Tea-shirt?
When you need to take a drink, your body (assuming here that you are human) will tell you with that strange sensation known as thirst. However, what with the internet and wine and some crazy good TV these days, sometimes we forget to drink all the water our bodies need to stay healthy. Enter this high-tech shirt.
Developed by students of Philadelphia University, with help from Verizon Emerging Technologies team, the t-shirt looks very much like a normal compression shirt that you might see thin and muscled people running around in. Yes, we can all see that you're buff; no need to wear skin-tight clothes all the time. Anyway, sensors sewn into the lining of the shirt can detect your skin's moisture levels, sending a warning to your smartphone that you are becoming dehydrated.
Although at first this seems it would benefit only sporty types who would be wearing a compression shirt of this kind, the students have actually hit onto something that could open doors to other, more life-saving, uses. Perhaps the sensors could be modified to detect toxins in the skin, or even blood sugar level so diabetic people know exactly when to take a shot of insulin.
One day perhaps this kind of technology will be standard in all kinds of conventional clothing and, via a connected smartphone app, we could programme our clothes to let us know when we need to drink, when we need to apply sun scene, when the humidity in the air suggests it is about to rain, and even if we are being exposed to allergens like pollen and animal hair. In a word, this is awesome.