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Two Scoops Of Wearable Computers 74

Posted by CmdrTaco from the stuff-to-poke-at dept.
miester writes: "A bunch of engineering students were assigned to create wearable computers for their 4th year thesis at the University of Toronto." There's actually great gobs of links there to research-oriented stuff on wearables.
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Two Scoops of Wearable Computers More

Two Scoops of Wearable Computers

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  • Simple test for wearables: Would you be caught dead wearing that getup in a public place where you might meet people who would recognise you? I have yet to see any wearables that satisfy this extremely basic criteria.

    I'm from UofT (just graduated) and I've attempted one of Mann's talks. When he told us that he was wearing a computer, I was surprised, I hadn't noticed it. The display was in his sunglasses (as requested in post above). The glasses aren't the most stylish ever, but it worked and didn't look too horible.

    Check out this link [wearcam.org]

    Wherever you see Mann wearing sunglasses, he has a display set up in there. And yes, you can browse the web with his wireless 'net access.

    Reason that most of the pictures show students running around with big cameras, etc on their heads is that they had to pay for these things themselves. They don't have money to build everything small and pretty. In a course like 1766, your equipment needs to work before you can do the course work (whatever it is).

    Don't misunderstand me, I'm no fan of Mann. He's freaky. But his stuff does work and it's not as bad as one might think.

    m

  • Data overlays on vision are a failed idea? When did this happen? Last i checked nobody'd actually come up with a system that does this at a high enough resolution or low enough cost to even qualify as a tried idea, much less failed one.
    Dreamweaver
  • Whoa! look at the possibilities! If they'd put the network interface into a wearable glove, we could shake hands and play Counterstrike.
    Also, at big meetings, everyone could link their computers together by holding hands! Or everybody placing one of their hands on a hub, of course.
    Of course, this can never happen. Some lame American asshole will hurt some of his anatomy with his new wearable network interface and sue the company who manufactures it out of business.
    Unless they marketed it as a combination wearable network interface / kinky sex toy, I guess.
  • On the other hand, if you can browse the web on what could pass on the street for expensive sunglasses - and you can use them as normal sunglasses when not browsing

    That would probably ruin any attempt to make statistics on the number of blind people waiting for the bus at hour X...

  • Makes a change from Linux on toasters :)

    Da Cr33p

  • I think in many ways, the REAL problem is not aesthetics, but philosophy. I'm happy to wear gigantic, clumsy, but FUNCTIONAL wearables because they allow me to get first hand experience with where wearables may go in the future.

    The `real problem' which must be investigated, I believe, is 'why wearcomp?'.

    Miniaturization, power consumption, aesthetics: I believe these can be solved. The technology people are great at that. Steve Mann's newer machines are pretty much there anyways. I think what's important now is to figure out why we want these machines, what they should and should not do, and how they can really help us in our lives.

    While we need people interested in aesthetics, Its important we explore the 'why' question. OTherwise we risk producing beautiful, useless, fad gadgets. I believe there's a lot of potential in Eyetap and Wearcomp, if we can understand there's a greater vision (excuse the pun) beyond just strapping a laptop on your head.

  • Well, you are right in a way: the incessant automation pushed by the US high-tech industries will lead to the inevitable collapse of the country. I don't think it will happen the way you think, though.

    With all these modern technologies the mainstream USian is doing less and less every day. For example, many decades ago women were freed from going to the river to wash clothes by the invention of the washing machine. And continuosly, more and more work-saving inventions appear. Web technology makes it possible to do more and more things effortlessly without leaving the house-- you can shop at Amazon and Webvan, have pizza delivered, you can telecommute to work, etc. Not to mention that advances in AI software mean that every year there is less and less actual work to be done at work. Remember DotComGuy? This points the way to the near future of the US

    So eventually, we will arrive at a society where the mainstream middle class inhabitant of the US will not work at all. They will be free to sit down in front of a machine all day long, have all the necessities of life delivered by that machine, and just involve themselves in virtual reality net porn or whatever in their virtual communities.

    But this will not extend to everyone. South of the Río Grande, as always, people will not share in this wealth, and will be living real lives, doing actual work, walking from place to place, shopping in real stores, having real sex, and so on. They will not, of course, be oblivious to the (ir)realities of life in the northern neighbor. They will notice that this huge monster, gloating in it power and wealth, has fallen asleep. They will cross the border, with no oposition, since all the USians will be too busy playing VR Quake MMCXVII to even notice, and take over everything with no opposition.

    So yes, wearable computers certainly will lead the US to its destruction. Though I can't really say I'm worried about it down here, me...

  • 'Smart people' is an attempt (I think) to place the computers/machines under direct and constant control of people, rather than in their environment. The idea is to use computers not to empower your house, but to empower people themselves.

    I think the house of the future should be really well equipped with lots of microchips which are all dumb as..

    I don't want my house sending marketing information to companies, or monitoring me.

    I want, however, to have a wearcomp under my personal control. No spam. No commerce. Just `stuff that matters' :) to me and only me.

    Then, my wearcomp interfaces with all the 'dumb' devices in the future house. I control my wearcomp, and use it to interface with the objects around me as an extension of myself into the digital domain.

    People are the smartest things about. Wearcomps are a little intelligent (or at least however intelligent we choose to have them be), and houses and environments should be dead stupid.

  • >Banning wearable computers is only the first step in keeping America safe from the devil. You need to write your congressman today while you still have the freedom to think.

    So who do you propose to put this ban in place and enforce it? Would you want the government to do this?
  • I shudder to think how that core temp will be read. Can you say ANAL PROBE?



    Catch me on AIM: SigningiS
  • Genuinely _useful_ videophones - showing you what the other person sees

    Ha! So you would be seeing what the other person is seeing. But they are doing the same. So it's like looking at a mirror reflecting a mirror... Oooh, trippy.
  • I don't know if it will always remain a novelty. It'll just happen much slower than overnight. More and more, there are certain bits of technology that people want around themselves all the time. Take mobile phones for example...10 years ago, I rarely saw anyone with one. Nowadays, when I walk into a restaurant, I'd say 50% or more of the adults in the restaurant have a phone on their belt. It didn't happen all at once, and it won't happen fast for general computing devices either. In fact, it will probably be quite a while before we see widespread use of wearable general-use computers. It won't start happening till enough people find themselves constantly carrying several electronic devices that could be replaced with a single computer.

