Help! My T-shirt needs re-booting…

Embedded software can sometimes sound a bit dull can’t it? You’ve just been offered a chance to read a case study from WhizzBang Technology Ltd about their new embedded solution to operate railway-ticketing machines or retail scanning devices – or maybe even intelligent toasters… and you know what? You’d probably rather not.

So, in my quest for “Embedded software stuff to read about that’s not dull” – I was pleased to find the new Sputnik e-clothing shirt, which (it says here) gives athletes the ability to analyse their training and performance statistics from sensors in the shirt itself.

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The shirt works by employing sensors to measure and record skin temperature, heart and respiration rates. The data can be stored in a small plastic unit housed in the garment and uploaded to a PC via a USB connection or Bluetooth.

Take this idea all the way then. Suddenly Joe Cole is streaking down the left and Fabbio Capello stoops over his ‘Boot-O-Matic’ readout display and he can see Cole is becoming dehydrated, he’s got two subs left and we’re 2-1 up against Nicaragua with 15 minutes to play. So there’s a chance he can bring him off and we’ll still win.

Oops, they’ve scored and it’s gone to penalties. You know what happens next. Not even embedded software can help England now.