Is That An MP3 Player In Your Sleeve?

(Mis)Uses of Technology

from the the-mp3-jacket-comes-to-life dept

Over two years ago we first wrote about Infineon’s plans for an MP3-player jacket, which would have the electronics sewn directly into the jacket. Readers expressed skepticism towards the idea, and I predicted it would be quite some time before it actually came to market. However, it appears that a jacket with a built in MP3 player and bluetooth gateway to a mobile phone is about to hit the market. It even has a keyboard/controller built directly into the sleeve. It also comes with headphones, and a microphone in the collar. The system will turn off the music and let you switch to the phone whenever a call comes through. Now, the question is whether or not anyone actually wants it. It doesn’t hold very much music, and as music players have gotten smaller, does it really make sense to have that technology sewn directly into your jacket? It really limits the overall usefulness of the music player, since you need to be wearing or holding the jacket to use it. Furthermore, since most jackets are fairly seasonal, it would seem like the MP3 player would be pretty useless for a good portion of the year. It might make sense as a fairly expensive gateway system, like how it works with a Bluetooth phone, if they could set up a similar system for just about any music player that someone could just plug into the jacket.