    When a significant portion of the population has a cell phone, handheld, and 3 or 4 other whizbangs that they can't stand to be without, then we'll see true wearable computing arise.

  • I'm still surprised by the apparent lack of interest in IBM's research concerning PAN applications. My senior year thesis in telecommunications I believe, was on applying PAN technology for every day use.

    For those who aren't versed, visit here [ibm.com]

    The simplified point is to create an external electric field that passes an incredibly tiny current through the body which is used to transmit data. Granted, AFAIK, the highest speed that it has reached is a 2400-baud modem, demonstrated wonderfully by Alan Alda of M*A*S*H fame. Interested really peaked around 1996, and has declined since, but it really was fascinating stuff....The ability to exchange information just by coming in close contact...exchanging business cards by shaking hands...Think of the possibilities :)

  • Oh well. Whenever I DO still play, I just play with friends who started when I did, and we play old school rules. At least then it is still fun.


    Same here. I occasionally attend a sealed deck event, or hit a card shop for a night of T2. But most of the time it's just with friends. And the fact that you can do that without buying new cards every 3 weeks is what will keep the game alive and popular for years and years to come.

    Kintanon
  • Possibly their HTML is designed to be read with a low resolution display (in their wearables?). If so, they should have mentioned it, or had a separate page for all those <H1>'s

  • The wrong spokesperson? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Maybe the problem some people are having is that Steve Mann makes wearcomp seem so ... ugly.

    His pages aren't very informative, being more an inchoate rant that mixes his political views and half-baked ideas with an (unattributed) recycling of freedom/privacy/ubiquitous-computing issues that others had already put more eloquently.

    His megalomania is increasing, too. Lately, he's been claiming to have coined the term "cyborg" [tedcity.com], which was in fact put into the lexicon by Manfred Clynes [microsoundmusic.com].

    The only real contributions seem to be his "video orbits" and "chirplet transforms", but you have to dig deep into the noise (and the past) to find them.

    It's not just my opinion -- check out an early reaction to steve and his webcams [mit.edu] from 1996.

    Wearable Web Camera Goes Too Far

    Column by Anders Hove

    Executive Editor

    The first time I ever saw Steve Mann G was during a fire alarm at East Campus a few years ago. The night air was chilly, but nonetheless many students and tutors were standing around in little groups socializing and watching the progress of the fire engines. One hall tutor, a stand-up comedian, was telling some jokes when a man -- Steve Mann, to cut the suspense -- jerkily approached us and pointed his bright light into our faces.

    This was clearly a delicate social situation. Though he wasn't saying anything, the Mann with the light had interrupted the tutor's line of jokes. How could we listen when faced with this new curiosity?

    Mann's apparatus has advanced considerably since then. At the time he had to wear tens of pounds of cables around his waist, and what looked like a large, black bike helmet on his head. The wires and helmet were connected to each other and to several blinking boxes and a visor that Mann wore over his eyes. In his right hand he held a large area light, and he pointed this at whatever he looked at, just as he was pointing it at us right now.

    "Oh, this is great," said the tutor. "Allow me to introduce you to Steve Mann. He wears this thing on his head all the time. He's filming you right now, and the images he gets are put on the World-Wide Web."

    The Mann and his light continued to silently stare at us at point blank range.

    "Hello," I ventured.

    The Mann said nothing.

    My friends and I exchanged a nervous glance.

    "I don't know if he can talk to us or not," said the tutor, leadingly.

    The Mann slowly turned his visored head and began walking toward the firemen. Still he said nothing. The firemen continued to discuss their progress with one another, occasionally glancing at Mann.

    I decided then and there never to talk to someone with a camera on their head again. I also decided to look at Mann's Web page to try and understand why he behaved in such fashion.

    ...

  • "there are few good reasons to stare at the face of the person you're talking to"


    Most people I know would disagree strongly with this statement. I know that when I am talking with someone in person, I spend a great deal of time looking at that person's face to see reactions to what I am saying, or to draw some additional context out of what the person is saying. While it is possible to get some of that from the voice intonations when speaking on the phone, I know that I much prefer having conversations in person rather than on the phone because the visual cues add a lot to the conversation.

  • hmmm, another fad, just like pogs, and magic cards, and then beanie babies and finally pokemon, do i sense a pattern ??

    Oddly enough Magic has neither disappeared nor declined in popularity. It is rapidly becoming the premier intelectual sport of the world attracting spectators and players from over 50 different countries. The M:TG national and world competitions are regularly broadcast on ESPN2 and as rapidly as the older players are growing out of it new players are coming in. Admittedly a lot of us can't stand the way the game is going in recent years, but we still enjoy the game as much as ever. I doubt it will die out any more than Poker or Chess did. Even if WotC goes out of business and stops printing new sets the players will still enjoy the game, will still play it, and the Duelist Convocation will probably still hold huge tournaments.

    Kintanon
  • The pages you are looking at have being around for over four years now - this is how long I have being a student at UofT and I have seing these pages for the first time over three years ago. The pages were created for Navigator 2.0 and have not being modified ever since. I have already posted the link to these pages about five months ago on /. as a response to some article about wearables. Sometimes I meet Steve Mann on the streets at UofT. The guy always has a computer on him - I wonder sometimes whether he's got a girlfriend or a wife and if he does, what does she think about his hobby. BTW this brings up an interesting question - can you wear computers everywhere on the body?
  • So, is anyone selling the Mann sunglass display or something equally discreet? If not, why not?
  • Steve Mann teachs ECE1766, which is a grad class that allows interested fourth year ECE and Engineering Science students as well. By all accounts, it's a pretty cool class, scrounging for parts to build Linux based PC104 portable machines. The thesis students are from the Engineering Science option, and they are few and far between (a relatively elite group in the Faculty), ie, not just any fourth year students, and isn't a particularily widespread topic available at U of T.

  • Wearable Computers "weblog" site (Score:3)

    by __aaaaxm1522 ( 121860 ) on Monday June 26, 2000 @03:28AM (#977019)
    On a somewhat related topic, here's a link to a Slashdot-style news site that deals with wearable & mobile computing devices: The Gravity Well [dhs.org]
  • Hey!, this is great!.. WE had this story back in september, and now we get it again!..

    thanks!

    BTW, can we have a reposting of other stories from 1999? I miss the old news..

