This is a pretty interesting paper. I was not aware of the acoustic properties of silk (a fabric that continues to surprise me). The ability to actively dampen noise emission would obviously be of interest to ninja assassins but as someone who has hearing challenges I think exploiting its properties to make it into a full garment microphone might be an interesting application. Based on the sound levels in the paper I don't think it would work as a speaker however which is kind of good because everyone having their own mood music all the time would be super distracting.
> I don't think it would work as a speaker
https://www.parts-express.com/search?keywords=silk%20tweeter...
begs to disagree with you. (72 results, mostly for sale right now)
Technicalities! But its a good point. I was thinking unsupported fabric as would be found in clothing vs something strapped into a frame. A vague neuron in mine brain has faint memories of 'silk tweeters' in the Rogers Sound Labs studio monitors I used to have, alas 'big' three way speakers are much less common now.