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Customize your clothes and objects with this MIT invention

There are already some smart clothes, which can change their pattern thanks to an integrated flexible screen. However, this has some disadvantages such as autonomy and résistancerésistance when washing. Researchers from Computer Science & Artificial IntelligenceIntelligence Lab (CSAIL) you Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have just presented another approach, called PortaChrome, which allows you to change the colorcolor and the pattern of objects.

Rather than integrating electronics into objects, PortaChrome is two-part: a polychrome dye applied to the object, and a separate flexible device, containing LEDLED red, green and blue (RGB) and ultravioletultraviolet which change the color of the dye. This makes it possible to create reprogrammable surfaces, and is based on the ChromoUpdate system presented a few years ago.

Yunyi Zhu of MIT’s CSAIL lab introduces PortaChrome, a system for customizing the color and pattern of objects. (In English, enable automatic translation of subtitles.) © MIT CSAIL

Four minutes to change the color of clothing

The dye can be applied to various objects such as a TT-shirt, headphones, shoes, a mug or even a murmur. The device is then placed on top. UV LEDs activate the dye, while RGB LEDs adjust the color. The process takes about four minutes. The device receives the patterns via Bluetooth and can be placed around objects, or even attached to other objects. In one example, the PortaChrome device is attached to a backpack of theof the and is placed on an area with the photochromic dye on the back of the wearer’s T-shirt. The device received altitude and heart rate data, which is then displayed on the T-shirt. Even if the wearer will have difficulty seeing them behind his back…

Researchers hope that this technology could ultimately allow the creation of fully reprogrammable clothing and objects. They now plan to use smaller but more powerful LEDs, which would allow patterns to be created more quickly and with higher definition.

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