    Crimineys, please learn how to run a news publication... having so many reporters submitting the same things over and over, you guys need editors to review the reporters work and stamp it "done that story last year", and "We posted that story 3 stories ago" so we dont get multiples of the same thing.. Newspapers can do it, I am sure slashdot can.

  • Re: your comment about useful videophones.

    There's this great bit in Infinite Jest where Wallace talks about the rise and fall of, essentially, videophones. It's hilarious and insightful and I can't begin to do it justice here, but a sketch goes something like this: videophones (in this mildly futuristic book) shattered the illusion most people enjoyed while talking on the phone; namely, that the person on the other end of the line was giving them his/her full and undivided attention. When you talk on the phone, you can be doing whatever -- picking your nose, watching TV, drying yourself off after a shower -- but somehow it never occurs to you that the person on the other end of the conversation could be doing exactly the same set of activities, could be devoting exactly the same miniscule portion of their thought to your conversation. Videphones (in Wallace's world) shattered this illusion -- you could now see exactly how bored the other person was, could tell they'd just gotten out of the shower, etc. -- and in addition tended not to project exactly the sort of image people wanted to project; ie, people always looked a little wan or something on their vidphone-screens, leading to huge problems of self-image and belonging, etc. This leads to all sorts of interesting consequences, like people buying masks representing the sort of face they wanted to project, and then eventually the advent of tableaux that would project an image of an actor, seated in a tastefully decorated room of the sort you would like people to think you own, listening thoughtfully to whatever the other person had to say. And so on, and so on.

    Good stuff. Infinite Jest (by David Foster Wallace) is, IMHO, one of the best and most entertaining books published in the past decade, and is chock-full of this sort of thing; highly recommended.

    I did say it was OT. :-)

  • Actually, the course is offered to anyone who wants to take it. The thesis students are from Eng Sci, Computer and Electrical engineering (in fact, most of the thesis students this year were from Comp and Elec). If you count thesis students along with the regular group, there were somewhere in the neighbourhood of 30-40 people working on the project this year alone. And if anyone else wants to work with the project (Industrial engineers for example) they are free to approach Steve Mann and set something up. Considering some of the groups in the Faculty, I'd say it's far less elite than most.

  • A search for '"Steve Mann"' returns 4456 results.

    A search for '"Steve Mann computer"' returns 6 results.

    A search for 'Steve Mann comupter' returns 23693 results from google.

    Be careful wiht numbers, they want to decieve you.

  • I liked Sun Microsystems' wearable computer in the form of a ring. Compact and easy to wear. Originally for smart card and ID card applications, but no reason it cant be extended.

  • Actually, a Beowulf of these would be run of a form-fitting vest designed to carry the computers. Linking with other cyborgs would be done over radio modem. Actually, that's how it's done now

  • j00 d1551ng UofT, f00? UofT 15 31337! UofT r00ls j00!

    Personally, I've always preferred the courses in Waterloo...too bad their campus was...how will we say...less than stellar.
  • I wonder which search engine he used
  • Well, here's the obligatory Snow Crash reference.. but figured might as well mention a couple of other Wearable Computer stuff.. kinda reminds me of the stuff at CMU [cmu.edu] and the More Gargoyle-y MIT one [mit.edu]. I personally think the MIT one is neater, but hey.

    Also of interest is An article at Planet IT [planetit.com] that delves into some of the same issues.

    Yeah.
    ---
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Here I have a whole bunch of links to further information about wearable computers and "enhanced reality" for anyone interested:



    Impossible means no one's done it yet.

  • Right now I only spend 13 hours in front of a computer a day, hope all these wearable computers come soon so I can totally avoid the real world, as opposed to partially.

  • A few really useful points exist. (Score:5)

    by Christopher Thomas ( 11717 ) on Sunday June 25, 2000 @06:17PM (#977032)
    I get the same sort of feeling about wearable computers. I dont think it will ever get beyond the point of being a novelty. Like beer hats at baseball games, or shower radios, it will appeal to few, and life will go on as it always has.

    This was more or less my opinion too, until recently. However, Prof. Mann had raised a few genuinely useful points on the topic back when I was studying under him (working on video drivers for the WearComps):

    • Genuinely _useful_ videophones - showing you what the other person sees.
      Video phones were another interesting idea that nobody actually wants; there are few good reasons to stare at the face of the person you're talking to, and several good reasons not to (say they just got out of the shower...). However, being able to have my co-worker look at the computer I'm trying to fix while I'm asking for advice _would_ be useful. Plus, the whole voyeuristic thrill of posessing another person's viewpoint comes in. This just strikes me as a genuinely neat and often useful idea that's easy to implement with wearable computers.

    • Sometimes you don't want to be looking at a screen.
      Data overlay on your vision is, for the most part, another failed idea - but there are a few niche markets where it's useful. Another design project group working at the same time I was developed an oscilliscope attachment to a WearComp, that let you view and manipulate signal traces without taking your eyes off of the probe you were sticking into the circuit. This is a Very Useful Thing when you're just trying to sanity-check a signal and are trying to hold a probe to a millimetre-wide trace while under the influence of sleep deprivation and caffiene.


    Another point, which Prof. Mann didn't bring up but that I think will be the main selling point of wearable display visors:

    • A 2048x1536 wearable display with a 3-foot-wide projected image is cheaper than a 3-foot-wide 2048x1536 LCD screen.
      Wearable computers don't currently have that kind of resolution, but when they do, notebooks will get a whole lot nicer. No power-hungry flat panel, and a better-looking display to boot.


    In summary, I think that there are enough useful points to wearable computer technology that wearable computers will become ubiquitous in some form within the next few years.
  • e-Gads those pages are hideous. That aside, this is an uninspring collection of old augmented reality pages. Sure computer vision is important, but there's more to wearables than seeing through someone else's eyes. Also, I'm all for monitoring the nuts and bolts of the upcoming wearables revolution, but a link with "the world's most powerful electronic flash" does make wearable technology look even more geeky than I can cope with.

    I still prefer InfoCharms [infocharms.com].



  • Sorry about that! :-)

    Impossible means no one's done it yet.

  • Wearable? No. Usable, Yes. (Score:3)

    by Bowie J. Poag ( 16898 ) on Sunday June 25, 2000 @05:13PM (#977035) Homepage

    Y'know, i've been reading about wearable computers for quite a while now, and it still just doesn't quite click with me as being something i'd lust after.

