As the summer officially started north of the Equator the following soft technology product might be something to consider when heading to the beach, the  Hi-Sun beach towel with integrated speaker.

I am always amazed about the evolution of products and about the penetration of technology into areas not that obvious at first. While the integration of speakers into bags is still something that seems logical the move to have speaker in pillows was already adventurous.

The next techno evolution come in form of a beach towel with integrated audio system. A product that again might look at first some gadget-geeky stuff but considering the need of protecting any electronic device while being on a beach against sun, water and sand makes such product an interesting option.

Another reason going for an external speaker is the not very pleasurable experience wearing earphones or earbuds while sweating the the sun.

Sure you could use a set of external, portable speaker boxes but if there is a way to combine tow functions into one save space and minimizes items to take care off.

The Hi-Sun beach towel has an integrated Audio system connecting via a 3.5mm universal jack connecting to iPhone, iPod or any other player with a 3.5mm jack. A amplifier supplied by a Li-ion battery drives a pair of 2W speaker.

This technology enhanced towel also doubles as backpack to transport all your beach necessities – cute.

Available in pink, blue, black and red for 59.- EUR or about $72.-

One of the big challenges in wearable electronic: speaker which can be fully and seamless integrated into clothing transforming a T-Shirt into a speaker system.

NXT‘s surface mount system is so far the closest solution but still it requires some bulky sound engine called ‘exciter’ to transform semi stiff EVA into s sound emitting surface.

A group of Chinese researchers at Beijing’s Tsinghua University set out to build the basis for speaker clothing as they discovered that, by zapping an audio-frequency current through a carbon nanotube thin film, it can be made into a wispy-thin high-performance loudspeaker that emits sound in a wide-frequency range and operates without moving parts or magnets.

Sounds like science fiction – right?! But according to the project publication in American Chemical Society‘s ‘Nano Letters‘ this technology is actually closer to reality as it sounds.

A fully working prototype can be seen and heard in a couple of amazing videos (scroll down to the bottom of the page) showing how stretchy and flexible this sound wonder material is.

The nanospeakers work based on the thermoacoustic effect. Alternating electrical current running through the thin films of nanotubes heats the surrounding air, causing it to expand and contract, creating sound waves.

If this technology is picked up by some industry heavyweights to develop the production processes a sound Jacket might be in the stores in 2-3 years. Not that bad as the clothing industry uses a 2 year time frame from first concept sketches until a collection hits the shelves.

Research and science shave the habit to be far off away from reality but the stretchy nano speakers sounds very solid.

[source: American Chemical Society]