The shirt that gives you a “virtual hug” everytime your phone rings. Someone send you a “hug”, your mobile phone tells your Bluetooth, which tells your shirt to hug you, just like that friend would. Made by CuteCircuit. Inventors, among things of wearables integrating apparel and your tech needs. For example, the need to be able to be virtually connected. Get sleeves that wrinkle at the murmer of incoming call. Or the need to wear multiple outfits in a day: the morphing skirt (”The garment is designed to allow a user to transform her style during the course of a day out, allowing for easily adapting to different contexts and situations, such as work meetings, a walk in the city, a night out, enhancing the style of the wearer”).
But back to the Hug Shirt. According to the website, it’s “not meant to replace human contact, but to make you happy if you are away for business or other reasons and you miss your friends and loved ones!”. Ah, the perfect blend of “technology and emotion”. CuteCircuit tells us that “Humans need physical contact with each other. Technology should allow for a pleasant Human-Human Interaction”. Via Bluetooth. This makes me all cynical. But what do you think? Is this interesting? Would you buy one? Would you give it as a gift to your paranoid enemies?
PS: And to answer your question, CuteCircuit assures you: “And yes! It’s completely washable!”
Ami
Dave
What I appreciate about a t-shirt, is its very t-shirtness, being a simple and good article in a complex environment. Gadgets should be reserved for gadgets. Just think of manipulating those interfaces and making people dance in the subway.