The Future of Power: Talk to the Shirt

What is this nifty looking animation that looks like you can make lightning by pressing on a flexible material? That’s exactly what it does and it’s called ‘piezo’, a material that can generate electrical charge through movement, and it might be coming to a shirt near you.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Dr. Adam Best of CSIRO’s Energy Technology Division and a team of researchers in Australia predict that ‘power shirts’ (or other flexible integrated energy devices) may be entered into the marketplace within five years.

The electric charge generated through movement can be directed to flexible batteries that are integrated into the shirt, powering up your small electronic devices like mobile phones, mp3 players and handhelds. The thinking is that the shirt could even become the mobile phone itself, with flexible circuit boards woven into the shirt, allowing you to literally ‘talk to the shirt’.

Best anticipates how this technology might change the way consumers view purchasing electronics, “Instead of buying that mobile phone, you would buy a funky shirt that does the same thing.”

[via PopGadget]

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 28th, 2007 at 12:10 pm and is filed under Handheld, Mobile Phone, Other Gadgets, Portable Audio. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.