Sooo many bags I’d like to put my hands on:

The courtly bags by Despina Papadopoulos for Studio 5050.
The bag chirps when in proximity to another bag, and plays back user customizable patterns that can be downloaded via a desktop application.

Wifisense, by Milena Iossifova and Ahmi Wolf displays the presence of wifi nodes as a wearable, light illuminated accessory.

The wifi detector embedded in the bag detects the networks’ signal strength and whether they are password protected or not. When a network is nearby, the 64 LEDs on the bag lighten to announce the availability, quality and accessibility of the node.

The technology can easily fit in any object that you would take with you on a walk through the city: laptop bags, jackets, belts, etc.

The Reach in handbag, by Linda Worbin and Margot Jacobs from Play Research Studio, is the first prototype for a system which would allow people to monitor and visualize environmental data using different sensors. The bag changes patterns and colour according to its surrounding.

Inside/Outside is a project started in 2002 by Katherine Moriwaki.
The bags reflect environmental data on its surface and store a data diary of environmental exposure, creating a “necessarily incomplete” mapping of the city. There are currently two bags, one monitors ambient air quality, the other monitors environmental noise.

The Fashion Victim handbag, by Davide Agnelli, Dario Buzzini and Tal Drori, react according to the surrounding mobile phone calls, the more phone calls in its surroundings, the more the handbag progressively and permanently changes colour.

The Object Base Media Group of the MIT have built a reconfigurable handbag, called BYOB –”Build Your Own Bag,” and made of small squares which can be reconfigured and assembled as its user fancies.

Once snapped together to form an object, the computationally-enhanced modules become part of a network and begin to communicate with people, other objects, and their environment. For example, a bag would be able to sense if important personal items are missing and then communicate this information through active (light actuator) modules. With several illuminated modules, and ambient light pattern emerges.

Not that smart, but for tech-lovers too, Felicidade manufactures the iPurse, a synthetic leather bag with two built-in speakers and a pocket for an Apple iPod MP3 Player.

I’ve shamelessly stolen most of the information in Personal Debris and Rhizome, both by Katherine Moriwaki.