In February, I shared my passion for the integration of fashion and technology with the TED audience at the TEDYou Stage in Palm Springs. During my talk I wore a light up jacket that was made from hacking Eric's HeartSpark necklace. The jacket was beaded with lights that blinked in rhythm with my heartrate in real time.

Think Project Runway is hard? Try hacking your clothes with technology in 6 hours!  

On February 1st, watch live as I challenge 14 fashion students from the Fort Hayes Metropolitan Education Center to hack their clothes with technology at eTech Ohio. With only 6 hours and no prior knowledge of technology, Juniors and Seniors will instruct and learn how to infuse technology such as conductive thread, fabric, fiber optics, wires, and sewable LEDs into garments.

The designs will be showcased on the catwalk prior to the keynote event on the 2nd. Don't Miss it!

If you want to keep up on the play by play action, be sure to follow the conference on Twitter @ohioetc

At 6:00 PM on Friday, January 7, at the Fashion Show Mall in Las Vegas Switch Craft's very own Shiny Clutch hits the runway at the CES MommyTech Event! Find out more here: mommytechsummit.com

My time at the Mozilla Drumbeat Festival is a three-part story about the supportive open-source community, the passion for free learning, and opportunities for change in the midst of extreme personal loss.

Safura, a rising star of the European music world, will take the stage tonight at the Eurovision Song Contest wearing CuteCircuit's video gown. The dress is designed to interpret the emotion of her hit song Drip Drop and was specifically made for Safura's Eurovision performance.

The song contest will be Live on the BBC and other national channels around Europe. You can also watch it on the internet on the Eurovision website, starting at 9pm (GMT +1).

via: CuteCircuit

This robot can perform a marriage ceremony and look good doing it. It is kind of a Metropolis-Honda vs table centerpiece look.

"The i-Fairy is a 4 foot tall robot which officially pronounced Satoko Inoue and Tomohiro Shibata man and wife. The robot is made by Kokoro Ltd, of which Inoue is an employee and Shibata, a client. Since the couple believed that the robot was responsible for their meeting, they wanted it to preside over their wedding." via-PSFK

Satoko and Tomohiro have given their robot the responsibility of creating a legal bond between them. One of the most important decisions they'll ever make. It makes me wonder, shouldn't it also look the part? When thinking about the future, at what point do you think that robots will develop a sense of taste and decorum appropriate to the events they attend and in this case, administer?

Video after the break

This year I am honored to be presenting a workshop and talk at the Smart Fabrics conference in Miami, FL. Smart Fabrics is THE premier event for everyone interested in applications, marketing, design, development, curation, and manufacturing of smart or advanced textiles. Smart fabrics are textiles that are woven or embedded with advanced properties. Examples are sports bras that can detect your heart rate, solar energy gathering pants, and soft switches for controlling your MP3 player from your jacket. There are many more amazing sci-fi sounding applications being developed, who says we have to wait for the future? It seems to me the future is now. 

Smart Fabrics 2010

April 14 - 16 in Miami, Florida

Conrad Miami Hotel

Register Here

[Above: Syuzi and Alison meeting for the first time at Maker Faire in 2006]

After four years, Syuzi Pakhchyan and I were finally able to get together and host our own talk about girls in technology. The talk was called “Duh… Its Like Tech for Girls <3" and it was presented as a core converation at SXSW Interactive 2010. We were joined by many audience members, who were passionate about igniting that tech spark in girls, teens, and women.

Erica Glasier of Oversocialized! put together this great Glam Girl’s SXSWi Survival Guide for all those who are attempting to make it through SXSW alive. 

Link: http://ericaglasier.com/2010/02/22/the-glam-girls-guide-to-sxswi/