Imagine a world where you could change the designs you see on bags, shirts, and walls whenever you want. Typical clothes would become customizable fashion pieces, while your humble abode could turn into a smart home. That’s the vision of scientists like MIT electrical engineering and computer science PhD student Yunyi Zhu ’20, MEng ’21: technology that can “reprogram” the appearance of personal accessories, home decor, and office items.
At MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), she’s created clever hardware that can add, say, artwork to a sweater, then swap in a new illustration later. To do this, she coats items with an invisible ink called photochromic dye, which transforms into different colors when…