Snowboard Uniforms with Bluetooth Capability
Snowboarders are the Olympic athletes most akin to rock stars -- hip, iconoclastic, and, well, rad. This year, the U.S. Olympic snowboarding team members will stay connected to their iPods-and mobile phones -- thanks to their Bluetooth-enabled uniforms (an Olympic first), seen here, supplied by Burton and Motorola.
The outfits feature the new, innovative Audex snowboarding jackets, customized for the Olympians. Athletes can use a control panel (removable for washing) on the left sleeves of the coat to make or take phone calls. They can also scroll through and rock out to tunes on their MP3 players without taking them out of their pockets.
Thanks to the telecom capability, coaches can thus find athletes on the mountain or in the Olympic Village pretty easily. They can likely get the athletes to pick up the calls even while zooming down the slopes: There's a caller ID screen on the uniform's sleeve. The hood also features speakers and a microphone for easier listening and speaking.