UPDATE: Enter 'STARWARSFAN8' at checkout and get $10 off orders of $100 or more and free shipping. Deal is good through Saturday.

In the demo, unveiled at the Izutuya deparment store in Kitakyushu, Japan, a sick grandmother went shopping with her granddaughter using the robot and a video-capable cellphone. Girl and bot sauntered to the hat section, shuffled through what was available, and picked out one to purchase.

So what about this makes it better than having your granddaughter surf Internet clothes outlets with you back at home? Being the kind of person that abhors shopping at malls, I really have no clue. Tmsuk, however, is convinced that its “3D communications” technology will soon have telerobotic machines wandering around all the world's fashion capitals. [Pink Tentacle]

One man in particular has had that choice over the years. He's Bill Gates.

In the past several decades, Bill Gates has been seen in jeans, ties and suits, but at the end of the day, there's been one look he's come home to. It's the sweater. With a buttoned shirt under it. For over 20 years, this has been the signature calling card of one of world's most powerful men. (That, and those $7 haircuts.)

And you know what's crazy? Men's Vogue tells us that it's fashionable.

Ned Martel is a Deputy Editor over at Men's Vogue and he was kind enough to stare at many pictures of Bill Gates that I sent him. When I got him on the phone, we discussed the matter, starting with some shots from a 1985 Microsoft publicity shoot.

"Sweaters..." I hear Martel think out loud. "The thing that strikes me is that...you didn’t need to dress in the '80s like you were well funded to get funding…it was the opposite—if you presented yourself as pinstriped, you might not be seen as the upstart worth getting behind."

And such may be true even today. When is the last time you saw Kevin Rose sporting a triangle hankerchief that matched his tie? But where Martel described the look as "I'm too busy to think about wearing a suit," it's probably been generalized in modern terms to "I'm too cool to wear a suit."

We flip to a newer shot, this time taken just last year. (It's our lead photo of the piece, minus that Voguesque spoof cover art.) Sweater. Collar. Same thing, right?

"This is more expensive," Martel points out immediately. "I think it’s like a purple cashmere v-neck. That’s probably a bit of a luxury he would not have even sported in his youth...Like he got married and got a life. It's more dad-like."

But something else changed, too.

"His glasses are more grown up," Martel says. "The change that you see in his face because of that. It is a reflection that he’s thought about."

The word "fatherly" comes to mind again.

"It’s a different way of announcing your place in the establishment of American billionaires. I think you see that subtly in the way he dresses because it began as a little bit rebellious and it’s matured into a way that’s said it had a payoff."

So the wardrobe payoff after several billion dollars is wire-frames and cashmere. But is that fashionable? What is a sweater and collar, after all? It's certainly is not a cutting edge trend, nor is it quite a timeless classic.

"Any guy with confidence and a sense of how he wants to present himself is a fashionable guy," Martel explains. Finally, a justification for that plaid shirt my wife hates.

But before I let Martel off the line, there was one last point to be settled. Gates vs. Jobs. No OSs. No fancy keynotes. Just. Wardrobe vs. wardrobe.

(Ed note: Of course, this photo is, like, the one time Gates isn't wearing that damn sweater.)

"Comparing their clothes is like comparing their accomplishments—they both helped together to define an era," Martel explains. "And the fact that we even have an indelible sense of how they've looked of the years means it worked." [Men's Vogue]































Cover art by Richard Blakeley.

Clothing concepts that double up with unusual functions have been around for a while, but this one seems to be one of the more useful and practical solutions, even if it isn't the epitome of fashion. (Disclaimer: I am not a fashion pundit.) [textually]

[InventorSpot via SlipperyBrick]

It's unisex. Yes, all you rugged and slightly dishevelled types (NutBastard, I mean you) fear no more about being an outmoded man in a metrosexual world, for you too can pick up the Urban Performer Unit. Pick It Up, I said, and you will be transformed into a rhinestone cowboy in an instant.

This is my favorite picture. Look! He's using his ManBag to play a geetar riff for RockBand, with nary a bead of sweat to disturb the Swarovski swoosh on his face. I think I'd like to see him use his mascara wand as a drumstick, and tackle Doncha Wish Your Girlfriend Was Hot Like Me.

