Just last May, German chipmaker Infineon Technologies AG, in Munich, and its partner, Vorwerk & Co. Teppichwerke GmbH and Co., in Hameln, unveiled a carpet that can detect motion—of unwanted intruders, for example—and also light the way to exits in the event of a fire. The carpet is woven with conductive fibers and studded with pressure, temperature, or vibration sensor chips, microcontrollers, and light-emitting diodes (LEDs) [see illustration].

Infineon Technologies AG

Red wires supply voltage, green wires carry data, and blue wires are ground for Infineon's demonstrator smart carpet motion-detection module. A capacitive sensor in the module detects when a green wire is touched, which lights the red LED.

Last year France Telecom showed off a display made of woven optical fibers that can be worked in with standard textiles. A T-shirt or backpack could display text and images, including video and advertising logos, and could be adapted for color-changing scarves and furnishings.

And for those of us who can't stand looking at the same decor day in and day out, International Fashion Machines, cofounded by Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumna Maggie Orth, is commercializing Electric Plaid wallpaper. And when she says electric, she means electric: a swatch now on display at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum's National Design Triennial in New York City slowly changes colors and patterns as conductive fibers heat and then cool threads coated in thermally sensitive inks.

These prototypes are a small sample of the vast variety of fibers and fabrics that can be woven into clothing, carpets, upholstery, and wallcoverings. Coupled with fault-tolerant computing and network architectures, such e-textiles can constitute a platform for health monitoring, communications, multimedia devices, and changing decors.

Mother of all wearable motherboards

Some of these garments will be on the rack or on your local firefighter in the next five years. Infineon's carpet and International Fashion Machines' wallpaper should hit stores within the next couple of years, and perhaps a SmartShirt for infants will, too.

Sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS, extinguishes the lives of thousands of sleeping infants every year. An e-textile shirt from New York City-based Sensatex Inc. promises to put an end to SIDS by alerting parents the moment a baby stops breathing

Sundaresan Jayaraman

A baby is swaddled in a SIDS suit prototype that detects when a child stops breathing and sends an alarm.

With sensors that monitor heart and respiration rates and body temperature, the shirt will communicate wirelessly with a parent's PDA, watch, or PC.