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Polar's next fitness wearable is a smart shirt
In the good old days, the best way to get accurate body readings was to strap on a chest-worn heart-rate monitor and go out for a run. But companies like OMSignal and Hexoskin, among others, changed this by developing monitors that could be embedded in fabrics. It was this trend that led to the first and second waves of "smart" running shirts that we've seen at several previous CES shows. Now Polar, a company that made its name building chest straps, is getting in on the action with the Polar Team Pro Shirt.
'Football Fan Shirt' uses haptics to help you feel the big match
If you're already a huge fan of football (aka soccer) and wish you could feel those sweet victories and bitter defeats, Wearable Experiments thinks it can help. Just in time for the Euro 2016 tournament, it's showing off an international version of its smartphone-connected Football Fan Shirt that sends haptic vibrations to your torso whenever there's a big play by a team you follow. You'll savor goals that much more, of course, but the clothing can also register everything from tackles to the dreaded red card.
There's something weird about this ordinary man plushie
Owning a stuffed version of a perfectly ordinary man in a nice suit is kind of weird. This Octodad plushie is 10 inches long and even comes with little magnets in its hands, so you can hang this well-coiffed gentleman on all kinds of things (mostly refrigerators). This adorable bit of Octodad merchandise is available exclusively at Fangamer, along with two classy t-shirts and a "How to Prepare Tako 'Tosan" poster. These are all up for pre-order right now, with the plushie, poster and Cephalopadre shirt due to ship by late November, and the Dad on Deck shirt shipping by mid-late December. The plushie is $18 alone, or $23 for it and a PC download code of Octodad: Dadliest Catch, courtesy of Humble Bundle. The shirts are $23 each and the poster is $16 (no game code options there). [Image: Fangamer]
A closer look at Ralph Lauren's smart shirt for athletes
I wish I could say I went "hands-on" with Ralph Lauren's new tech-infused smart shirt, but that would have meant putting my hands all over Marcos Giron, the collegiate tennis player who's making his US Open debut this week. I'm sure he would not have appreciated that. Even so, I still got to see the shirt (and Giron) in person at a press event here in New York, where the tennis tournament is already underway. Read on to see how it works.
Ralph Lauren is making a tech-infused polo shirt
US Open ball boys will be sporting the latest in wearable tech starting this Monday, according to the NYT: Ralph Lauren's "Polo Tech" shirts. Of course, nearly everything the company makes is a "wearable," but these particular shirts contain conductive silver threads and other sensors designed to measure performance. The apparel maker said it wanted to do something different from the usual sports bands while eliminating the complexity: "You're just putting on a shirt." It'll still have the tech, though, measuring factors like your heart rate, breathing and movement, and relaying them to a smartphone or computer (though there's no word yet on exactly how). It won't be limited to athletic wear either, as Ralph Lauren plans to also launch sensor-equipped dress shirts later in the year. We're not sure what you'd do with those -- hanging out at the yacht club can't burn that many calories. [Image credit: AP/Ralph Lauren]
Intel's vision for wearables includes... a shirt?
The next biggest thing in wearables is apparently something that's already technically... wearable: A smart shirt. Intel CEO Brian Krzanich came to the Code Conference wearing a shirt laden with sensors capable of monitoring your health, such as heart rate and even emotion. These sensors can communicate with an app on your smartphone.
OMsignal's biometric shirt watches you breathe, tells your smartphone about it
Most fitness wearables wrap around your wrist or clip to your belt, but the folks at OMsignal have distilled the category down to its most basic form: the shirt. "We've been wearing clothing all our lives," company CEO and founder Stéphane Marceau says. "It's the most natural and therefore the ultimate "wearable" medium." He's got a point, but that isn't what makes OMsignal's shirts special. The garment includes sensors that measure the wearer's heart rate, breathing and movement and pipes all that data to their smartphone via Bluetooth, which can calculate calories burned, workout intensity and other metrics. All this is powered by a removable data module, of course, which can hold a charge for about 30 workouts. Just make sure to remove it before you put the shirt through the wash. Unfortunately the garment isn't cheap (about $200 for pre-orders) -- and only Men's sizes are available at launch -- but the company hopes to create a women's collection soon.
