It feels strange to start 2009 with a dream, but a new year means doing new things and this one felt right. I sometimes have some pretty strange dreams and find it worthwhile to write it down. I don’t quite have notebook lying next to my bed, but close enough. This one was strange too, much stranger than what I’m about to tell you.

In my dream I was looking for a Christmas gift for my brother, a T-shirt actually. For some reason, I imagined that I entered some sort of electronic boutique to do it, I went to pick a shirt, and went to try it out (my brother and me are pretty much the same size).

So there I was in the changing room when I noticed some sort of display on my shirt. It gave me all kinds of options, many of which I can no longer remember, but basically they were something like:

• “Do you want to see the news when eating breakfast?”
• “Do you want me to operate as a timer when brushing your teeth?”
• “Do you want to see traffic information when driving to work?”

You get the idea.

I then had another dream within my dream, which was about imagining other applications, like:

• You’re listening to the radio and the thing suggests Wikipedia entries related to the topic.
• You’re doing exercise, and it suggests other related ones, with instructions.
• You put it on and it sends out a signal to other clothes that match and they start beeping.

And then I woke up, good morning and happy new year, guys!

Ignoring some inconsistencies, like where the display could be on a short-sleeved T-shirt, whether it’s not a little unnecessary for it to display traffic information or a timer when brushing, if those technologies already exist in cars and electronic brushes, and some others, this is the way I imagine it, let’s call it e-clothing, to work:

• It has a wireless connection, which enables it to talk to other devices (including clothes.)
• It has an accelerometer, which senses things like you brushing or doing exercise.
• It can be programmed, manipulated within or remotely, to become relevant to your context.
• It takes on the colour of your clothing when it’s dormant.
• It also has no problem being folded, etc., so it’s like e-paper or better, like e-cloth.

That’s all for now. I would personally love for electronics to be part of our everyday clothing, it makes a lot of sense when thinking about exercising-contexts, where other devices are cumbersome, and for finding matching clothes (hell for some).

Hope you had a happy new year celebration!

Vincent

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Happy new year !

Many thanks to the sir that proclaimed this day a universal holiday!

The wormhole created from this generalized ambiance gave me the time to feel a thought more random and more intense than my routine-fishbowl-thinking. (well I hope…)

I read something very beautiful today.

Paloma, in « L’élégance du hérisson » has a reflection on people flaming up cars in Paris. Because I always have this « rioting thing » on the back of my mind I spent a moment thinking about Paloma’s “why” explanation.

She describes a scene with an adopted Indonesian peasant child drinking tea in the middle of heavily civilized Paris. Mind the gap between the two points of reference of this child. It is half the earth. And the child falls in. His identity and then culture is lost somewhere on the road, and with no culture he is an uncivilized animal. That’s the way she puts it.

I can add nothing to it but another camera : For me, the violence on cars is the scream of somebody falling in this gap. In the case of my country the gap that makes us scream is maybe that we have to live like old people when we are very young and like children as we get older. Having experienced this, I think very high of Internet and its democratic turbines. For the moment and at its present shape internet is one sure open bridge to feel connected to your civilization, whatever you feel this is, with no logistics involved.

very much like santa claus for those of you that gave up believing.

hope?wish

Georgia

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