Pihcned,with apologies from The Guardian Oct 21st.



Move over bossy boots: the handbag that speaks

Tim Radford, science editor
Thursday October 21, 2004

The Guardian

Massachusetts scientists are working on a scarf that can read air pollution, and a handbag that never forgets. Both have been made possible by tiny patches of computerised fabric that contain a microprocessor and radio transceiver, sensor, microphone, batteries or a display system, New Scientists reports today.
The pay off? A handbag that will say "you forgot your wallet" or "bring a brolly - it is going to rain".

Smart fabrics are not new. Medical scientists have been experimenting with bandages that can detect the first whiff of microbial infection and send out an alarm signal.

Medical technologists have proposed "thinking spectacles" that could prompt more forgetful senior citizens that they have taken a wrong turning.

Military scientists foresee a "future soldier" who, by 2011, will go into battle with underwear that monitors his or her heartbeat, body temperature and respiration, and a uniform fitted with tourniquets that could be tightened to stop blood loss, and fibres that could stiffen to form a splint.

There is now so much research going into smart fabrics and wearable computers that scientists have come up with a new name: pervasive computing. Now a team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's world-famous media lab are working on a variation: wearables that you can design to order.

Michael Bove, Adrian Cable and Gauri Nanda have fashioned a build-your-own bag for the forgetful. Its little smart patches, linked by Velcro wired for electrical current, will listen for signals from radio frequency identification tags on cellphones, keyrings and wallets. A sensor in the bag's handle will "know" that the owner has picked it up, and then check its own contents for those things it would be exasperating to forget. If one of them is missing, a voice synthesiser will say: "Cellphone: yes. Wallet: yes. Keys: no!"

The scientists also plan to add a chip that would automatically download updated weather reports. The bossy briefcase would remind its owner to take an umbrella - but only if rain was on the way. The patches could be used on belts, bags, curtains or scarves. They could be configured in a variety of ways to serve a variety of purposes

"People would add functionality to their bag, just as they download ringtones for their phones today," Dr Bove told the magazine.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------