    When I was 5, I had an experience standing outside a storefront in a shopping mall that changed my life. Standing there with my dad, I saw one of the first laserdiscs. It was 1979, and this was so eye-bleedingly high tech that the crowd was 10 deep to see an ABBA laserdisc. It was a cold winter day, and a hundred or so Chicagoans stood awestruck at the sight of four musical Swedes. Everyone except me, that is. I could care less that ABBA music videos were playing. I was fixated by the frame counter..a little digital clock counter displayed in the corner of the TV screen. It blew my 5 year old mind to see anything be able to count and run so fast. The people standing infront of the store were probably saying to eachother, "Wow, this is the future! Soon we're all going to have laserdiscs. Forget VHS and Beta -- laserdiscs are where its at!"

    It never happened.

    A few years later, when I was about 9 or so, I was walking around with my parents in a mall near where I lived. There was a big glass case stuck on a storefront that was drawing a huge crowd..I caught a peek of what it was they were all gawking at. A little tv screen wristwatch.

    The crowd, of course, considered this sort of thing to be the true wave of the future. Soon everyone would have a TV on their wrists, so we could all be better informed, and make better decisions. We'd all just tune in, and glance over at our wrists while we work to catch up on the latest news and entertainment.

    That didn't happen either.

    I get the same sort of feeling about wearable computers. I dont think it will ever get beyond the point of being a novelty. Like beer hats at baseball games, or shower radios, it will appeal to few, and life will go on as it always has.

    The function of clothing is to clothe the wearer, not inform the wearer. We dont drive nails with socket wrenches, we use hammers. Sorry gang, but I just dont see how this will ever be anything more than a passing curiosity..At the risk of making a grand visionary Bill Gates "no one will ever need more than 640K" speech, i'd call the development of wearable computers a novelty at best.

    My $0.02

    Bowie J. Poag
  • I saw demonstration at a local seminar for usability. The demonstration was about future wearables tech etc. The guy said that Reima-Tutta here in Finland is going to present first "smart" wearable clothing _product_ in the world. He also mentioned that he wasn't sure if they're really the first guys to present such a thing...

    I was impressed about this Yoyo-interface.

    Well, let's get this over with... get 'em slashdotted :-) (talking about usability in their website ...)

    Reima-Tutta [reima.fi]

  • hmmm, another fad, just like pogs, and magic cards, and then beanie babies and finally pokemon, do i sense a pattern ?? i think that again, some company, in this case, a school, is going to make something that is completely wortless and overpriced, and overated, just in a more high techy way. I think that someone can come up with something, and keep it popular, maybe like insulting clinton or something.
  • Unfortunately, poor wearcomp.org is already unreachable, so I can't get the whole story. But I tend to think the computers-as-clothing market isn't going to get anywhere until we can pack more bang into wireless.

    Don't get me wrong, I like the technology. WAP is showing me what I could do with my cellphone today that I couldn't do a year ago. But until devices are able to utilize some sort of wireless networking protocol on their own - and until such a protocol is both fast and reliable - I'm not impressed.

    Whatever happened to Jini? It was being developed by Sun, I think, and somehow enabled common devices with Java and wireless networking. Your cellphone didn't just deliver stock quotes, it also checked you into hotels, reserved your rental car when you walked off a plane into the airport, etc. Now *that's* the kind of personal networking that would impress me.
  • Ok, prepare for a rant. I'm just as paranoid as the next guy...well, rather I THOUGHT I was...but anyway. Why is it that religion seems to always find it vitally important that we not progress science and technology? Remember the whole huge deal about human cloning? Some religous freaks (not to offend all you perfectly adjusted religious people out there...just talking to the freaks) hear the words "human cloning" and think of vats of mindless zombies. Now they hear about waerable computing and think Big Brother. The simple answer for you cult...I mean, concerned individuals is: don't get one. You don't have to spoil everyone else's fun by lobbying Congress or starting a massive letter-writing campaign. I say "letter-writing" rather than e-mail, since we all know e-mail is a vast government/satanic conspiracy to make us dependent on electronic devices so that they can take over the world.

    Now, if you follow my advice and just don't get one, instead of grinding technological research to a halt because of a millenia-old book, you can simply yell at us individually that we're serving the satanic government. And we can pretend to listen while we play Quake in our sunglasses :)

    Josh Paulik
    "This is your life, and it's ending one minute at a time"

  • hmmmm... if you're a grammar Nazi, when are the grammar nuremburg trials?
  • Personally, I'd like to see contact lens versions of this. No idea is that would be possible (Focal depth of the eye and all that...), but it would be so cool to have flickering pupils:)

  • I am curious which Internet access provider Steve Mann and his team will be providing for his wearable computers. Fast Internet access isn't something which can be taken lightly in today's world of e-commerce and 64MB multimedia files.

    What could be better than broadband for this purpose? With broadband, you'll be able to view highly graphical versions of pages [wearcomp.org] and the most powerful lamp in the world [wearcomp.org]. What more do you want?

    Speakeasy has a solution:

  • This comes from Toronto, people. York University rulezzz, your University sucks.. Get real and become less uptight, your parties suck. That is not a f***ing achievement to do this wearable computer stuff... Try passing MATH2090. Bye

  • Aint-it-Cool for wearables ?

    I know just what you mean about the HTML. This whole geek-chic schtick, and the blaring HTML headlines, does nothing for having the project taken seriously by those with a functionaly dress sense. They make Kevin Warwick look restrained by comparison.

    ...and that "Bunuel does Clockwork Orange" image is just gross.

    As I've not seen this link posted yet, take a look at Delft University of Technology and their UbiCom [tudelft.nl] project. Very high bandwidth, high on-board processing power, and some neat usage of vision to do accurate position finding. It's an Augmented Reality system, so that instead of just catching data, or displaying it, it's able to accurately overlay real-world imagery with a projected virtual overlay. Their video of playing Pacman inside an empty room, with an entirely virtual maze and ghosts is wonderful.

    They've also developed the LART [tudelft.nl], a chipset for embedded Linux that sadly sounds funnier than it really is. Maybe it's funnier if you read the BOFH [theregister.co.uk].

