TechWear
Naturally, you can take it with you: cell phone, Blackberry, digital camera, GPS, flashlight (LED, of course), pens, iPod, and a Palm handheld. Naturally, I also carry a few more essentials: laser pointer, radiation detector, XM Satellite receiver, Gerber multi-tool, and a spare battery or six. Business cards, credit cards, ID cards, old expense receipts… I think you get the point: the rare moment when the coat-check girl insists taking my jacket, I fear giving her a hernia. Knowing that the "take-it-with-you" crowd is growing, some brilliant new techno-wear has emerged… and the good news is that it fits!
Scott-E-Vest's Technology-Enabled-Clothing
Scott Jordan is on a mission: he wants to make it easy for me to take everything everywhere. His Scott-E-Vest is a marvel of pocket engineering. He designed an entire line of "Technology-Enabled-Clothing" ™: jackets, liners, pants, hats and more. The ingenious development is not simply that the clothing becomes a "portable desk" you wear; instead, he has patented his approach that allows devices in all the pockets to be invisibly wired together using conduits he has designed into the liners. My headphones are always at the ready but my iPod and handheld XM Radio are in the special audio pocket. Cell phone in the cell phone-pocket and business cards hidden in the sleeves. Even hidden pockets have even more hidden pockets.
I've worn the Scott-E-Vest everyday for two months and I'm still discovering new features on the jacket or the fleece liner nearly every day. Best of all, Scott has engineered a solar panel to hang off the back so that I can charge any of my many devices with a USB-connector on the go. I must confess it scared the heck out of the Homeland Security folks at the x-ray machine at the airport… but even they had to admit (after a 20-minute pocket-opening session) that I had the coolest jacket they ever saw. (They still took away the nail clipper… to prevent me, I suppose, from savagely clipping a flight attendant's toenails.) Sharp-eyed folks in law enforcement have been snapping up the Scott-E-Vests because it conceals a mess of useful stuff… but Scott is justifiably hopeful that gadget aficionados will embrace his handsome tech-ready clothing.
The SeV Jacket ranges in price from about $179 to $500 depending on the various options (solar panels, etc.)
Juice Bags
Zach Lyman, a like-minded technology visionary, has taken his passion for energy alternatives and elegantly fused this into a delightful solar-powered "Juice Bags." Using a high-efficiency solar panel (nearly identical to the panel in the Scott-E-Vest), Juice Bags have a 7-watt output to a car-lighter-adapter. The solar panel is a handsome cover to the sturdy messenger bag which can carry a host of rechargeable products. "Juice Bags" will be sold for $199 available later this month. For Lyman and his partners, this isn't just smart design: "Reware's" solar bags are smart policy. He is designing a series of environmentally sound products to encourage use of renewable energy and sustainable technology. "Juice Bags" can be connected together with a special adapter to increase power output. (Beautifully designed, the "Juice Bag" I tested works well and makes such a positive environmental statement I imagine they'll all sell out the moment they're available, so put your order in now!)
Innovative Sports Heated Jacket
Although other companies have introduced heated jackets, the best unit I've tried is a prototype from Innovative Sports: the new Heated Jacket. With an adjustable thermostat and lithium batteries molded to the body, the fleece "Heated Jacket" absolutely cooks with internal temperatures reaching 150-degrees! Now that's toasty. Innovative Sports entered the field, literally, with the "Heatsleeve" jacket for professional baseball pitchers to keep throwing arms ready between innings. Innovative Sports is branching out to provide lightweight heated jacket solutions to soldiers and, ultimately, civilians who can't stand battling winter. The lightweight batteries recharge in about two hours. Exact prices have not been set for the new consumer thermal jacket but expect a warming trend on a body near you soon!
Spyder's iPod Jacket
There's no better way to bomb down the ski slopes than boogying-down wearing Spyder's limited edition iPod ski jacket. Eleksens technology, enabling the integration of the iPod with the jacket, is elegant and flawless. Control your play list with a smart fabric touchpad woven into the sleeve of the jacket. The ElekTex smart fabric and ribbon cables are very durable and can be washed, crushed, mangled and skied over. ElekTex will soon be integrated in a variety of clothing: making pdas, telephones, wireless displays, etc., part of the fabric of everyday outerwear.
Adidas 1 Shoes
A full year ago, we demoed the Adidas 1 shoes: sneakers with built in servos and sensors that adjust and adapt in milliseconds to your stride. At long last, these $200 lightweight wonders will be available in stores this month. I'm a size 10, but Adidas keeps sending smaller and smaller sizes so I can't personally attest to the magic. Fortunately, when you have a pair of magic shoes, the right-sized Cinderella to test them isn't hard to find. Friends who have tried the Adidas 1 say they respond remarkably well to different terrain. I can't wait until I get a pair of my own, if only to drive the folks at the airport screening machines even more crazy.
By Daniel Dubno