Wearable Technology Brings Us Social Networking Fabric

Last year, Diffus brought us the Climate Dress, conductive fabric with more than 100 tiny LED lights, a CO2 sensor and an Arduino Lilypad microprocessor that visualizes the level of CO2 in the wearer's immediate surroundings.

Now Electricfoxy has introduced Ping, a social networking garment that connects to your Facebook account wirelessly. Natural movements will ping your friends automatically.

For example, a sensor integrated into the hood can tell when you're lifting or lowering it.  Lifting the hood automatically sends a message and updates your status. Lowering the hood  can send another message.  A Facebook application allows the wearer to customize  messages, assign them to groups of friends and manage  different types of messages based on location, friends or mood.

Technology integrated into the shoulder can "tap" you when you receive a notification, and the wearer can assign different tapping rhythms to people.

Designer Jennifer Darmour sought to "investigate garments that have electronics built directly into them resulting in a new aesthetic of form and behavior that become a core part of our expression, our identity, and our individuality."