Computing Fabrics

“It’s exciting to really change the aesthetics of technology,” says Yoel Fink, who teaches the course, "Computing Fabrics," to students from MIT and elsewhere. The class explores the history and future of fabrics, including next-gen textiles that will be beautiful and functional in entirely new ways.

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[EyesOfByes]

Not to cry wolf… but I wouldnt wanna wear a hackable smartscarf. You know remote strangeling 😏

[funnyturtles]

when they said that MIT classes were free I was thinking stuff like this would be like a masterclass on youtube

[SparkyOne]

As a sewer, there are pros and cons concerning my hobby. I am a seamstress, for myself and family. I do repurpose clothing, to be sustainable. I don’t see how this new fabric could be repurposed, unless you are an electrician. The other concern, is what happens when the electronics in the clothing stops working, does it get thrown out? How would this be sustainable? This concept would be fine for furnishings, but not clothing.

[MrThonny]

Super cool. Have been following this field for years now and unfortunately I'm yet to see a really meaningful use case. Hope to be surprised soon :)

[chaoyangchen]

They better make that waterproof. I'm not prepared to be shocked when it rains.

[Excalibur]

Would have appreciated some more examples of specific projects, like the wavy electrode inside the elastomer strand.

[Shadow__]

Nice, now I'll be able to wear my social media and youtube 24/7.
6+ hours a day isn't enough...

[bios]

Reminds me of the animw movie Maquia. Tge Iorph people in thw movie used fabric for recording their history and also used it for communication with one another - like encrypted letters.

[huyphan]

As much as I love these videos, they hurt me more thinking about my MIT rejection letter 😢

[timtreichel]

Am I the only one who thinks that Prof. Fink is this whole thing. Maybe I just don't have the necessary imagination. But lets say you get to the point, where you can integrate some kind of CPU chip into your fabric, lets say your chest: Iron-Man style (which probably would be the whole chip in silicon) and you can connect it with some kind of battery (lets say those fancy fibers) within your clothing. Then you still need some kind of UI, which would need some kind of (Touch)-Screen, lets say its an fabric integrated touch screen in your sleeve. Lets say you build this thing, it works and it doesn't fry you when you get wet during rain. Why would I use this instead of a smartphone. Maybe there are some unique applications where some fancy electrical/smart/whatever fibers can be incredible useful, but I really don't see it in our clothes. Honestly making, simple, more durable, fair, affordable clothing would be 100 times more useful in terms of clothing, when the average T-shirt gets destroyed, thrown away after 10 times use, while costing 1 $, because humans are working under horrible conditions in Asia. And what is this introduction "People today have to almost choose between aesthetics, beauty and technology. They are orthogonal to each other ... " Am I the only one who thinks that this not true at all ? I mean one definition of aesthetic is "concerned with beauty or the appreciation of beauty". How is this orthogonal to beautiful. Its parallel.

[TomHutchinson]

"So what we're doing is converting the fabric from just being what it has always been to something that plays a very meaningful role in our lives"

I would push back on this a bit. Fabric already plays a meaningful role in our lives. These new technology additions are an extremely modest potential improvement to something already full of value, meaning, and technology. It's OK for tech to play a small supporting role in something much bigger.

[timothylopez]

If we could use this for vascular shunt tech, we could expand a vessel and allow a blockage to release, then immediately collapse the shunt and capture the obstacle for removal.

[AraCarrano]

Start by announcing the collaboration in the title, that way the wire striping b-roll makes more sense.

[kedusyared]

Nice this is innovation and think outside the box. Love to see it!

[pfever]

Please, make this class publicly available, I have been interested in this topic for years but I cannot find much information available

[M_Sonata]

The A24 sticker at 2:49 adds more joy to this video.

[valeriecarpentier]

Is the self drying jacket finally coming?

[niceengine]

I don't want smart clothes I want high tech clothes that can do things. First would be temperature modulation. I want clothes that can be cool when they need to be and warm me up if it suddenly becomes cold. Self cleaning etc would also be nice too.

[godbodyrock]

i find this sector FASCINATING and look forward to more opportunities...

[pleaseTodayTo]

"Well, we all know an apple box is quite a worn-out tool", a women spoke while sipping her tea,
"I gave an sweater from apple as a birthday present to my son-in-law. It seems he didn't like it because it was too rosy."
She soon broke down in tears and said, "Did I know it would come to this, just because of that?"