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RE: wearables: interfaces, functions...

I like your vision, but I don't want to go about the world lugging
different machines for deifferent tasks/contexts.

I want my wearable to be cable of running big bore applications (like
statistical analysis and displaying a scatter plot with an equation that
best explains the variance in the series and helping manage the context
of my daily living.

Now today, I can not afford a machine that would do it all, but why not
have the wearable function as the data store containing all my current
information and projects and  be the executive interface to the other
systems in my life.  At work or on a remote job site, it interfaces to
my data, documentation, GIS, etc.;  at home it interfaces with my
entertainment and home environmental management system; and walking
around I can do all my personal context and doodly stuff.

Drop down menus are great for somethings, but, sometimes command
sequences are more powerful.

What we need is an operating system that let us design our own.  This is
not for the consumer or the faint of heart, but it is the way to
optimize the kinds of tasks we have to do between the various activity
sets that  make up our lives.

Cordially

cb

-----Original Message-----
From:  [mailto:] On
Behalf Of Perry E. Metzger
Sent: Sunday, November 03, 2002 7:43 PM
To: 
Subject: Re: wearables: interfaces, functions...

Carol Stein <> writes:
> First, any wearable computer that does not REPLACE a laptop or
> desktop won't succeed... by which I mean, if we need to keep the
> desktop/laptop as well as the wearable (to take care of tasks the
> wearable can't handle), why bother?

You might bother because your application is different.

As an obvious current example, your application might be to allow
someone repairing an aircraft engine to call up documentation while
working.

However, as a way of turning your comment completely on its head: if
what you're going to do is let someone run Microsoft Word, why bother?
A desktop or laptop is pretty good at what it does. The things I can
do with an intrusive "always on" system that becomes an extension of
myself are very different from what I can do with a laptop.

Say you're walking through Tokyo -- a city where the streets don't
really have names and the buildings are numbered by what block they
are in, in order of construction rather than sequentially. Finding
your way somewhere in Tokyo you've never been before can be damn hard
even if you're a native. However, if your eyeglasses simply show you
where you are in relation to your destination in a corner of your
visual field, well, that makes a bit of a difference for you, doesn't
it?

You're in a meeting, and you want to remind yourself of a number of
points you wanted to say, and of the fact that you must NOT insult the
client even though they're an idiot. Well, keep your speaking points
up in your visual field, scroll through them unobtrusively with your
chord keyboard, and have the microphone in the glasses feeding
software that flashes a warning to you when you detect your own voice
stress is going up to remind you to be calm and reasonable. Your
business partner across the table can send you small cues via instant
messages -- wearables+wireless = telepathy.

Having trouble concentrating on what you're working on? Your machine
can keep you informed of it. Can't remember whether the guy you asked
for directions said it was one mile or two miles to the next light?
Play back what he said from your "flight data recorder". Can't
remember the names of people you meet? Pick off their images from your
"flight data recorder" and label them for reference. Driving down the
street and you remember you MUST pick up the drycleaning before the
shop closes? Voice recognition from your always on friend.

Wearables have all sorts of interesting potential. Trying to make them
into "More Portable Laptops" would be a great shame.

Perry

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