  • Here are a couple more:

    ViA [via-pc.com] - Wearable Computers
    Microvision [mvis.com] - Retinal Scanning Displays
  • I think I might be able to shed light on the HTML design on wearcam.org and eyetap.org

    Lets take my experiences on June 15. There I was with my rig covering a protest turned violent in Toronto (http://www.engwear.org/OCAP). When you're in a situation where you're dodging truncheons, ducking pepper spray and bricks, you don't have time to try and concentrate on 10pt 160 column text windows. Or, more generally, when you're dodging crazed taxi drivers or other urban hazards, you want easily readable text.

    A typical 'out and about' wearable xterm is maybe 30 chars wide, and 10 lines down. 320x240 or 640x480 suffices nicely for HMDs IMHO.

    Back to web design: Our pages work nicely on most browsers, including Lynx which is great for wearables (because it doesn't need a mouse).

    So:

    30 column xterms + Lynx == SIMPLE HTML.

    No pop-ups, CSS, animated text or what-have you. Its also nice to have pages everybody can see, whether or not they shell out cash for expensive computers and proprietary operating systems. HTML which degrades nicely lets everyone participate.
  • Do they actually let people like you out to walk the streets. Someone as seriously deluded as you must have a great deal of trouble functioning in a society with normal people. What the hell are you doing posting on slashdot - don't you know the internet is EVIL. Please stop posting and contaminating yourself - and leave the more rational section of the populace to look forward to the 21st century, not back to the 1st.
  • >Data overlays on vision are a failed idea?

    Exactly! When can I buy the unnoticable addition to my lenses which will run an image recognizer on everything I see and overlay the names of people I know above them? Would help a lot against forgetting the names of people one sees seldomly.

  • Really, considering he started the MIT wearables program as a PhD student, and has been building and using wearable computers for the last 20 years. True, he uses other people's technology in his work, but it's the combination of these technologies that is his. I'm not saying there aren't other wearable groups out there that have done the same independently, but I have yet to see ANY group with the same ideas or technology Mann uses. Most don't work on the concept of "mediated reality"; they seperate the computer from the rest of the world instead of integrating it. And before you say "MIT is doing just that!" I remind you that it was Mann that brought that idea to MIT.

  • but have you ever thought about why cellphone use has exploded? (aside from cheaper and more efficient manufacturing).
    i'd like to theorize that wearable computers will not supercede or even match cellphones for a much longer time than most people expect.

    On a phone, even if you are pushing your cart through winn-dixie looking for purplesaurus rex koolaid, you are still engaging in some kind of interaction with a human [theonion.com]. you know, an actual bodily person. Intelligent, carbon-not-silicon-based life (note: this excludes pamela lee).

    All the dotcom adverts show happy people in all the world's countries getting excited about checking sports/stock scores, managing your career, and of course the obligatory father watching his son's soccer game on his laptop. But really, are you going to be desperate to check your email or assess your investments while you're picking up the dry-cleaning? (a la "Have you ever worn a fax machine on your head? You will!").
    our entire social construction of time-usage contraverts this notion. we still accomplish things in discrete chunks; we have a prioritized to-do list that we check off one by one. to be at work/school/church/store/soccergame/divorcecourt requires one's present attention. we do not simply drift in and out of these events. we do not naturally multitask life itself; when we do we invariably make mistakes or increase our danger margins.

    in no sense am i "against" these technologies, i just think that those who push these things have too quickly discounted the human psyche which has concrete physiological limits that will not be swayed by any level of external technology.

    generally i agree with Digitalia [slashdot.org], until computer technology itself progresses considerably in voice-recognition and AI there will be zero use for these devices by more than .01% of the population.

    --
    the problem with teens is they're looking for certainties.
  • A 2048x1536 wearable display with a 3-foot-wide projected image is cheaper than a 3-foot-wide 2048x1536 LCD screen.

    Wearable computers don't currently have that kind of resolution, but when they do, notebooks will get a whole lot nicer. No power-hungry flat panel, and a better-looking display to boot.

    IMO, this will be one of the big selling points.

    I have personally spent way too many hours using my airline seat and laptop-on-tray-table as my office. My 15" screen does a good job sharing my work with up to a half dozen of my nearest airline seat neighbors. Not a good time or place to proceed with sensitive work.

    As computing becomes more ubiquitous in our daily environment, we will require devices that allow greater I/O privacy while computing. A wearable personal display screen with an earphone and a twiddler (or other chording keyboard, or other simplified input device) will create a much more personal and private experience when computing beyond one's desk.

    The future of the wearable computer could very well be the point where our current palm pilots (etc.) and laptops merge.

  • The Man never said it. It's (most probably) an urban legend: http://www.urbanlegends.com/celebrities/bill.gates /gates_memory.html [urbanlegends.com]

    Of course, he could just be covering his ass, but have you ever seen an actual source of the quote?

  • Aural Interface Over Visual (Score:3)

    by Digitalia ( 127982 ) on Sunday June 25, 2000 @09:20PM (#977053) Homepage
    What is this obsesion with replicating a PC to a T, but making it portable? The PC was not designed for being hauled around. It's hard drives are fragile, it's monitors either too big or too expensive, and the keyboard and mouse are not a free floating interface. So what have these engineers done? They have adapted an existing design. This is where they go wrong.

    I propose an alternate style. If computers are truly going to be used for information purposes, a visual interface will not be needed. Instead, development of speech recognition and speech production engines should be concentrated on. Microphones and speakers are commonly shrunk to incredibly small sizes. So wouldn't an accurate voice synthesizer, one that doesn't sound like a whino with vomit stuck in his throat, provide the interface nessecary for information exchange? The only obstructionsI can see, is the development of an operating system that synchronizes the GUI and CLI, and can portray the content accurately to the user. The only problem is the lack of an intelligent interface.

    It would be required that the device become easy to use by the common man, it would be required that the device not be noticable, and it would be required that the device be accurate.

    Short of getting Jane from the Ender series, though, will we see this? I would hope so. My dream is to see a country wired for a system of wireless computing. Rather than have one computer for each person, have one cluster for all persons. Tap into the system anywhere it is available, and you should have the same data access.

