Berlin -- Who's In?

So I just happened to be flipping through one of the many, many, MANY mailers I get from Pira and Intertech and saw the Plastic Electronics brochure. To my surprise they have snuck in an "Smart" Textiles program -- which begs the question, "will this be Pira's offering of Intelligent Textiles for the year?"
The offering for talks is not that extensive, but I guess the main draw is the display, OLEDs, and power programs. And while it is a relatively small offering compared to previous conferences, perhaps the inclusion with similar technology areas will create unique collaborations and opportunities. Let's hope so...maybe I'll even get to go!

iPhone chest-harness

Peel's iphone chest-harness at the OR Show in SLC

iPhone glove

Peel (peelsports.com) had the iPhone running glove with an integrated
iPhone chest-harness.

SMIT

We applaud snappy acronyms around here -- and SMIT is at the top of my list right now.

The idea of telling someone that I work in the SMIT industry is appealing b/c its like a combination of "smut" and "s*#t." If you've purchased this report, please contact us ASAP, we would love your feedback...

We're Back, and we're mobile

That's right, we're on the move now. You'll next see us at the OR Show (Summer Market) and we'll post straight from floor via phone when we see something that YOU need to see.

If you're going to be there let us know!

SmartFabrics Recap!

Another SmartFabrics conference, but with very few surprises this time. The talks I thought would be good were, and those that I had low expectations for weren't as great. What I didn't plan on was to see Robin Shephard (formerly of Eleksen) give as much insight as he did concerning the abrupt decline of Eleksen.

Certainly we'll be seeing case studies in future classes at business school -- but it would have been fun to have had the chance to see it in the "E-dreams" documentary context.

There also seemed to be a great deal of emphasis on the "wearable computing" aspect of SmartFabrics. While there's nothing wrong with that, it would have been nice to see more technology talks at the fiber/yarn/fabric level vs. just device integration.

Other notable talks included Crosslink's talk on electroluminescent fabrics for tents/shelters, Nyx Clothing's talk on power requirements and connector testing, and a view of the back-end processing and modeling of e-textiles from VA Tech's Tom Martin.

I understand that next year's conference will be in Rome, which makes it a tough sell to get the boss to pony up the cash for travel -- I guess we'll have to start working on it now.

SmartFabrics 2008

It's time again for SmartFabrics, this years conference will be held in Charleston, SC.

Given the location I'd expect heavy participation from Miliken, but I guess we'll see this week. Talks that I'm officially looking forward to:

• Torsten Linz's seminar on Integration Technologies for Electronics in Textiles


• Robin Shephard's take on Eleksen as a Success Story


• Winston Shih's North Face talk


• Stacey Burr's Textronics talk


• Fred DeAngelis's talk (I always expect a good talk from him)

As things happen at the conference I'll try to post -- otherwise expect a good recap...