Technology-enabled clothing
How freakin' cool is this?!?
WiFi is all around us. My cell phone has built-in WiFi, and if I forget and leave the switch on when I leave home, it's not long before I'm alerted to the presence of the many home and business networks I drive past.
This is a good thing. I've happily mooched WiFi where I've been able to mooch it, lots of times. When I was moving into my new home a year ago, I remember pulling up to a hotel in Janesville that shall remain nameless, just to be able to pull in their guest broadband signal and grab my e-mail. I'm always delighted to turn on my laptop at a restaurant, cafe, or other public space and find an FM path to the Internet shimmering in the ether all around me.
Problem is, it's hard to know where you're going to find the smiling wireless countenance of a high-speed signal. And it's a pain in the rear to have to fire up the laptop, just to find out. Many people (OK, not many, but a some... OK, not some, but a few geeks) have key chain fobs to let them know when they are in the presence of WiFi bliss. That's fine for yourself, but what about all the masses around you who are fobless? How will they know that there is Internet in the air, beautiful Internet, if only they could detect it?
If only there were a garment which could detect WiFi signals with ease, and convey their strength at a glance.... such a garment would be invincible...
Enter the the WiFi-detecting shirt: With this shirt, you can become the prophet to the fobless masses. Just like the Baptist pointed people toward the Good News that in Jesus, God was present, you can proclaim to everyone around you the nearly-divine presence of WiFi (and also, how many bars of signal your shirt is receiving). It's not geeky - it's a public service! It's not hopelessly lame - it's performance art! People should be paid to wear these things!
The WiFi-detecting shirt: a beacon of hope for the digital masses. ;)
Postscript: "...how many bars of signal your shirt is receiving..." Isn't the ability to say that reason enough to buy this shirt right this very minute? :D
posted by Bob at
12:47 PM
2 Comments:
As cool, and yes, it IS geeky as this is, as you pointed out, your phone (and my iPhone) can do the same thing. In fact, it's almost comical how often my iPhone exclaims with great joy that there is WiFi to be had. If it weren't so cool, it would be annoying!
But, can the shirt tell if it is an OPEN WiFi network? Very important for mooching purposes...
By
Shawn Krueger, at 11:07 PM
RE Phones: I usually turn off the WiFi on my phone when I'm not actually looking for a signal, just because it doesn't make sense to me to leave an extra radio running and using juice. With Sprint, I've got a nice, fast 3G data signal much of the time, anyhow... as I understand it, with AT&T, it's a happy thing to be able to supplement their data connection with WiFi whenever possible! ;)
RE Open networks: As far as I can tell, the shirt doesn't distinguish between them. A definite shortcoming. I'm hopeful that the shirt will have a firmware upgrade released. Not so much because it would fix the problem as that it would please me to no end to be able to say with a straight face that I flashed my shirt's firmware this afternoon...
By
Bob, at 11:14 PM
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