    Let it be known, that this will be the future. In cities such as Arcosanti, this kind of technology will be easy to implement from the start. There is no reason that we should not begin to seek an organic computing experience. An integrated, and seamless experience. Let us do it! Let ours be the Alpha of remote computing, not the Omega!
  • Regarding the future of wearables, there are a few things from the past that could be noteworthy. The only highly successful wearables to date are personal music players. The transistor radio was portable rather than wearable. I think the first wearable was probably the walkman - the key difference being the private soundspace it created.
    I may have my history muddled here - I imagine that a radio + headphones combination predated the walkman, but I'm under the impression that it took the twin development of earphones and a small unit before it all took off.
    So how do people wear these wearables? Typically, the actual unit is stashed out of sight somewhere (in a pocket or bag), while headphones - despite apparently superior sound quality, usually take a back seat to the more discrete earphones.
    Why is the unit usually stashed out of sight? I do it for a few reasons: it is more comfortable than clipped on the belt jiggling about, it's more secure (it won't fall off the belt and dash itself into a thousand high-tech pieces), it's padded (only really important with a shock-sensitive device such as CD), it's not going to get in the way, restrict your movement, it's not going to advertise that you feel an insecure need to advertise your toys, and it's not going to slap a big ugly box onto your profile (though the box itself might well be quite pretty).
    A lot of these things are going to apply to new types of wearables as well as old.

    Have you noticed that most earphones these days seem designed to look a little bit like earrings or jewellery? (eg a curved gold band standing out on the visible part of the earphone). I'm curious about that - they don't seem to incur the fear of appearing effete that is often still precludes guys getting twin earrings, yet it does seem that the tech is trying to incorporate elements of this jewellery, and doing well as a result (once apon a time, all earphone were just black, which perhaps red and blue tags to identify left and right - not merely functional, but functional at the _expense_ of form!).

    One of the more recently popular features are remotes on the earphone wires. (These have been around for years, but until the advent of CD players, were fairly rare due it being so much cheaper to have tape-reading mechanisms that required physical force to engage, via the play button). Some people don't use them, some people do, but they are testament to people choosing to sacrifice control of the unit (by stashing it away) rather than wear it on the outside where they can reach it. Unlike the full unit, remotes are more conveniently placed, and much smaller, thus many people prefer them. (Though I actually wear mine out of sight under my shirt collar :-).

    Now, what is your opinion of people who wear cop-style underarm cell-phone holsters? I'm guessing you probably snicker behind their backs and hope like hell you'll never be reduced to such transparent (and failing) attempts at appearing important without appearing like you're trying to look important. There will always be people who buy underarm cell-phone holsters, but they're not where we want wearables to end up.

    Recently, there was a discussion on brand marks on clothes, shoes etc. Several perceptive people pointed out that (in a gross simplification), there are two streams of wealth - those who can't afford many luxuries, so when they buy them, they buy blatant things that advertise that scream "look at me - I buy expensive things!" (eg a t-shirt with NIKE emblazoned on it), and the second stream of people who have sufficient wealth to almost have style custom-made for them - tailored clothes without logos but with fantastic fit and form, and so on. I think that thinking about this take on consumption in the context of wearables can result in some interesting insights into the future of the tech.
  • You are nowhere near paranoid enough. On one hand, there's the obvious uselessness of these things for effective spying, on the other there's the extreme inventiveness of companies like doubleclick for coming up with ways of "Gathering market information"

    I just get the feeling that these might be used to find out what people actually look at, and use that information for targetted advertising. People might even be willing volunteer for this for a 1 cent per minute fee.

  • Why is no one tackling the real problems? (Score:5)

    by -Harlequin- ( 169395 ) on Sunday June 25, 2000 @09:25PM (#977056)
    The technology exists to make these things actually wearable, yet the "I'm such a StarTrek weenie I get off on the borg image" still seems the predominant aesthetic. We have www.charmed.com with their equally dubious "cyberchicks with boxes and wires sticking out in all the wrong places that aren't actually very useful for anything, but will really reel in those trekkies with the high-paying jobs" look.
    Really, wearables that lack style of any substance (or a practical use for that matter) and presumably are intended to sell on wank factor (for whom?) alone are not going tempt very many people. Sure, they mostly just prototypes, but almost universally ignoring important considerations when prototyping is not going to help very much.

    On the other hand, if you can browse the web on what could pass on the street for expensive sunglasses - and you can use them as normal sunglasses when not browsing (ie don't need to change headgear whenever you change tasks) then we're starting to get somewhere. And this kind of subtle, miniature heads up system has been built. But it seems the "plaster-junk-to-my-face" look is all the rage with a significant portion of the people involved (there of course some notable exceptions).

    Rather than developing better ways to mount a wireless webcam on your head (the last place I'm putting a webcam is on my face! Shoulder, possibly, but face?!?), pour the effort into developing things to wearables more useful as a technology, eg a miniature retina or focus tracking system to incorporate into heads-up sunglasses, thus removing the need for a mouse or control panel larger than one or two buttons. Simply look at the icon and click the button, or whatever.
    These systems might be complex and difficult with today's tech - much easier to play with things like webcams, but they offer a hell of a lot more as well.

    BTW, I'm not merely spouting here from a position of complete ignorance - I'm working on some miniaturised wearable stuff, but it's in a different direction, and the ultimate goal is stuff that I can actually wear yet still feel stylish :-) For me, that means extremely discrete is the top priority, with it's aesthetic design acting as a stylistic fallback measure.
    (Ie I'm only spouting from a position of mostly-ignorance :-)

    Simple test for wearables: Would you be caught dead wearing that getup in a public place where you might meet people who would recognise you? I have yet to see any wearables that satisfy this extremely basic criteria. You might think this is kinda vain, but we're talking about wearable computers here - they are going to have to attain the same stylistic standards as clothing, sunglasses, shoes etc.
    Cell phones had to come a long way before being accepted, and they were greatly aided by the perception that only important people had a genuine need for them. With WAP phones already here, wearable are unlikely to enjoy such a boost.

  • Ok, first off, the page is outdated. I spent the last year working with Steve Mann on the wearcomp project. He's actually got a couple covert wearables built that he uses. He has a pair of dark sunglasses (NOT the aviator lenses seen on the page) with a miniscule camera mounted on the frame and a laser eyetap behind the lenses. He also has a pair of regular glasses that again use a frame-mounted camera, but in order to hide the eyetap device, it uses a small laser eyetap that uses a diverter in the lens itself, so that the lenses look like a pair of bifocals.

