As you probably know, clothing has been around since the time of Adam and Eve —and it's become a lot more sophisticated than those early fig leaf designs1 . On the other hand, electronics have been with us for only a few hundred years — beginning with Franklin running around with his portable lightning rod2 . With gadgets more popular than ever these days, the combination of clothing and electronics was inevitable.
First let me mention a line of jackets launched in the fall of 2000 by Royal Philips' Electronics and Levi Strauss &Co3. Philips'original press release4 called it"merging fashion and technology in the creation of work wear for the digital age . "I love that kind of talk.
Each design is said to contain"a simple body area network using wires integrated into the body design. "What it really does is allow you to use a Philips Xenium GSM mobile phone5 and MP3 player in a jacket — all controlled by a unified remote .
A company named VivoMetrics6 has designed a different type of electronic garment. It's called LifeShirt, and it's an ambulatory monitoring system stuffed into a flexible, washable T-shirt.
VivoMetrics has built a system that allows doctors to monitor more than 40 physiological signs ( heart rate , breathing rate, blood pressure , etc. ) over extended periods of time while patients are away from a doctor's office or hospital. One of the early target markers is people who suffer from sleep apnea7 .
"Various wires plug into a Springboard module that records and holds all of the medical data. The patient can then send the information wirelessly to their doctor or send the module to the lab. "
. .. But it says that this is the type of product that will probably never be available to consumers. Its real purpose is for clinical and medical research.
The company hopes to market the LifeShirt to pharmaceutical companies and research centers conducting trials of new drugs. VivoMetrics is going to show off the product. The company says it has" secured one driver, Jon Herd, to wear the shirt during his race".
I believe these produ cts are only the tip of the iceberg. In the future I think we 'll see more varied combinations of electronics and clothing. They'll find new ways to meld future computer designs with clothing to improve our lives seamlessly.
Ⅰ. Give synonyms to the following words:
1. merge 2. monitor 3 . stuff
4. portable 5. ambulatory 6 . show off
What is the unique function of Life Shirt and its early target marker?
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