New eBoy-designed Engadget shirts on sale: shipping now to stocking stuffers worldwide
For those who picked up one of our eBoy-engineered tees from last fall, we've some good news for you: the new line is out now! Just in time for the holidays, one of the world's finest 8-bit artists has kindly provided us with a new range of t-shirts, and perhaps best of all, each one is in stock and shipping now. For those new to the name, you can dig into our introduction of eBoy here, and you can grab a shirt of your own in the source link. They're priced at $24 (US / Canada), or €24 elsewhere, and if you're curious about sizing, have a look at American Apparel's size chart right here. %Gallery-172647%
Minecraft collection on Threadless explodes with 10 new shirt designs
Threadless now has 10 shirts in its brand-new Minecraft collection, with most available for guys, gals, babies and kids. Each shirt is a winner of the Threadless Loves Minecraft design challenge, which offered the three top artists $3,000, a $500 Threadless voucher and a trip to MineCon Paris.Each of the Minecraft shirts has its own brand of charm, such as Love Bomb, which features a lovesick, cartoonish Creeper courting a box of TNT, and Attack of the Giant Creeper!, a retro Hollywood homage. All shirts are $19.50 for adult sizes.
Breakfast Topic: I killed him for his shirt
Yes, I have this thing I do where I kill Fineous Darkvire for his weird, white-quality, bind-on-pickup shirt. It's not even that I really care about the shirt. I just get this weird kick out of a bind-on-pickup shirt that's white quality, so it doesn't even have the usual loot safeguards. Every time I get one, I destroy the one I have in my bags so as to keep my shirt levels balanced. I don't really have any reason to go to Blackrock Depths besides the shirt, really. I just go in, kill the place dead, and see if I got a shirt or not. So far, it's dropped twice in the past seven or so years, and tonight made three. Any weird loot artifacts that tickle your whimsical side? Any shirts or monocles or masks or what have you that send you murdering mobs?
Guild Wars 2 shirt designs up for voting
Guild Wars 2 fans have been clamoring for a few things over the years. The first repeated request, a release date, was granted just last week. Two other things -- a way to turn into walking billboards for ArenaNet and a way to give the company more money -- are soon to be realized as well. Until now, Guild Wars 2 clothing has been reserved only for the lucky and dedicated few who can get themselves to conventions. Soon shirts branded with the awesome art associated with Guild Wars 2 will be available for the masses. Better still, you can have a say in what shirts get made. There's a small gallery of possible designs hosted on the Guild Wars 2 Facebook page. Check it out, pick your three favorites, and vote for those favorites. The poll is only open until 3:00 p.m. EDT on July 6th, so don't deliberate too long.
PrintWarcraft.com now prints your character on shirts
You can now get your character printed on shirts at PrintWarcraft.com. Actually, you can print any character, as long as you know the character and realm names. Several sizes and styles are offered, along with a few neutral colors. The shirt builder has many options, including poses, logos and nameplates. You can move each item around on the graph to your liking. It's almost too customizable for me -- too many options. Some of the tools are a little awkward, but I'm assuming that will be ironed out soon. PrintWarcraft gets its info from the Armory, so your character has to be at least level 10 in order to be able to print it. And just like the Armory, sometimes changes you make to your character in-game can take a while to show up. If you create an account, you can keep screenshots of your characters. But these screenshots are not directly linked to the Armory, so if you change your character's look and want to print that instead, you need to create a new screenshot linked to your new look. PrintWarcraft.com also offers personalized mousepads and posters. If you're looking for something to replace the customized WoW product hole left by SwagDog, this online store should fill it.
Legend of Zelda 25th Anniversary shirt is a real treasure, for a limited time
You enter the quiet, overgrown cavern by pushing open the heavy stone door with all your might. Inside, sunlight streams through the broken ceiling, and dust that hasn't been disturbed in hundreds of years lazily floats through the air, shaken up by your entrance. The sunbeams land on the summit of a small set of stairs, where an ornate, red and gold chest sits, teasing and waiting for you to open it. You do. As you crack open the ancient treasury, a small fanfare plays, starting quietly and then opening up into a triumphant series of simple notes, telling you that you have finally done it. The item you pull out of the centuries-old coffer is fine treasure indeed. It's a shirt, adorned with some kind of legendary logo, a heart container tag, and the number "25" on the back. It's available in five sizes, for a special one-time only printing. Order now, before February 20, 2012, to get it sometime this May. You fold the shirt into your leather pack, and move on through the dungeon -- who knows what fearsome beast you might have to use this on, three different times, to defeat it?
Inside the Apple t-shirt collector world
The Wall Street Journal has a short but interesting piece on the world of Apple t-shirt collecting. There are two types of Apple t-shirts. The first are those shirts that the general public have access to via giveaways at Apple retail stores, such as the t-shirts at an opening of a new Apple Store. The second type are t-shirts that are only available to Apple employees -- often at the retail level. As the WSJ article points out, Apple strictly forbids employees from selling, donating, or giving away the shirts. However, that's doesn't stop them from showing up on eBay from time to time. I myself have a small collection of shirts from my years at Apple. You can check a few of them out in the gallery below. %Gallery-141649%
eBoy Engadget t-shirts are now shipping, get yours right here!
