CSIRO has ‘built’ a shirt that could fulfil the fantasy of anyone who has, in the privacy of their homes, jammed along with one of rock ‘n roll’s great lead guitarists.

A team led by CSIRO engineer Dr. Richard Helmer has created a ‘wearable instrument shirt’ (WIS) which enables users to play an ‘air guitar’ simply by moving one arm to pick chords and the other to strum the imaginary instrument’s strings.

The WIS works by recognising and interpreting arm movements and relaying this wirelessly to a computer for audio generation. Textile motion sensors, worn on the elbows, detect motion when the arm bends.

“The technology takes clothing beyond its traditional role of protection and fashion into the realms of digital content where a wide range of new applications are appearing,” Dr. Helmer says.

For more information: CSIRO,

Heather Forward,

Tel: +61 3 5246 4085, www.csiro.au