Reduce, reuse, recycle

November 11, 2024  |  My Take

Earth Day is often credited with turning a counter-culture concern from the 1960s and 70s into a much larger environmental movement. Among the residuals from this 50-year-old awakening is the enduring slogan, “reduce, reuse, recycle,” which offered an easy-to-remember way to encourage people to …
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Are you sure this is going to work?

October 14, 2024  |  My Take

I have covered many ATA Expos, and I remember many conversations, special events, amazing products, and innovations that have frankly blown me away.
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It’s complex: Navigating IP and trade

September 9, 2024  |  My Take

Intellectual property, patent law, trade law, doing business internationally. When these are part of the discussion, many sentences include a “however.” The farther one delves into these areas, the more “howevers” there are, it seems. Even if you’ve achieved getting an international patent…
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Truly wearable

August 12, 2024  |  My Take

When you see a photo of a shirt, for example, with sensing technology built in, it typically looks like something a young athlete would wear. That’s great, because athletes are among the people most likely to be interested in smart garments, and they have good reason to want to monitor their healt…
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Preparing to say, “I told you so”

July 29, 2024  |  My Take

It’s interesting to me how the smart fabric segment of the advanced textiles industry has found ways to maneuver around the limitations inherent in powering smart fabric products. In essence, a battery in the form of a puck, as it’s now called, provides the power—one way or another. Workaround…
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Hiding in plain sight

June 10, 2024  |  My Take

Everything we talk about on this site has to do with textiles in some way. It’s required when you work for an organization that represents the interests of those working in the textile industry. It is not required, however, that the textiles be obvious. They just have to be … in there somewhere …
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Thermal control that’s just right

May 27, 2024  |  My Take

There’s a reason that the story of “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” has stood the test of time. Anybody, at any age, can appreciate having something just right, from a comfortable bed to a bowl of porridge.
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Still learning

April 8, 2024  |  My Take

I’m a researcher at heart. Even in college I would lose myself in the research part of a paper that was due in a couple of days. Authors will tell you that you’re likely to use about a fourth of the research you amass when you write a book. That was certainly the case with my book. There is so m…
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Liquid electronics: It’s not an oxymoron

March 25, 2024  |  My Take

The words “liquid” and “electronics” are not, in general, words you want to see together. I have pictures in my head of warnings having to do with using an electric hair dryer in the bathtub. That may get a laugh today; but who among us can explain how wearables crafted from e-textiles can b…
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Catching up to AI

February 12, 2024  |  My Take

The development of artificial intelligence (AI) and its potential influence on virtually every aspect of our lives is now upon us. Exactly what it can do is understood by relatively few. What it will do in the near future and beyond is understood on a continuum with optimists on one end and those so…
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