Great news for people who wear clothes: eBoy's first full collection of Engadget t-shirts has started to ship all over the world. For those that pre-ordered between September 16th and yesterday, you should be receiving a shipment in the coming days. For everyone else? There's no better time to start stocking up on stocking stuffers, as the entire pack of new designs are in stock and ready to ship right now. We'd like to thank eBoy (read our introduction here) and the folks that pre-ordered for their awesomeness, and if you'd like to join the crowd, the two source links just below are waiting for your click. As a reminder, we'll be giving 50 percent of the proceeds received to Child's Play Charity, which provides games, books and cash for sick kids in children's hospitals across North America and the world.
The Engadget / eBoy t-shirt shop is officially open, pre-orders start today!
Woo, boy. We've been bursting at the seams to share this one, and it's finally time -- Engadget is teaming up with the one and only eBoy (read our introduction here) in order to open up our very own t-shirt shop! We've worked with eBoy over the years, and we've never been let down by their mind-blowing work. Every so often, we've offered up a stash of shirts for our dear readers to snap up, and every time, they were gone before sundown. That's just not right. To remedy said quandary, we've worked up a beautiful arrangement that'll have one of our favorite artists whipping out t-shirt designs for us, and they'll be handling the orders and logistics as they've been doing for years. Pre-orders are live worldwide right now, and initial shipments should start flowing around mid-October. Our first five designs are showcased in the gallery below, and if you're interested, surf on down to the source link below to grab one (or two!). They're priced at $24 (US / Canada), or €20 elsewhere, and if you're curious about sizing, have a look at American Apparel's size chart right here. We hope you love 'em as much as we do, and we'll be giving 50 percent of the proceeds received to Child's Play Charity, which provides games, books and cash for sick kids in children's hospitals across North America and the world. %Gallery-134010%
Controversy brewing over EVE Online microtransactions
When we first heard that EVE Online was planning to add microtransaction options, players were most concerned with the effect of microtransaction items on gameplay. CCP was quick to reassure players that microtransactions would focus on vanity items for Incarna and no gameplay-affecting items would be released. Fast-forward to today, when the first phase of Incarna finally went live along with the new Noble Exchange cash shop. As promised, the store contained only vanity items for Incarna, starting with a series of alternative clothing options. The one thing we didn't really think of while we worried about microtransactions affecting EVE's gameplay was price. The current prices on items in the Noble Exchange are far above typical microtransaction charges and an order of magnitude higher than expected. Items in the Noble Exchange are bought with a new currency called Aurum, 3500 of which can be created from one 30-day pilot's license (PLEX). With the price of PLEX set at around $19.95 US, players can expect to pay over $20 for a skirt, $25 for a blouse, and more than a whopping $68 for the much-desired ocular implant monocle. In a bizarre twist, many of the clothing options for sale at the Noble Exchange actually cost more than real clothes of the same type. As PLEX can be bought from other players for ISK, however, most players will not be spending their own cash on these items. PLEX prices have already spiked to over 400 million each, putting the price of the monocle at over 1.3 billion ISK. CCP could not provide any more information on the issue, but we expect an issue this hot will prompt an announcement.
Google I/O 2011 T-shirt puzzle solved, reveals the droid you've been looking for
If unsolved Google puzzles keep you up at night, you now have one less reason to go sleepless: the Google I/O T-shirt enigma has been unraveled. The picture above contains a series of dots and dashes, which our friends at MobileCrunch recognized as Morse code. Using the line breaks as spaces (new characters), the code then reads: .... - - .--. --. --- --- .-.-.- --. .-.. .- ....- -.-. -.... ...-- ----. That translates to a URL, which we've linked to below. We won't spoil where it leads, in case you're feeling noble enough to try decoding it for yourself.
While supplies last: BlazBlue shirts for Japan relief
Aksys Games put stuff on sale last month and donated all the proceeds to earthquake relief for Japan. Now it's offering an even more generous charity initiative: it's selling a limited-edition shirt featuring cute BlazBlue characters and the word "hope," for $20. Not only do all the proceeds from sales go to relief efforts, but Aksys will match that contribution. So, for your $20, $40 ends up going to help Japan, and you get an adorable t-shirt. Not bad! Don't think about it too hard -- according to the announcement, " They are limited in number, so if you want one, I suggest you buy one quickly when they go up."
SwagDog launches new WoW jerseys, Hawaiian shirts
SwagDog has announced two new additions to its World of Warcraft clothing line, including Horde or Alliance Reebok NHL replica jerseys and a short-sleeved Hawaiian design. The NHL jerseys come in two different styles -- a Rookie version that has a Horde or Alliance style, and a Veteran version that allows the purchaser to add a name and number. Summer is coming up, and SwagDog doesn't want to leave its WoW fans shirtless. The Hawaiian shirts come in both Alliance and Horde versions, each with a tropical-inspired design. Check out the new gear over at SwagDog.
