{"id":342046,"date":"2015-03-09T12:22:40","date_gmt":"2015-03-09T04:22:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mariefranceasia.com\/uncategorized-hk\/social-textiles-wearable-social-networks-342046.html"},"modified":"2019-05-04T02:57:34","modified_gmt":"2019-05-03T18:57:34","slug":"social-textiles-wearable-social-networks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mariefranceasia.com\/hk\/galerie\/social-textiles-wearable-social-networks-342046.html","title":{"rendered":"Social Textiles: MIT invents a wearable social network"},"content":{"rendered":"

When it comes to socialising on the web, we do so easily with the proliferation of social networks such as Facebook<\/a>, Twitter and Instagram but when it comes to real-life interactions, those networks<\/a> don\u2019t help one bit.<\/p>

So, how can technology make social media more tangible? What if we could wear our social networks<\/a>? Would it improve our real-life connections?<\/p>

For that we got our answers from Social Textiles<\/strong>, a project set up by a group of MIT students - Viirj Kan, Katsuya Fujii, Judith Amores, and Chang Long Zhu Jin<\/strong>\u2014 in collaboration with designers of Fluid Interface Group<\/strong> and researchers from MIT\u2019s Tangible Media Group.<\/p>

Social Textiles offers T-shirts (but it could be any other type of clothing) on which a pattern is printed using thermochromatic ink, and with a thin circuit membrane underneath. Paired with your smartphone via Bluetooth, the social T-shirt detects when people who share your interests are nearby and buzzes you through the shirt\u2019s collar when you are within 12 feet of each other (providing both of you are wearing the T-shirt).<\/p>

And that\u2019s not all. If you touch the person by high-fiving, shaking hands\u00a0or just by skimming their shoulder, the T-shirt sensor lights up, displaying symbols on the front of the shirt that highlight your common interests, past schools, music tastes or even if you are compatible organ donors.<\/p>

\u201cDepending on how the ink pattern is designed, Social Textiles can communicate anything you want\u2026 It could tell two people who have just met that they both like jazz, or that they both go to MIT\u201d<\/em>, Kan explains. For example, when two members of the Social Textiles Group demonstrated the technology by high-fiving each other, the letters \u201cMIT\u201d appeared on their shirts.<\/p>

We know that clothes say a lot about who we are, but with this ingenious socialising idea, the statement becomes\u00a0entirely\u00a0literal!<\/p>

For more information on the Social Textiles project, head here.<\/a><\/p>

Lindsay POUI-DI<\/em><\/p>

Watch the video<\/span> <\/h2>