This is what the Urban Performer Unit looks like from the inside. There's also room for your other gadgets, like PDA, cellphone, Hadron Collider and so on and so forth. Available in time for Christmas, the black leather purse is priced at just under $520. And perhaps you should know that it's made by a company called Urban Tools. For tools, presumably. [UrbanTool via Talk2MyShirt]

[Aving USA]

Works by integrating an optical fiber system that display image between two glass parts. There are 12 micro lighter fibers, that throw image components to the glass, that offer a quite good luminosity, and keep the mobile phone concept as light as possible. All lights only appear when you open the phone, by pushing removable part on the side of it.

The name Tibida indicates the three modes the watch can be put in; time, binary and date. Yes, it displays binary—Woz would be proud. So, how does it work?

• The hour-centric mode displays the hour in digits on the lower display and minutes on the upper, with each "minute LED" representing five-minute increments.

• The minute-centric mode displays the exact minutes as digits on the lower display, hours are shown along the top in a 12-hour format.

• The binary mode utilizes only the top display, with the first lit LED representing the number 1. This is then doubled periodically, up to 32. Arrangements of the indicated numbers can then be read to give the time.

Sure, you may need a computer science degree, as well as the $122 asking price, to be able to make proper use of the Tibida, but did you see what it looks like? Since when has utility come in the way of fashion for the image-obsessed Gizmodo readership? Available in either a polished stainless steel case, with a red, blue or black face or in a black plastic/orange combination, the only problem you are going to have, besides the whole time-telling thing, is picking a color to match your bloodshot, monitor-fixated eyes. [Tokyoflash]

Oh, look, a dress with keyboards attached for some reason! I'm always like, "damn, I need a keyboard, if only I had a dozen of them stapled to my pants I would be able to get my work done on time, but alas! Perhaps in some sort of utopian future my problems will be addressed."

And then there's this vest, which awkwardly has what appears to be eBook readers attached on both the front and the back of it. Why? Why not, I say. That seems to be the prevailing logic presiding over all of these, which eschew any type of functionality or rationality for "well, I've never seen that before" reactions. Nice work, boneheads. [Aving]

Sewn onto the back of the jackets are thousands of LEDs, which will run through a sequence of letters, spelling out the band's name. And the bit I like the best is that the gear is described as "a knowing fusion of glitz and capitalist kitsch" — a look that everyone should aspire to, if you ask me. [Dezeen]

Chewbacca seems like a nice (guy?) and all, but the real prospect of living in close quarters with a flee-covered, boisterous and surely odoriferous animal for extended periods of time is about as close to our personal hell as an iconic sci-fi movie has come. And seriously, he has hair everywhere. Not only would a strand end up in a least one bite of every meal, but the possibility that the strand would be fouled with excrement is enough for us to program HAL to just go ahead and lock the pod bay doors during our next space walk. [thinkgeek via scifitech]

We were surprised to learn that 79 social networking sites even existed; our hearts lie with Facebook and our minds know that there are a few others that generally make our heart rates slow out of complete boredom. If you belong to web 2.0's army of heathen social sites, there are three empty boxes to fill in with whatever you please. Prices begin at $16.90, and as my mental arithmetic is so hot, I can tell you that means the shirt costs less than $1/networking site listed. My mental arithmetic is not hot enough to hone that figure to a more accurate number, but I have no time to work on that aspect of my life, I must keep up to date with menial Facebook happenings...ooh look, Bobby's joined fat fighters; he's got a fat fighters album up. Gosh, these pictures are hilarious. [Product Page via Tech Digest]

The Wi-Fi Detector shirt is a Think Geek exclusive and will be available this October for $29.99. We'd like to see support from the mod community on this one. Just imagine the potential hacks if there was some tailor collaboration. Yeah, that's right. We're talking no sleeves. We're talking avatar iron-ons. And we're not even thinking about the potential of puff paints at the moment. [product via gadgetvenue]

Short answer: hot. Long answer: We're not reading the comments of anyone who disagrees. [product via 7gadgets]

Oh, but the other side has had such technologies for years, you say? Not in purse form, my friends. Not in purse form. The Persuader is a gun-shaped purse that will destroy all arguments against your wife's purchase of more purses. It will be the easiest $289 you've spent on leather...at least since those chaps we're not telling anyone about. [product via boingboing]

LED dresses for a glowing fashion from Japan [Gizmodiva]