The Hub snowboarding jacket from O'Neill with intergrated Bluetooth and a fabric keyboard on the arm.

Have you ever been listening to music on your iPod while you're snowboarding and had an important call come in? You don't really want to stop to pull out your earbuds, stick in your bluetooth headset, just to see who's calling. Now with this new snowboarding jacket, called The Hub, you don't have to. Just touch the fabric keyboard on the sleeve and your phone call will be routed to your headset via Bluetooth.

O'Neill and German's Infineon Technologies collaborated on a wired interactive Jacket. Functions such as ãmobile telephony by Bluetoothä and ãMP3 playerä are integrated into the sportswear. Woven into THE HUB snowboard jacket are electrically conductive fabric tracks which connect the chip module to a fabric keyboard and built-in speakers in the helmet. The chip module contains a full-featured MP3 player and a Bluetooth module via which the snowboarder can control a mobile phone. If the snowboarder wants to make a phone call, the stereo system acts as the headset. The microphone is integrated in the collar of the jacket.

From I4U News - Infineon Bluetooth Snowboard Jacket
Referenced Mon Mar 08 2004 10:04:56 GMT-0700

Truth be told, I'm not a snowboarder, but this scenario isn't limited to snowboarding. This jacket is just a hands-free setup for the mobile crowd. Pretty cool.