Potential Personal Heart Monitor - The Smart Shirt, I have email on my shirt and my heart is doing OK!

Let me see, I think I'll download some music to my shirt today, load some RSS news feeds and maybe it can hold all my email too! I could be reading email on the sleeve of my shirt someday. Nice that the shirt can re-charge itself too. By using a blue tooth device or cell phone the information can easily be sent to a medical office, and on top of that it will tell me when it needs to be cleaned. According to the article, there is a potential selection of colors available. BD

Imagine wearing a smart T-shirt or a suit embedded with tiny electronics that can monitor your heart or respiratory function wirelessly. When dirty, you take it off and throw it in the wash or have it dry-cleaned.
Researchers from the University of South Australia have been using garment integrated electronic technology to develop smart garments that, when placed on electronic hangers, enable monitored data to be downloaded in a heartbeat to a computer in your wardrobe, and then be recharged ready for wearing.
And there's no need to worry about your heart skipping a beat while your garment is being cleaned, according to researcher and Director of UniSA's Wearable Computer Laboratory, Professor Bruce Thomas.
"For continuous monitoring, you can take off one garment and put on another smart garment so, instead of having just one heart monitor, you can have a wardrobe of them," Prof Thomas said.

Prof Thomas points out that his researchers were not the first to think of this technology, but "we're the first worldwide to develop smart garment management technology that works," he said.
"The wardrobe has a touch screen on the outside and conductive metal bands spanning the hanging rail inside, with wires connecting it to a computer in the base of the wardrobe. When we place electronic hangers, each with their own ID and metal connection, on the rail, it detects the hangers and smart garments incorporating the conductive material and integrated electronics," Prof Thomas said.

Garments with communication technology only and a wireless connection enable users to access heart monitoring through a simple blue tooth or zigbee network, eliminating the need for expensive heart monitoring equipment to be placed in each garment.

The smart wardrobe can also be adapted for other uses including the self diagnosis of faulty monitoring equipment; scheduling cleaning and dry-cleaning; a fashion butler to help people accessorize, color match and select appropriate clothing for special occasions; and for pre-loading news, music and daily schedules into smart garments.