A colleague sent me this while I was on holiday in August and I have been meaning to blog it ever since but the catch up from holiday is only just reaching a conclusion. You really can’t make this stuff up and I simply love the photo that goes with the story.
Image of solar powered tie mobile battery charger
Basically a bunch of engineers have designed a tie that contains a solar panel that charges your mobile phone. As you can see from the photo this is a very stylish piece of clothing that would not look good on anyone.
The link I was sent that covered the story was www.engadget.com. What I like most is that if you didn’t know the url and just read the story you would know that this is a gadget website, written by IT guys. The first time you are alerted to this possibility is when you read that researchers have made wearable technology “slightly more discreet”. I am not sure Armani would agree but lets go with it. However, if you are still willing to believe this is a possible fashion item then the researchers solution to the problem of tieing the knot caused by the solar stitching process will finally convince you of the target audience for this particular garment. Apparently “a clip on tie would solve the problem”.
Finally they conclude that combining the clip on tie with “a special pouch for carrying your cellphone, and you’ve got a combo that can’t be beat”. I suspect it will be.
There have been wearable technology applications for a few years now, but I think it’s quite telling we’re not seeing them in the shops.