The CharmingBurka breaks no laws of the Koran, only taste
A great man (or was it Tim Gunn) once said that fashion had to be culturally relevant. To that end we bring you the CharmingBurka. The kit sends a "self-defined" picture of the woman beneath to every Bluetooth mobile phone in the vicinity. According to the project's mastermind -- Markus Kison -- no laws of the Koran are broken. Video? You'd better believe it, after the break.

























all I can say is...
wow.
Agreed.
I use to hate those things in Marathon... All floating around, and scaring the crap out of me.
this is just stupid. As a Muslim I can just say that this doesn't even make sense. I know this is meant to be a joke, but if the women are covering themselves in the first place they wouldn't be bluetoothing their pics...
PLUS that is AFGHANI style, not an Arabic, Middle Eastern, or general Islamic style.
yes yes women in my family don't cover up and wear whatever they want (before someone chimes in and assumes they know what goes on :P)
@john
Most moslim woment don't wear burkas, yet they wear cloth that don't show all their skin to everyone in the street as your sister does to attract more men.
wearing proper cloth is part of our culture and what our Kuran orders,love it or hate it thats not going to change anything.
I wouldn't criticize the bible. I know am limiting my "Free of speech", but its called manners.
John, you are an idiot.
in my position, i get a lot off calls about weather Muslims should wear this clothing.
and i say: fuck off, i am not muslim.
i forget what my point is.
this is silly (the comment and the gadget thingmajig)
do people still say that? i love that word.
anyway, christianity FTW!
haha. great!
Damn, that's fashionable, when do we get some girls in the USA to wear these on the beach?
American girls probably should wear them because they are obese!
I see what you did there. Nothing like a cheap shot with a stereotype about a large group of people about whom it is fashionable to hate.
Can you say Baaaa too sheep?
@steve:
As oppose to British girls who are so fugly?
Nice teeth BTW.
@E71
Hey! At least the yellow helps obscure the bizarre directions the teeth are pointing in. I guess national health care doesn't cover dental work (unless you're Richard Hammond).
I always thought that if you're going to live somewhere, you should make an effort to follow their rules and culture. At a minimum, you shouldn't be surprised by their existing culture, anyway.
NOT funny..
why would you laugh at other people religion clothing?
Because it's ridiculous.
Because laughing is nice (independently of which naive religion specifically you laugh about, be it islam or christianity)?
Ridiculous? Like Santa Clause? The "virgin" marry?
Hummmmm....delusional much?
How can you expect others to respect you when you don't respect them? Don't answer that. I'm not interested in your "insight". RHETORICAL QUESTION, Farley!
@NG
Because it's freaking histerical! If something is stupid and silly you should have a good laugh at it even if it's part of someone's religion.
Obviously, the oppressive and misogynistic mentality of Islam is nothing to laugh about but this "invention" is ridiculus and therefore deserves ridicule.
@Adam
1. Santa Clause has nothing to do with religion (unless your religion is consumism)
2. It's Virgin Mary, not marry (although she was in fact married!) :-)
In any case, it is perfectly legit to laugh about this, and it has nothing to do with lacking respect. As vanillacide said, if something cannot stand up to laughter then it is not robust nor "democratic".
Here you can see some of difference between the western "Christian" world and the _fundamentalist_ Islamic world: we can make fun as much as we want of Christianity without consequences. We can criticize it, reject it, make up jokes about Jesus and draw irreverent images, and people accept it as par ot freedom of speech and expression. Try making fun of Islam in an Islamic country, see what happens.
Of course, if you made fun of Christianity a few hundred years ago, you got burned at the stake... but we've grown up since then.
Because it's all part of our ridiculous desire to please gods that don't exist.
@Hlynur
It's somebody else's thing, you gotta respect it.
i dont like it more than you do, at least i don't talk about it.
A-Deca: Accepted as par with freedom of speech and expression? You may want to tell that to the Christians who protested and pretty much killed "The Last Temptation of Christ", the Catholics who boycotted and flooded forums about "The Golden Compass", and the in-bred, funeral-protesting a-holes over at the Westboro Baptist Church.
It isn't even in the koran, the burka, it's just a way for fat stupid macho arabs to suppress women.
But then, all religion seems to be into that, even buddhism.
So like can she drive wearing linus's blanket over her head?
I'm sorry but I couldn't have a chick walkin around in the office lookin like a welfare 8 year old on halloween.