    As for the computers themselves, they are currently carried around in waist-packs, however, Professor Mann's plans for wearability include a form-fitted vest that would contain a cluster (possibly even a Beowulf cluster (no joke)) of cigarette-pack-sized computers. Ideally, the whole system would be undetectable by a passerby

  • Replying to myself, I found this quote from a CNN article (linked elsewhere in this discussion):

    "Sure, it looks silly. But so do women in one-inch platform shoes and kids who hike up their underwear. And they're not playing "Quake" at the same time."

    Y'know, he's got a point :-)

    (Allthough these things really _are_ fads, which would kinda bode ill for wearables).

    (The article is at: http://www.cnn.com/2000/TECH/ptech/01/07/xybernaut /index.html )

  • An insider's view (Score:5)

    by Astin ( 177479 ) on Sunday June 25, 2000 @11:59PM (#977059)

    Alright, it's about time this got posted. I just spent the past year working with Professor Mann and the 'cyborg' group at the University Of Toronto. So, I guess I'll put my $0.02 in

    First off, the page is over a year out of date, even the course syllabus is slightly dated. Since Steve Mann came to UofT, the wearcomp/wearcam/eyetap/cybernetics group has grown tremendously. We've effectively taken over an entire graduate student lab with prototypes, workstations, even a Beowulf or two.

    Secondly, by no means was "a bunch of engineering students assigned to create wearable computers". Every student involved with the wearcomp group has their own specific interests in the project. Some concentrate on the use of the device, others develop the technology, most of us have hacked the code (all open-source, all linux) to some degree. I personally did my 4th year thesis (along with two partners) on parallel image processing using code designed for wearcomps and eyetap (and running on that aforementioned Beowulf). I also took Professor Mann's course, which, if nothing else, is an eye-opener to what his concepts really are and where he's heading with this technology

    For those of you with concerns about the wearability of the devices. Currently, the most widely-used wearcomps can be fairly discretely worn around the waist. However, the eyetaps used are slightly more conspicuous, being mounted on hard hats, baseball caps, etc, with a modified webcam, a small screen, and a fairly large mirror used as a diverter. There are more discrete versions of the eyetap in existence, which are often used by Professor Mann (in fact, he's rarely seen without them), embedded into a larger pair of sunglasses (slightly more stylish than the ones seen on the webpage) or regular lenses.

    Where is all this going? Beats me. Bear in mind that when Steve Mann started building wearable computers, he wore 200lbs of equipment in a backpack and had an antenna sticking out his head. In the 20 years that have elapsed since then, the whole system weighs in at about 10lbs in its case, and it's getting smaller all the time. As for uses, of course the first application that comes to mind is internet usage. But after 20 years, Professor Mann's gotten a little bored with just checking e-mail. The concept of a "mediated reality" is the predominant use envisioned for the eyetap. Imagine a meeting around a table in your local Second Cup (or Starbucks for all the non-Canucks out there), where each person is wearing a covert wearcomp. The entire meeting can take place without anyone else in the room able to access the information being shared. You could project flow charts, xterms as whiteboards, etc, to each other using the wearcomps, and nobody but you would know. You could be walking down the street, and another user could have left you a message 'written' on a store window reminding you to bring donuts to the morning meeting. These are the types of uses that could develop, where reality isn't interrupted by the computer (unlike cell phones, pagers, PDAs, etc.), but enhanced, and augmented.

    Anyway, I can think of at least 5 other people who will be starting their posts with "I've worked with Professor Steve Mann for x years...", I'll let them do the rest of the talking.

  • I've heard Steve Mann talk about the phrases he's coined: Eyetap, wearcomp, photoquantigraphic lightspace rendering, etc. But NEVER has he claimed to have coined the word cyborg. Are you sure that the writeup you've linked to (for TedCity, a media and technology convention-thingy in Toronto) wasn't written by someone else? Professor Mann will unabashadly refer one to any reference he has used, or any other pioneer whose ideas or work he has incorporated into his own.

    Further, as to the reaction you've posted, at the time, Mann was in the midst of a project where we wore his wearcomp CONSTANTLY for a year of his life, recording and broadcasting everything. When the year was up, he stopped. Trust me, when I was in his class, I was hoping he'd be broadcasting himself writing the final exam :). Since then, he hasn't been walking around with a bright light shining in everyone's face, oblivious to the world... he's stopped using the light.

    It sounds like you hold a personal grudge against Mann, have you ever met him? Or are you just basing this attack on second-hand information from disgruntled MIT students? Regardless, this isn't a topic about Steve Mann, but about his wearable computers.

  • What kind of resolution and picture quality does he get out fo those?
  • A wearable-style portable camera on my bike would be cool - next time some idiot driver fails to indicate then runs into me, it wouldn't matter that I had no witnesses but he's got a mate who's prepared to swear I was at fault, or that he's a (supposedly) respectable middle-age family man while I'm a "youth" and must therefore be a wild and unpredictable danger to "decent" road users.

    It doesn't even need a wireless connection - just continuious recording into a 32meg RAM buffer, and when something happens that I want to keep, I just stop recording and it's all in the buffer.
    Make surveilance work for _me_ for a damn change. (Not only am I a "youth" (lingo that is locally applied to "young people" but means "thug" in the conservative middle-aged and elderly minds of those who use it), but I have long hair - double mistake. Bigoted "security" people earning a fraction of what I do wonder why they can't put a dent in shoplifting no matter how much they hassle long-haired "youths" who must clearly be the ones responsible...)

    Rant ends. Apologies. Yes, I do feel much better now, thank you.
  • I've been trying to wrap my head around the concept of wearcomps for a little while, and I think that there can be more to them than many people realize.

    What I have observed from many comments is that many people think about wearables for about 30 seconds, come up with completely unfeasable situations for them, proceed to prove that they're not feasable in those situations, and thus conclude wearables are a stupid idea.

    I completely agree that strapping a laptop/fax/pager to your head is insane. You've got my support there.

    I also believe there is tremendous potential for wearcomps in the future.

    Why? Read Steve Mann's papers and try to understand his direction, why wearcomps can empower individuals, promote human interaction, and shoot back at the establishment, or how can they provide an alternative to Orwellian smart room possibilities?

    When people take issue with those, well, IMO, that's when the debate about wearables really starts to get exciting.

    Simply taking the desktop computing paradigm and placing it on a wearable would be dismissing the technology out of hand. As with any technology (with or without great voice recognition - i think that's a side issue) its success will be determined largely by whether it enriches our daily experiences and by whether we make wise choices in how we use it

  • Nobody is selling his sunglass displays yet, no.

