Science Fiction Dictionary
A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  X  Y  Z

 

OMsignal Heart Shirt With Woven Electronics

When the subject of "wearable electronics" comes up, are you inclined to question whether or not people will actually wear them? What about something you need to wear anyway - like a shirt?


(OMsignal heart shirt)

On Thursday, OMsignal unveiled four shirts that sense your heart and breathing levels via electrodes knitted into the fabric. These signals, plus details of your movements, are recorded by a gadget that snaps into a pocket on the side of the shirt; an accompanying iPhone app shows stats like calories burned and steps moved and aims to tell you things like how much energy you have left before you’ll feel spent.

OMsignal’s shirt and the accompanying gadget will cost $240; additional shirts are expected to cost about $100. The first shirts will ship to customers this summer. At first, they’ll be sold through the company’s website. But OMsignal cofounder and CEO Stéphane Marceau hopes other apparel makers will eventually add its technology to their own clothing.

OMsignal’s shirts are compression garments—already popular among some athletes and patients recovering from certain surgeries to help improve circulation—which Marceau says is helpful because it keeps the electrodes that are embedded in the fabric close to the skin. While the shirts are primarily aimed at athletes, the Montreal-based company envisions them being used for monitoring medical conditions and, potentially, in everyday life.

Fans of sf writer Rudy Rucker may congratulate him on predicting the OMsignal shirt:

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..."
(Read more about Rudy Rucker's cool heartshirt from Wetware [1988])

From Technology Review

Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 5/13/2014)

Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.

| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |

Would you like to contribute a story tip? It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add it here.

Comment/Join discussion ( 0 )

Related News Stories - (" Clothing ")

iPhone Pocket All Sold Out!
'A long, strong, slender net...' - Margaret St. Clair, 1949.

Skip Movewear Arc'teryx AI Exoskeleton Pants
'...the terrible Jovian gravity that made each movement an effort.' - Edmond Hamilon, 1930.

Kolors Virtual-Try-On Predicted, And TRIED, By Harry Harrison
'Bill blinked at his own face under the plumed helmet...' - Harry Harrison, 1965

Qore IcePlates Are Personal Cooling Suits
'... underneath they consisted of networks of cooling tubes against the skin.' - Neal Stephenson, 2021.

 

Google
  Web TechNovelgy.com   

Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.

 

 

 

 

Science Fiction Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's   1950's
1960's   1970's
1980's   1990's
2000's   2010's

Current News

The Zapata Air Scooter Would Be Great In A Science Fiction Story
'Betty's slapdash style.'

Thermostabilized Wet Meat Product (NASA Prototype)
There are no orbiting Michelin stars. Yet.

Could Crystal Batteries Generate Power For Centuries?
'Power could be compressed thus into an inch-square cube of what looked like blue-white ice'

India Ponders Always-On Smartphone Location Tracking
'It is necessary... for your own protection.'

Amazon Will Send You Heinlein's Knockdown Cabin
'It's so light that you can set it up in five minutes by yourself...'

Is It Time To Forbid Human Driving?
'Heavy penalties... were to be applied to any one found driving manually-controlled machines.'

Replace The Smartphone With A Connected Edge Node For AI Inference
'Buy a Little Dingbat... electropen, wrist watch, pocketphone, pocket radio, billfold ... all in one.'

Artificial Skin For Robots Is Coming Right Along
'... an elastic, tinted material that had all the feel and appearance of human flesh and epidermis.'

Robot Guard Dog On Duty
I might also be thinking of K-9 from Doctor Who.

Wearable Artificial Fabric Muscles
'It is remarkable that the long leverages of their machines are in most cases actuated by a sort of sham musculature...'

BrainBridge Concept Transplant Of Human Head Proposed
'Briquet’s head seemed to think that to find and attach a new body to her head was as easy as to fit and sew a new dress.'

Google's Nano Banana Pro Presents Handwritten Math Solutions
'...copy was turned out in a charming and entirely feminine handwriting.'

Edible Meat-Like Fungus Like Barbara Hambly's Slunch?
'It was almost unheard of for slunch to spread that fast...'

Sunday Robotics 'Memo' Bot Has Unique Training Glove
'He then started hand movements of definite pattern...'

Woman Marries Computer, Vonnegut's Dream Comes True
'Men are made of protoplasm... Lasts forever.'

Natural Gait With Prosthetic Connected To Nervous System
'The leg was to function, in a way, as a servo-mechanism operated by Larry’s brain...'

More SF in the News Stories

More Beyond Technovelgy science news stories

Home | Glossary | Invention Timeline | Category | New | Contact Us | FAQ | Advertise |
Technovelgy.com - where science meets fiction™

Copyright© Technovelgy LLC; all rights reserved.