‘Smart Textiles’ for a Phone as Useful as the Shirt on Your Back

His effort is part of a broad technological effort to make “smart textiles”: wearable fabrics with embedded electronics that can collect, store, send and receive information. His lab is focusing on the sending-and-receiving part, trying to transform military apparel, hospital gowns, even everyday T-shirts into antennas.

From a New York Times article about the work John Volakis is conducting at Ohio State. Some of this seems a little over the top, but I'd welcome apparel that eased the hookup and use of medical monitoring equipment,