    Several reasons. Cost, for one. Reliability for another. Lack of usable software for people to use. Lack of need?

    Also, his method of mounting the computer on your body is definitely something I wouldn't do myself (in the talk I saw he was talking about getting his stomach scorched by a CPU until he figured out he should insulate it from his body!).

    I did say he's freaky. But he does do some cool stuff, and if you are able to find out about it from somebody other them himself (some of my friends took the class, and I know people who did their 4th year thesis with him), you can actually get quite amazed.

    One of the people who did their thesis with him was originally supposed to design a head-mounted (as in sunglasses mounted) laser that would beam images directly into your eye. I knew that the project was severly over-ambitious, but apparently Mann has built larger versions of this that actually work!

    m

    --
    "There are two things to do on a rainy day. The other is to play cards."
    - Rupert Wainwright
  • By far the holy grail of heads-up displays is the MicroOptical Integrated Eyeglass Display [microopticalcorp.com]. Thad Starner [gatech.edu], another of the MIT grads working with wearables (now at Georgia Tech) has a pair.

  • Actually, yes. In the Engineering Faculty, many of our groups and programs have been started by not only PhD students, but UNDERGRADUATE students. Many of these remain completely student-run, while some eventually fall under a professor's moderation. As for Mann leaving MIT, he was (and still is) disgusted by what the program became. He believes strongly in uninfluenced, user-controlled development. MIT's program started being funded by major corporations with their own agendas who are exercising control over the project. His major fear was when the military started looking into applications for wearables and he wanted nothing to do with that level of obfuscation and loss of control. UofT was more than happy to offer him a position here, along with giving him complete control over the project. As such, his major sponsers donate equipment, not money, and he couldn't be happier with it, because they want nothing more than recognition for their assistance. Anything that is developed because of the project goes into the public domain. As I said earlier, it's all open source. Everyone has an equal opportunity to use what is developed, provided of course that they can afford it.

    I made the mistake once of mentioning an advance in wearable computing that was being credited to MIT to him (I belive it was the embedded LCD in standard eyeglasses). He quite quickly pointed out that MIT had little to do with it, other than testing and some research into the project, and that it was in fact the corporate sponser that now had rights to it that did most of the legwork. As far as he was concerned, MIT sold out with this one.

  • The reason I know you're wrong is that I need a wearable PC now, and have for the past couple of years. I bet there are quite a few people like me (though I do tend to be about 2 years ahead of the curve):

    I am a writer; I have used laptops (almost exclusively) ever since they existed (I even used the old Model 100, storing the data I collected or wrote each day that night on the TRS Model I!). I could be even more productive and prolific than I am now if I didn't have to lie beneath my laptop every time I need to enter something. (Oh, I should mention I have a compressed lumbar disc so I use a laptop desk; can only sit 2-3 hours/day without pain. I can, however, walk around a lot, as long as it's not uphill.)

    If I had a wearable, my PIM (still Ecco) could track all the details of my very diverse activities much better, being on all the time. Then I wouldn't have to keep those annoying (and easy-to-lose) little scraps of paper and do a batch of data entry to update it periodically.

    If my word processor (still XyWrite) were always on, whenever I get an idea for one of the dozens of plays, novels, poems, stories, articles, books, etc. I am currently writing/revising, I could implement it, instead of (at least half the time) forgetting it. I could respond to correspondence in a timely manner. While waiting in line (painful if the wait is too long) I could distract myself with writing or reading.

    And, of course, if I were connected while walking around to the Web (us New Yorkers don't have much use for cars), I wouldn't feel that frustration of being unable to check the hours a branch library is open, or the location of that store that carries odd cables, etc., while I'm "on the road." Not to mention all the other things I could be doing while walking.

    Finally, I usually work as a consultant, but unlike some, I have to carry all my tools around with me. In part this is because I tend to work short-term, and I can't predict what I'm going to need on particular jobs that the client won't have. I was one of the first consultants to take her own laptop to the job -- but connectivity is increasingly important on the job, and facilities to dock laptops are too diverse at different clients. I think that's the final reason I need a connected wearable, but if I think of any others, I won't be able to update this list, will I?

  • Here in New York, cell phones are almost ubiquitous -- and they are usually in use by people on the street! So the kind of holster someone might otherwise keep them in doesn't enter into it. About a week ago I saw something I found very amusing:

    I was walking past Madison Avenue and about 26th Street, where there is a large building with a plaza partly under the building, when one man said, in frustration, "I'm at Madison and 26th Street! Where are you!" His back was to me but I realized he was on a cell phone and looked around (without interrupting my own trajectory). Sure enough, another man walked to within a few feet of him and must have said, "Right behind you." First man turns around and sees second man, and they both hang up. Btw, it was well after 5pm, so the sidewalk was almost deserted already!

    I've also seen a woman in front of the library reporting her whereabouts just as a car pulled up to pick her up.

    I see far fewer "Walk-man" type devices in New York than cell-phones, perhaps because personal stereos are considered thief-bait, but cell-phones have come to be considered a necessity. In fact, although use of cell-phones within the library is supposed to be banished to certain well-defined areas, when I was waiting online to speak with a research librarian the other day, no less than 2 of the half-dozen waiting on line were using their cell-phones. Btw, I don't carry a cell-phone, but I expect my wearable to incorporate that functionality when I get it!

  • Jokes aside, am I the only one dying to finally be able to have a chip implanted that I can easily interface with by merely thinking? It seems that all the current offerings are incredibly inefficient, including my Palm (which is the closest I've found to an implant.) The signal has to be first converted from electrical to mechanical (thought to keystroke) and then back.

    Give us implants! I'll be the first one in line! That is, as long as there are no banner ads.

    --

  • I don't know if you were flaming or serious. Either way, I still read your comment and all I can say is, "I can't wait to get my first wearable computer!!!"
  • This guy seems to know what he's talking about. His syllabus [wearcomp.org] includes specific, high-level applications of the technology, and shows an understanding of the ways this could be more than just another way to frag in (your | your employer's) spare time. However, he also makes the perplexing comment

    Instead of the current vision of ``smart floors'', ``smart lightswitches'', and ``smart toilets'' that watch us and respond to our actions, what we will witness is the emergence of ``smart people''

    All you folks in tech support can vouch that computers currently seem to be pushing in the opposite direction...

    - Michael

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