High tech merged with high fashion yesterday during a two-day exhibition for next-generation computers hosted by the Ministry of Information and Communication, reports Joongang Daily.

“A parade of models opened the event at the COEX convention center in southern Seoul, but instead of wearing the latest in couture designs, they sported the latest in wearable computers.

The gadgets presented at the exhibition were not new concepts for industry insiders, but until the exhibition, they had not been fully developed for commercial use.

Users could input information through speech or by pressing buttons that were located on the clothes, which were designed for specific purposes, such as sports.

– One model wore eyeglasses, which resembled ski goggles, that served as a monitor, and on her wrist was a hard disk drive that had a wireless connection to the eyeglasses.

– The Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute presented a “human body communication system,” which enables people to use their bodies like telecommunication wires.

– MicroInfinity presented a three-dimensional input device that reads words that are written in the air with a special pen. The words are then converted into a document format.

– A joint team from Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon University and Hoseo University presented a computer system that can respond to sight, sound, taste and touch.”

by Park Bang-ju, Wohn Dong-hee for Joongang Daily