 as hotels and airports," says Weber. "The first products will reach the market in two to three years," he predicts. NUTS AND BITS-TELECOM HARDWARE, SOFTWARE, AND MORE With smart fabrics, the material is the device, says Sundaresan Jayaraman, professor of polymer, textile, and fiber engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. "You'll never forget your mobile phone or PDA; it will be a part of the shirt you wear." Jayaraman is the inventor of a "Smart T-shirt" that uses optical and conductive fibers to detect bullet wounds and monitor the wearer's vital signs, such as heart rate and breathing. Jayaraman, who has been engaged in smart fabric research since 1996, observes that the technology has various applications, including for military personnel, law enforcement officers, astro- nauts, infants, and elderly people living alone. A commercial version of the shirt is available from New York-based Sensatex, which sells the garment to athletes and other people who want to monitor biometric data, such as heart rate, respiration rate, body temperature, and caloric burn. Information gener- ated by the shirt is wirelessly transmitted to a personal computer and, ulti- mately, the Internet, where a coach, doctor, or other conditioning expert can examine the information. The shirt's wearers can access the data via a wrist- watch, a PDA, or voice output. 2.5 EMBEDDED SYSTEMS Within a decade or so, information access terminals will be everywhere, although they won't look like today's phones or computers. They may, for example, look like a Coke machine. Future soda dispensers will be linked- like almost everything else-to the Internet. Beverage prices may be raised or lowered in accordance with customer demand, sales promotions, or even the outside temperature. Likewise, home appliances, office equipment, automo- biles, and perhaps even disposable items such as party hats and roller skates may feature on-board computing and telecommunications capabilities. The concept of inescapable computing is known as pervasive compu