What better, bigger start into the new wearable electronic year could there be as to announce the availability of the ‘king of interactive clothing’ the long awaited NavJacket from O’Neill.

The NavJacket is not only cool, it is uber cool as this sophisticated jacket comes with an sophisticated social networking tool that allows the uploading and sharing of your rides down the slopes on 420 European ski areas and on 180 skiing resorts in United States.

Check out the NavJacket online community as there are already some active members racing downhill and share their rides.

It’s like the Nike+ site for runner but even more interesting as you can show on Google Earth where you have been and leave your mark in form of ‘here is my favorite spot’ or ‘here I crashed terrible’ with the POI (point of interest) button on the jacket.

The navigation throughout a ski resort is as easy as checking your sleeve display and if you or your friend got lost, the friend-finder function brings you together again.

The price of the NavJacket is as sophisticated as the Jacket itself, €1,200.- ($1,635.-) but one needs to consider that this Jacket has an GPS unit, a LCD display in the sleeve and the e-textile keypad. Order your NavJacket online here.

The Keypad is cleverly design with the 2008/09 O’Neill signature shape of an ‘S’ shape making ‘bling’ navigation easier. On top of this, the NavJacket keypad has color coding for even easier navigation while racing down the hills.

Check out via this link the online simulation of the NavJackets navigation and other cool features.

The NavJacket is without any doubt the most sophisticated Interactive Jacket on the market and sets O’Neill far ahead of any competition in this winter season and I guess for a while longer.

‘Made for the iPod’ and ‘works with iPhone’, O’Neill‘s H-Division Explore Playlist iPod Jacket will be the hit this winter.

Cool cut with stylish look, O’Neill did a bit of a re-design of the otherwise always straight line of iPod controls in interactive jackets.

The O’Neill Explore Playlist has a number of features in it’s construction to ensure the wearer and the iPod/iPhone remains comfortable, warm and dry.

The Explore Playlist jacket is designed to fully incorporate your playlist featuring a specific pocket for the iPod.

The jacket connects directly to the iPod or iPhone making the control of the iPod’s / iPhone’s main function on the upper arm convenient and uique.

With the design of the Explore Playlist jacket O’Neill once again demonstrates their dedication and experience for designing interactive clothing. Their pioneering creativity sets new directions for interactive fashion design.

O’Neill’s H-Division interactive apparel team released for the 2008/09 season revolutionary products like the GPS Navigation Jacket or the Audio Hoodies, one of the first commercial apparels with integrated speakers.

The Explore Playlist jacket is (finally) moving the usually on the sleeve located control buttons a bit around and rearranging the button layout.

Much more could be done on the design side to spice up the textile controls to make them more sexy or at least stylish but at least we see some evolution in the design of the Explore Playlist jacket.

Available for £190.85 ($278.90) via this online store.

O’Neill, leading brand in the wearable electronic sport and outdoor apparel segment has introduced a ‘worlds first’, ready-to-wear active audio fashion line for the autumn/winter season 2008/09.

The new Audio Hooded Top for women and the Audio Hoody Sweat for men come with an integrated audio system. The practicality is obvious: listening to music all day long via earphones is not the most comfortable way to enjoy music.

Then, there are countries that do not allow earphones to be used while cycling or running in urban areas for example.

Last but not least, walking around in tense city traffic with earphones blocking out surrounding noise is not the safest way to cross a street.

So much for the practical side of having speaker integrated into apparel, providing a unique experience in music-listening.

Small lightweight speakers have been tucked into the hood of the sweat and top (removable for washing) and the iPod or any other audio player connects inside a dedicated storage compartment.

There is no need for batteries, the sweat speaker take the sound and electrical power from the player. I am sure it will not sound like an high end audio system but I would expect some decent sound audible mostly only for the wearer and hardly audible for people around.

All audio player with a standard earphone connector work with O’Neill’s active audio apparel. The Audio Hooded Top for women can be ordered online via this link for £82.95 ($131.-) and the Audio Hoody Sweat for men via this online store for €109.95 ($142.-)

O’Neill’s wearable electronic group ‘H-Division’ has done a cosmetic as well as an optical system make-over of their successful Campack which was introduced last season.

Social online networks attracting ever more folks around the globe and photo/video sharing is a core element of most of those sites.

The Campack provides the ideal tool to link the action reality with the virtual presents. It allows recording unobtrusively your life in the real world and lets you almost instantly share it among your online network allowing your buddies around the globe to participate in your life.

Although labeled as ‘fully functional snowboard backpack’ it can be your life recorder while doing backcountry hiking expeditions around your place or far away as well. The huge main compartment holds all your stuff needed for tracking around and has provision to accommodate a hydrating camelbak system.

The Campack’s multimedia function is designed with ease of use in mind. To start and stop recording is as simple as pressing a large button on the left shoulder strap.

The portable media player is positioned in the backpack’s top pocket to record all footage captured by the goggle strap or helmet mounted camera lens.

Recording medium is the widely available SD card format which can hold up to 200 minutes of video footage in 740×480 MPEG-4 avi format on a 4GByte SD card. Reviewing the action scenes can be done on the spot via the Campack’s screen which is stored safely between protective padding in the backpack’s top pocket. Video uploading to your social network is as easy as sliding the CD card into your computer (or adaptor) and hit the upload button on your site.

Great news is also the price drop of around $25.- compared with last year’s model introduction price. The Campack can be ordered via this UK online store for £249.99 ($395.-)