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Geek chic goes from mainstream to 'mystream'

By Christine Tatum
NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE, DENVER
Sunday, Feb 05, 2006, Page 19

Leah Buechley, a PhD candidate at the University of Colorado, Boulder, has embedded circuitry into jewelry and clothing as wearable computing. PHOTO: NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE

Michael San Jule-Robinson not only knows what his technology does for him, he's quite aware of what it says about him: Environmentally conscious. Efficient. Hip.

His silver Toyota Prius makes an immediate statement, he said, unlike Honda's hybrids, which don't look much different from other Hondas.

As he quietly zips along Denver streets, San Jule-Robinson, an Army veteran stationed for two years in Israel and Egypt, says his auto choice essentially shouts that Americans' wasteful energy consumption damages the environment and keeps the nation hooked on foreign oil and embroiled in all the nasty politics that come with it.

Then there's his Treo -- a small, sleek gadget almost always clipped to his belt. It's a phone, camera, digital calendar and center for instant messaging and e-mail rolled into one. "It speaks to my efficiency," he said.

What about the Bluetooth headset San Jule-Robinson, 38, keeps perched in his ear to have hands-free phone conversations? "People can see I'm on the cutting edge of technology," he said.

Palm's new Treo 700W cellphone-organizer runs on software from Microsoft rather than the Palm OS. Yes, that Microsoft, whose palmtop software was mocked by Palm employees for years as bloated and inefficient.

And the jazz ringtone on his phone?

"All of this technology might make me look uptight, but I'm really laid-back," San Jule-Robinson said with a hearty laugh.

With the same care that people have chosen their wardrobes and household furnishings for millennia, they're increasingly using technology as a means of personal expression -- deliverance, if you will, from mainstream to "mystream."

The intersection of tech and fashion is pushing individual style into new realms, giving rise to new fields of research and retailers that sell the tech lifestyle.

Even paragons of fashion and humdrum appliance makers are in on the chic techie act. Coach and Kate Spade sell mobile phone covers. Levis recently unveiled a new brand of jeans with special pockets to accommodate an iPod. Kenmore offers boldly colored clothes dryers that shut themselves off when they sense a load is dry.

"Sedona is about making a bold statement," a Kenmore advertisement for the orangey dryer states. "This fiery hot color transforms a mundane chore into a chance to flaunt your individuality."

Tech and fashion were bound to collide -- and did so for three chief reasons, according to Michael Gartenberg, vice president and research director of JupiterResearch, a division of Jupitermedia Corp, based in Darien, Connecticut.

First, as the importance of a machine's features has been lost on consumers, companies have had to come up with other ways to stand out in a crowd.

Second, the markup on computer accessories -- such as those stylish carrying cases and plug-ins that convert a phone into a camera -- is huge compared with the markup on computers themselves.

And third, mature markets tend to fragment -- as evidenced by hundreds of brands of toothpaste that all do the same thing.

"Don't forget that it's ingrained in Americans to express their individuality," said Matt Swanston, director of emerging technologies for the Consumer Electronics Association. "In some ways, it's now the challenge (of tech makers) to keep up with that insatiable desire to be different."

Case in point: mobile phone ringtones. Last year, nearly 25 percent of American mobile phone users -- that's about 30 million people -- replaced the generic ringtone manufacturers programmed into their devices (hip-hop tunes were the most popular ringtones last year for those keeping track).

But many people who have spent as much as US$2.50 for a ringtone balk at the notion of paying the same price to download the entire song.

A contradiction? Not necessarily, Gartenberg recently said in a blog. "One's for personalization, and one is about entertainment," he wrote. "Different things with different value propositions."

The melding of tech and fashion also has spawned plenty of geek-chic retailers, such as X-TremeGeek.com. The company peddles slippers embedded with small lights to illuminate dark hallways and blue lights for faucets that "turn water into something cool, like an ionized plasma stream!"

A whirl around the Web also turns up boxer shorts emblazoned with computer error messages and doormats stating that there's no place like a specific IP address.

"We're used to seeing all of this stuff for hunters and gearheads, and it's just the computer guys' turn," Swanston said. "We laughed at them in high school, but not anymore. They're the epitome of cool."

Leah Buechley, a doctoral candidate in computer science at the University of Colorado at Boulder, will take that as a compliment.

Her research focuses in part on wearable computing -- and her Web site provides step-by-step instructions on how to sew a tank top embedded with LED lights that change colors.

She also has embedded circuitry into jewelry and, with help from other scholars, devised an electronic form of quilting that allows fabric squares to be "snapped together to generate a variety of ... flows of light."

She envisions the day when people will be able to change the color of their shirts or bedspreads to reflect their moods.

"All of this leads to the greater personalization that people are so hungry for," she said. "Artistic and scientific engineering concerns have never seemed that far apart to me. It takes similar creativity to innovate in design and technology."
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