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"Always listen to experts. They'll tell you what can't be done and why. Then do it."
- Robert Heinlein

Heartshirt  
  A shirt that was able to detect heart sounds and display associated colors.  

This would be a great shirt to own. I'm imagining every person in a marathon wearing one of these shirts.

Recently, Philips Electronics came out with a network of sensors woven into ordinary clothing, like underwear. The sensors are linked to a battery and transceiver, so that if certain conditions are met based on biometric data gathered (like irregular heart rhythm), an alarm could be sent via Bluetooth, RFID or other wireless protocol. This product was developed as part of the Ambient Intelligence initiative in Europe, which explores ubiquitous computing and machines with context awareness. But this is how Rucker imagined it.

Della's first present was an imipolex sweatshirt called a heartshirt…The heartshirt was an even dark blue, except for a few staticky red spots drifting about.

"It can feel your heartbeat … look." Sure enough there was a big red spot on the plastic shirt just over her heart, a spot that spread out into an expanding ring that moved on over her shoulders and down to her sleeves. Her heart beat again, and a new spot started - each beat of her heart started a new red splash in the blue heartshirt.

Technovelgy from Wetware, by Rudy Rucker.
Published by Avon Books in 1988
Additional resources -

One way it might work is to hear the main sounds from the chest cavity, and then radiate them from the center using some sort of algorithm. It would be more cool if it actually had the sensitivity to monitor the rush of blood to the extremities.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Wetware
  More Ideas and Technology by Rudy Rucker
  Tech news articles related to Wetware
  Tech news articles related to works by Rudy Rucker

Heartshirt-related news articles:
  - Underwear Detects Heart Problems
  - Scentsory Chameleon Bodysuit: Biometric Fashion
  - MEMSwear Fall Fashion - Bluetooth-enabled Motion Detection Shirt
  - Electronic Underwear Monitors Your Heart
  - Geo-View ECG-Shirt - So Close To A Heartshirt
  - Bio-Shirts From Korea Monitor Athletes
  - T-Qualiser Club Shirt Has Electro- Gobbledi- Googescence
  - Smart Bra Does Breast Cancer Screening
  - Vital Jacket Heart (Monitoring) Shirt Via Rudy Rucker
  - Smart Fabrics For Biomonitoring
  - 'Warning Signs' T-Shirt Is CO2 Detector
  - Somnus Sleep Shirt - Sweet Dreams
  - LOBIN Intelligent T-Shirts
  - Biosensing Clothing Listens To Your Heart
  - OMsignal Heart Shirt With Woven Electronics
  - Ralph Lauren Polo Tech Shirt
  - Microsupercapacitors Make Wearable Electronics Disappear
  - Jabil Integrated Textile Heart Monitoring
  - Inkjet-Printed Wearable Solar Cells

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