Hoop dreams meet wearable tech

Basketball players in Australia are testing a new jersey that includes electroluminescent displays designed to show real-time player stats.

The technology, dubbed TeamAwear by researchers at the University of Sydney, uses a small device about the size of an iPod that is strapped to the player's body. Data is wirelessly transmitted from courtside computers, and the vests light up with data including a players' score, number of fouls and time left in the game, according to an article in New Scientist.

While the trial version being tested is bulky, and looks like something out of the movie Tron, many bloggers said the long-term applications could be interesting. One wonders what Dennis Rodman would have done with this.

Blog community response:

"It's the kind of tech advance that you could see Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban trying out. Heck, if the jerseys can show stats, they can show ads. A new revenue stream?"
--Kevin Maney

"Apparently, information is displayed through lightup crossing guard style stripes. Eh, the idea is cool and I'm sure eventually someone will develop some really nice intelligent textiles for sports uniforms."
--The Unrestricted Free Agent

"Quite the cool idea. You could watch the score and the points right on the players. Damn technology! When are the robots going to start playing?"
--Jay. Blog.

"This next revolution is coming in the field of clothing & garments. It's being driven by simultaneous innovation in three different fields...polymer chemistry, which is making it easier to design materials like fabrics to order with exactly the traits you want...nanotechnology, which is opening up the possibility of endowing fabrics with weird and wonderful characteristics (check out this umbrella that never gets wet or dirty)...and embedded electronic systems which can be comfortably and reliably integrated with clothing (Lumalive fabric is just one example)."
--Spurgeonblog