Smartly dressed

Smartly dressed

"Smart textiles" are any kind of fabric that can sense stimuli and respond with some sort of action. For example, a fabric impregnated with LED lights and sensors might sense you have entered a dark room and would then illuminate itself.

Do you have your own idea for what a smart textile could do? Good -- Denmark's Knowledge Centre for Smart Textiles is holding a design competition on the topic, and top prize is 50,000 Danish Crowns (that's 6,500 Euros or about 9,400 bucks). The vaguely-worded competition's assignment seems designed to draw a broad range of entries: They ask only that entrants "present the best idea within smart textiles."

If you want to get a better sense of what some of the entries might look like, you can check out video of earlier smart textile competitions here.