To all the women out there: how many times have you had your phone blast an embarrassing ringtone and you weren’t able to stop the beat because your phone was buried in your purse?
Well, there’s now a miraculous solution to that problem. It’s called the M-Dress, made by an appropriately named company, CuteCircuit. According the retailer, “The M-Dress is an elegant silk jersey dress that is also a functional soft electronics mobile phone. The M-Dress accepts a standard SIM card and allows the wearer to receive and make calls without carrying a cellular phone in their pocket or purse. Simplicity is
elegance.”
For once, the description does not lie! The one-piece black silk dress will always look great during a night out. Since the earpiece is located right by your palm, when you’re bored at the bar counter, you can call a friend or cab simply by resting your head on your hand – a skill that is mastered by virtually every student who has had to sit through a single calculus lecture.
For those who care to know about the technical details (I had to add them for
my column), the dress works by slipping your SIM card underneath
the garment label. When a call arrives the user puts her hand to her ear, and the sensors of the dress will put the call through. The dress also has a standard ring tone (the boring ring), and dropping your hand ends the call.
Due to limited space for the hardware, the outbound phone capability is limited to a few pre-programmed numbers. For those worried about radiation, the antenna is located at the bottom hem, unlike most phones that require you to keep the antenna at head level.
While the dress won’t be available until 2011, CuteCircuit is not a stranger to unique dresses and notoriety. CuteCircuit sports a wide array of clothing fitted with sensors, such as their Hug-Shirt™, which connects to your phone via Bluetooth and lets you send hugs as an SMS message. In return, you’ll feel the “warmth” of a hug received via sensors that emit heat.
Even if you don’t appreciate the technology or fashion, but love trees, a post on TreeHugger titled “10 Celebrities Wearing Hot (and Weird) Green Fashion on the Red Carpet,” written by Emma Grady, mentioned Katy Perry’s gown made by CuteCircuit. Perry wore the gown to the annual Costume Institute Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. What sets the dress apart is the more than 3,000 LEDs, which in English means the dress had shiny lights in it and also is an engineering marvel.
On a relatively random note, after hearing about the motion sensor capabilities of the M-Dress, I contacted the makers of Bump, the application which lets users exchange information by simulating a fist bump, to see if it is possible to “Bump” and exchange data between the dress and a phone and/or other dresses. I was told by a representative that they currently only support the iOS and Android sensors and that that is their primary focus for the time being. However, down the road they are open to exploring other avenues.
Could society be drifting towards a shift where instead of a pickup line, men “Bump” into women and rather than spill a drink in return, the men will have their iPhones, or Droids’ erased? If by some chance that does catch on, who knows, maybe tin foil will be the next hot thing, just like those Duct Tape wallets and bags.
