While a very cool idea, don’t let this make you think that your clothes will replace your smartphone one day. Do you really want to wear the same shirt every day or deal with the complexities of transferring your data securely to each day’s clothes?
The real use of this type of technology will be adding another level of perception and connectivity to your day to day lives. As the article points out, adding sensors that detect radiation or monitor your vital signs are a possibility. But what about a tee-shirt that understands your movements and gestures and can use them as input into other devices. Or perhaps it could dynamically display information when viewed through a reality overlay system, be they glasses, contact lenses, or just your smartphone screen. By embedding information and computation directly into our clothes they become even more an extension of ourselves.
Also check out Mashable’s take:
http://mashable.com/2011/12/29/cotton-computer-clothing/
Technology, Material_Science, Science_Fiction_Made_Real