Make Clothes Out of a Can With Spray-On Fabric

Tight-fitting T-shirts and hipster jeans would get even snugger if you could just spray them on.

That idea just got a little less far-fetched. A liquid mixture developed by Imperial College London and a company called Fabrican lets you spray clothes directly onto your body, using aerosol technology.

After the spray dries, it creates a thin layer of fabric that can be peeled off, washed and reworn.

“When I first began this project I really wanted to make a futuristic, seamless, quick and comfortable material,” says Manel Torres, a Spanish fashion designer and academic visitor at Imperial College in a statement. Torres worked with Paul Luckham, a professor of particle technology at the Imperial College to create the material.

“In my quest to produce this kind of fabric, I ended up returning to the principles of the earliest textiles such as felt, which were also produced by taking fibers and finding a way of binding them together without having to weave or stitch them,” says Torres.

Clothes designed using the spray-on fabric will be shown at the Science in Style fashion show next week at Imperial College.

Spray-painting the body has been around for a while, and you can even get spray-on latex body paint (NSFW). And who can forget the amazing spray-on hair, a staple of Ronco infomercials in the 1980s? But these are illusions, tricks to deceive the eye. The spray-on fabric, in contrast, is lightweight and can be stored in your closet with other clothes.

The spray-on fabric consists of short fibers that are combined with polymers to bind them together and a solvent that delivers the fabric in liquid form. The solvent evaporates when the spray touches the surface.

The fabric is formed by cross-linking fibers, which cling to one another to create the garment, says Fabrican.

The spray-on fabric is pretty versatile. It can be created in many colors and and use different types of fibers ranging from natural to the synthetic, says the company.

The spray can be applied using a high-pressure spray gun or an aerosol can. The texture of the fabric changes according to the type of material — such as wool, linen or acrylic — and how the spray is layered on the body.

Fabrican says the technology is not just for fashion but can have some innovative use in medicine to layer bandages on the skin without disturbing the wound.

The technology is still in prototype stage, and some kinks still need to be worked out, such as the strong smell of solvent around the fabric. The researchers estimate that it will be at least a few years before it can be ready for commercial use.

Another challenge is to find a way to use the spray to create clothes that aren’t very snug. After all, with all the obesity in America, the sprayed-on look for clothes might not work for everyone.

Check out the video below showing how to create a spray-on scarf.

iOS 4.2 First Look: iPad Gets Multitasking, Printing

 Poor iPad customers. It feels like an eternity since the iPhone and iPod Touch gained multitasking with iOS 4, while owners of the tablet have been frozen in time with boring old iOS 3. 

Fortunately, Apple’s iOS 4.2 is due for launch in November, and we got an early look at the new OS on the iPad.
Based on our hands-on testing with an early beta release of iOS 4.2, there’s plenty for iPad users to look forward to. Multitasking is even better on the media-rich tablet than on its smaller siblings, grouping apps into folders makes the entire tablet experience feel less inundating, and finally, the iPad will get a feature many of us have been demanding: wireless printing.
We couldn’t test all the new features due to the unavailability of some necessary hardware, but here’s a quick first look of what you’ll get with iOS 4.2 in a few months.

New HTC Sense Shows Android Skins Are Still Alive

Android skins may be slow and tacky, but phone makers continue to use them. Now HTC has doubled down on the concept with a new version of its Sense user interface.

Along with the launch of two new phones Wednesday, HTC upgraded Sense, an Android add-on that provides home screen widgets to aggregate social networking feeds, display a user’s calendar, and provide access to apps such as the camera.

The revamped Sense UI will have a much faster boot time, DLNA support to allow streaming media to other devices, faster maps and a new website for device management, says HTC.

The new version of Sense will be seen on the Desire and Desire Z smartphones that has company just launched.

How to Turn the iPod Nano Into a Wristwatch

Admit it: When you saw the puny touchscreen iPod Nano you thought, “That could make a cool watch.” Accessory makers thought so, too, and a handful of them are already selling fancy straps to turn your iPod Nano into a watch. The truth is you don’t really need to waste money on any of them, because you can do it yourself in two steps.

Really all you need is any fabric strap. The iPod Nano has a built-in clip on the back so you can just clip it on to the center of any thin strap. It’s a sturdy clip, too, so unless you go skydiving or regularly get in bar fights, it shouldn’t wiggle around much.

Check out our photos below to see how I converted my military watch (with a NATO watch band, which you can get for about $10) into an “iWatch” in two easy steps.

 

 

First Look: A Screenshot Tour of the New Twitter

Twitter launched a full redesign to its website Tuesday, showing off changes that lead Twitter.com away from its humble stream-of-updates past and toward a more interactive, app-like future.

The new Twitter went live to a select few users Tuesday afternoon and began rolling out to everyone else Wednesday. If you don't see it yet, you will soon.

The website now has a new two-panel view. Your familiar stream of tweets runs down the left side. On the right side is a dashboard of sorts, where you can see recent activity from your followers and the people you follow, trending topics, and the list of people you might want to follow.