@A-Deca
People haven't grown up if they chop your head off...
Because laughing is better then what the other side does, which is chop off heads.
@ dorf
thats a good point brother..lol
b/c it's sexist.
i don't laugh, i spit on it, it infuriates me.
Socialist Facist hey? Just like Mcbane vs the CommieNazi's?
Religion sucks. The Truth FTW!
(waits for the obligatory "A Few Good Men" quote--for this post to get ranked down and that post to get ranked up)
do you think bible thumpers read gadget blogs?
Some, yes, but they thump their bibles digitally. :-)
The difference being that Christians won't rise up and kill people that differ with them and call it a peaceful religion.
uhm, peaceful religion? ever read history? ever seen images of americans spreading peace in iraq? and with the rest of the christians in afghanistan?
Even heard what happened in ireland?
Yeah christianity is sooo peaceful..
Let's not get silly.
@Wwhat: Since when are America and Christianity the same? (Not that I disagree with you)
Well with bush in power.. god talks to him you know.
Johnny wrote: "Since when are America and Christianity the same? (Not that I disagree with you)"
Are you serious? Christianity is drilled and injected into this country's (USA) core. Anyone who thinks otherwise is deluding him/herself. Why do you think this country has such a problem with sex/nudity? Why do you think so many voters actually CARE about a candidate's faith, when it has absolutely NOTHING with that candidate's ability to run the country? US citizens are, for the most part, a bunch of sheep. I exclude those of us reading/posting here, because we're the minority. Most people in this country are, as a matter of fact, still idiots.
I'll go on. Demographics for 2001: the US is 79.8% Christian! Only 5.2% "other religions" (Jewish, Muslim, non-denom, Hindu, Buddhist, etc). Interestingly, 15% agnostic/atheist (go team). That number was 8.4% in 1990. In 1990, the US was 88.3% Christian.
What more proof do you need?
You're being just as much a sheep by bashing Christians you know. Yes there are some you over invasive in there faith onto others and most of the time don’t truly fallow it (like err it does say not to kill in the bible yet crusades anyone?) but to be as ignorant as to call all people of a religion sheep, and dumb is astonishing. Here’s something for you, all atheists are assholes, pretty ignorant right?
Maybe one day people will realize that it is the individual who is the idiot, not the mass.
Wrong, you can make statements about groups, all mormons are mormons for instance, and so I can conclude that all religious people are either dumb or in denial or fibbing (happens a lot).
There's nothing inherently wrong with drawing a conclusion you know, even if some of the people that you draw the conclusion about don't like it.
And incidentally, the god character in the bible kills plenty and also encourages such.
And to CaptSaltyJack (who's point was proven by the votes against him): I heard several americans say they were atheist but when I probed a little deeper they say 'well yeah there was a god who created the universe of course'.
So don't get too enthusiastic about those percentages quite yet about the self-professed atheists.
Papism is an aberration of Christianity. Don't paint the rest of us with the same brush, please.
Wow, Nazis on Engadget...
Daftest thing ever - and I don't mean the burkha
Oh, and before the flamewars start, I'll point out that nowhere in the koran does it say that women must wear burkhas, just that they (and men for that matter) should dress "modestly" - that's open to your own interpretations. And such clothing has its origins in Arab culture, not in religion i.e. Its nothing to do with Islam
Exactly, it's just an expression of one interpretation of that scripture. Of course, there are some places where this is not the individual woman's expression, but it is forced on then. I see no problem with the idea of a Burqa, but nonetheless, like many religious ideas, it still has the power to be used as a tool of oppression.
@Hardcore, how exactly do you distinguish culture from religion?
Is Christianity completely and unambiguously defined by the text of the New Testament (if so, how do you explain the many doctrines within Chrstianity?) or do interpretation and mores (a.k.a. "culture") play a major role in defining the religion...?
I'd say if someone invokes religion to support a given action or stance, then it is religion.
Sorry :-(
Right, I herewith invoke religion to max the amount of muslims in western countries to 5%, make it so.
I really don't understand the point of the Burkha. I've lived in the Middle East before and researched this, and it only says in the Qu'ran that Muslim women should dress 'modestly' - but this clearly taken rather too literally.
i'd go as far to say that those things are so dumb they are not modest
@shanoboy
Or where simply playing the role of a rape *victim* in a MOVIE is a life-threatening risk. (Kite Runner controversy)