Internet World: The geekiest fashion show in town
Published: 23 May 2000 11:40 BST
Britain's Internet World show kicks off in London Tuesday with surely the geekiest fashion show London has ever seen.
Wearable computing company Charmed Technology will show off its most startling clothes designs at catwalk shows held throughout the three-day show. Among the wearable gadgets, guaranteed to have fashion lovers and technophiles alike drooling: a Net-connected earring, capable of receiving and playing email messages; a badge that automatically exchanges business cards; and a wireless communicator device incorporating MP3, GPS, broadband video and even a 700MHz processor.
These are all prototype devices, however, so you'll have to wait a while for them to hit the shops, but the people at Charmed believe theirs is an inevitable view of the future.
"Our show will go down in history," says co-founder and CEO Alex Lightman. "For the last 50 years we have been seeing a divergence of different devices... in the next 50 I believe we a reversal of this. These devices will lead to a whole new way to work and to perceive technology."
Perhaps most bizarre of all is the Charmed "smart second skin", a suit of plastic tubing designed to respond to stimuli by administering medicines and hormones.
Dr Jenny Tilloston of the Charmed Technology Sensory Design Lab believes that even this could become a real product one day. "Fragrances can actively be pulsed electronically through a cabling device system. Mimicking the human senses, in particular the scent glands, in our bodies. The fabric structure will literally incorporate these into it."
Charmed Technology is backed by companies including portal Excite, MIT, e-commerce company Earthport and broadband technology provider ArrayComm.
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