More Digital Fashn

FLIGHTY DATA: This outfit enables a flight attendant to get constantly updated information about passengers, flight data, and other information through an infrared beacon connected to the small computer worn in the pouch on her chest. Corresponding infrared beacons located throughout the airplane would download current information as she passes by. Her headband contains a small screen on an arm, to display the relevant information.

MUSIC MAN: The jean jacket incorporates a fabric keypad, which uses conductive thread. By pressing the keys in various combinations, the wearer can program a miniature synthesizer, carried in the jacket's interior pockets. The fabric keypad, developed by MIT's Media Lab, is fully washable and points the way to circuitry woven directly into clothes that will reproduce in flexible form a printed-circuit board.

STRESS TEST: Sensors on a woman's hand monitor her pulse and perspiration, and combine their readings with data from a respiration sensor worn around her chest. Together, this lets a pocket computer "read" the wearer's mood and adjust accordingly: The computer stays in the background when stress is present, providing only critically important information in headline fashion through a head-mounted display. When the computer senses that the wearer is relaxed, it may interact playfully with her, passing along information picked up on the Web by software agents, showing video clips or family photos the wearer has stored in the computer.