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Chinese schools keep tabs on kids with 'intelligent uniforms'
Even schoolkids can't escape China's increasing obsession with surveillance. Over 10 schools in the country's southwestern Guizhou province and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region have made students wear "intelligent uniforms" from Guanyu Technology in the name of improving attendance and safety. Each uniform has two chips that indicate when a student is entering or exiting school grounds, and automatically sends that data to both parents and teachers. Leave without permission and an automatic voice alarm will make it patently clear you're a truant.
easyJet's new cabin crew uniforms are covered in LEDs
Whether it's recon drones, VR training or 3D-printed plane parts, easyJet is quick to embrace new technologies. The company's latest experiment is a little more garish -- to mark its 20th birthday, cabin crew and engineers are getting brand-new uniforms littered with colourful LEDs. With the cabin crew, you'll notice tiny lights on their jacket lapels that illuminate to reveal flight numbers, destinations and other useful tidbits. Extra LEDs have been sewn onto the shoulders which, along with some illuminated hems, are designed to help staff and travellers in the event of an emergency. Finally, there are built-in microphones so the crew can communicate with one another and the passengers.
Star Trek Online celebrates the 25th anniversary of The Next Generation
The first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation launched 25 years ago. In honor of the anniversary of the blessed event, Star Trek Online players have the opportunity to unlock some nostalgic swag for free. From now until "around" 1:00 p.m. EDT on Tuesday the 24th, players can take a mini-mission that will send them off to speak with good ol' Worf. Completing that mission will unlock the free swag: Federation characters will receive a TNG Season 1 uniform, male Klingon and Federation characters with hair options will receive Worf's Season 1 short hair and goatee (sorry, no bearded ladies), and Klingon and Federation characters of both species will get access to Worf's Season 1 sash. This is a per-character unlock, so be sure to talk to Worf with every character that you'd like to boldly go with a little more panache.
EVE Online Inferno 1.1 opens for business
Patches are serious business. Just ask CCP, which has deployed its first major post-Inferno update to EVE Online's space cowboys and their cute toy ships. Inferno 1.1 is nothing to sneeze at, with its expanded loyalty point stores, increased visuals, and a cargo hold full of fixes and tweaks. Players sucking up to one of the four militias in the game now have more merchandise to drool over. The loyalty point stores now include factional uniforms that come in both male and female varieties. Alternatively, you can drop real-world money for other uniform variants that have been added to the NeX store. The Minmatar ships finally receive a dose of graphical love in 1.1, with V3 shader upgrades for their hardware. Due to popular demand, players are now able to watch a target area for a while after the target's been blown to kingdom come. As always, there are too many changes to summarize in a few short paragraphs, so check out the patch notes to get the down low on Inferno 1.1!
Conductive fabrics may power future infantry gear, uniforms set to enter field trials
If you thought your Sunbeam electric blanket or those Hello Kitty foot warmers were advanced pieces of kit, then you'd best divert your eyes from this story out of the UK. In an effort to eliminate the mess of power cables and extraneous batteries from a soldier's tech gear, one British company is currently experimenting with conductive fabrics as the basis for future military uniforms. The material is able to deliver power to any number of devices -- all from a single battery -- and also features a redundancy aspect, with the ability to reroute power should the fabric become torn or damaged. The company, known as Intelligent Textiles, recently received a £234,000 grant from the Ministry of Defense and hopes to begin field trials of its equipment next month. While these high tech uniforms may see a limited military issue by year's end, it's thought unlikely that the gear will become widespread until 2014 or beyond.
Energy-efficient military uniforms to make solar-powered necktie so last season
This definitely isn't the first time we've heard of wearable solar cells, but a new development underway in the UK could certainly have a greater impact than, say, an iPod-charging denim jacket. By combining photovoltaic cells with thermoelectric devices, a team of researchers is working to create new, more efficient uniforms for British troops. The solar-powered outfits could cut the weight of traditional battery packs in half, allow for significantly longer military missions, and actually absorb energy across the electromagnetic spectrum, decreasing the possibility of detection by infrared technology. To ensure 24-hour power, the solar cells will collect energy in daylight, with thermoelectric devices taking on the task at night. A prototype is set for 2013, but we wonder how long it will take to hit the catwalk.
Star Trek Online: Deep space exploration on a budget
It's never been a better time to be a fan of the final frontier, particularly with Star Trek Online's recent Season 3 update. But if you've been biding your time on STO, just waiting for that perfect deal, today might be your lucky day. Amazon is selling the digital download version of STO for a mere $2.50 -- and that includes a full month of gameplay. Seeing as how a month's subscription runs around $15, it's quite a steal. But we'd advise you to go for the deluxe edition of STO on Amazon instead. For $5, you not only get the game and 30 days of play, but also a classic series uniform set, the Joined Trill race and a handful of other goodies that would cost you well over $10 to buy separately on the C-Store. Speaking of Cryptic's in-game store, the company has announced that all C-Store items (excluding the two newest additions) are 20% off from now through January 3rd, 2011. Since a wise starship captain is frugal with his ship's budget, this seems like the perfect time to snatch a few bargains without worrying about breaking the bank. [Thanks Omali!]
South Korea to develop new high-tech battle uniform - Halo fans approve wholeheartedly
In an obvious attempt to seduce impressionable teenage gamers into their armed forces the Republic of Korea will begin development of their own totally badass science fiction battle uniform early next year. In addition to a whopping 95% increase in awesomeness, the uniforms will feature a number of other technical enhancements, including a multifunction helmet with video transmitter, GPS display and voice recognition, a backpack with command / control and friendly-or-foe identification systems, a BDU that offers protection from nuclear, biological and chemical attacks, and the laser-guided, multi-function XK11 assault rifle, which shoots both standard NATO 5.56mm rounds and 20mm grenades. Did the future just get way cooler, or way scarier? Or both? We're not sure. But you can check that gun out yourself in the video after the break.
Blackhawk Warrior Wear combat uniforms feature integrated tourniquets
We've seen some incredibly high-tech approaches to better-equipping our soldiers in the battlefield, but Blackhawk Products Group is trying to save lives with a more back-to-basics approach -- by integrating tourniquets directly into their Warrior Wear line of battlefield clothing. According to the company, most preventable combat deaths occur due to blood loss from arm and leg wounds, and Blackhawk's system should make it easy to locate and apply a tourniquet in a short amount of time. Blackhawk is planning on licensing the tech to other military suppliers, so hopefully we'll be seeing the system pop up for all our troops soon.
