetable tanned leather trim, canvas lining interior and custom nickel hardware.

The ‘Dylan Mini Crossbody‘ is the smaller of the two models measuring 8″ L x 7″ H x 3 1/2″ D. A nice twist in this model are the eight credit card slots and two bill compartments on the inside. The retail price for the ‘Dylan Mini Crossbody’ is $178.-

The ‘Dylan Hobo‘ model measures 18″ L x 10″ H x 9″ D providing plenty of space for a day out around the city. The retail price of the ‘Dylan Hobo’ is $248.-

Both models come with the PANiQ control module for the iPod but can easily be upgraded to support next to iPod and iPhone cell phones with the PANiQ Bluetooth Hub Controller for $79.99

Leave your cell phone or iPod inside the bag and manage them from the outside. An eye catcher with style.

Soft touch controls in bags have been around for a while but Cole Haan’s integration into a classy handbag design is the most stylish use of a bag remote control we have seen so far.

Zoo York‘s range of apparel which are inspired by the New York City graffiti art and skateboarding culture jumped on the interactive fashion skateboard trend and released the limited edition, iPod controlling Dr. Z Windbreaker jacket.

Featuring the PANiQ eTextile control system from QIO Systems, the Dr. Z Windbreaker jacket comes in black, has waterproof taped seams and purple mesh lined interior.

If you use other than iPod or iPhone to listen to your power songs you can purchase PANiQ modules which are available with different functionality to control almost everything you might have in your pockets.

As cool as the DR. Z Windbreaker Jacket looks as cool is the price, available at Skatewarehouse for just $74.99 for this myTunes controlling, limited edition jacket from Zoo York.