I’m excited to say that nearly a full year after my team won for best overall hack at Yahoo! Hack Day 2006, our project, the photoblogging purse, is still breathing. And it’ll be mingling with the likes of Anna Sui, Vera Wang, Zac Posen, and Michael Kors near catwalks in Manhattan this week.

Ever since it was named Yahoo!’s winning hack, the purse has been the topic of many conversations in the fashion industry. As Fall Fashion Week kicks off this week here in New York, I’m proud say I’ll be escorting the accessory throughout the festivities, proving that fashion and technology are a keen match.

The hack, Blogging in Motion, was a design that used Flickr and Zonetag APIs to feed images taken from a purse fitted with a Nokia camera phone and Bluetooth GPS to our Flickr photostream in real time. Using a pedometer, the purse can be set to take pictures every 10 steps for a photoblog that doesn’t miss a thing.

I’ll be using the purse to provide an inside look at Fashion Week events from a very unusual perspective. In fact, tonight I’ll be hosting an event for fashion bloggers organized by my friends at Fashion Indie. If you can’t make it to the festivities, check out Fashion Indie’s Flickr photostream for some cool shots.

As for what’s next for me, I am writing a couple of books about fashion and technology that are tentatively scheduled to come out next year. In addition, I’ll be launching a few (more wearable) techie-fashions later this year using some cutting-edge new materials. I’m hoping that they’ll even be machine washable.

Diana Eng
Fashion Nerd
2006 Yahoo! Open Hack Day Winner