Researchers at the University of Virginia hope to combat injuries suffered from elderly falls with these teched-out pants, which employ multiple sensors sewn into your standard flannel jams (aka blogging pants) to monitor the gait of the wearer for potential problems in real time. So long as he doesn't shuffle out of Bluetooth range.

The pants are equipped with multiple e-TAGs--sensor packages that include accelerometers, gyroscopes, and a microcontroller to send their information to a PC via the Bluetooth module mounted on the waist. Piezoelectric pads also monitor weight distribution at the heel, and the whole thing runs on a single 9-volt battery. The UVA researchers hope to bring the tech to a commercial product in a few years. But until then, I'm seeing this as a pretty good guideline for DIY mo-cap loungewear. [Physorg]

Tags: accelerometers | bluetooth | gadgets | gyroscope | medical | medicine | pants | science | sensors