On Thursday 04 December 2003 7:04 pm, Steve Barr wrote: > Tony Havelka wrote: > > Unless something radical happens with the design and performance of "the > > wearable" I think it will be pushed out of existence. Hear me out on > > this: > > > > The classic wearable is on track to be pushed out of existence as it has > > not changed in 5 years. > > I don't understand why you say this. This year we have seen: > Centrino/Pentium M: Makes possible fast, 8+ hour wearables under 5lbs > MicroOptical SV-6: Small, Business-quality display with 6+ hour life > New small keyboards: FrogPad, IR keyboards for PDAs > Have you found anything like this that a wearable can be built out of. I've been tempted to buy a second laptop like mine (3lb 12"display) and pull the board out and put in a wearable. > There are also some business factors which help wearables: > Voice over IP: wearable can also be phone > Continued proliferation of wireless > Migration of internal company apps to web-based GUIs > > > Tablets, I believe, have pushed wearable > > off the corporate and government radar screen because they are new and > > have the backing of the very large computer manufacturers. > > So far they are not selling very well. MS forgot the classic > tactic of starting prices low, and raising them once people > 'have' to have it. > > > Oh, and you don't have to wear it. > > I see wearing it as an advantage when compared to a tablet, esp. > in the bizarre no offices, no cubes business of the future. > Say a wearable in a corporate setting reduces down to a (company > logo'd) sash with one-two wires coming from it: HMD and > maybe keyboard/mouse (the phone headset is a wireless earpiece). > Even without VoIP, the phone can be in a pocket on the sash. > If not on the keyboard, the mouse can be part of the CPU case, > like on some of the xybernaut models. > > I figure if you need to show someone your screen, there is > NetMeeting or similar software. Or book a conference room > and plug into the projector. > > Batteries could be in charging stations, like those used for > department radios. Or more likely there will be some security > enforced way to turn in an empty battery and get a fresh one. > > Benefits: > You don't forget your tablet > Nobody sits on your tablet > Nobody grabs the wrong tablet and runs off to give a presentation > No pile of tablets on the table inside the bathroom > No juggling keyboard, tablet, printout, lunch > No angling tablet for adequate viewing and writing angle > Typing much faster than handwriting recognition > Don't have to hide the screen when unauthorized person comes by > Don't have to carry rag to wipe tablet screen > > > Unfortunately, the average person wearing a > > Wearable PC for the first time feels more like this > > [....] or this [....] than this > > (http://images.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/review/_photos/poma-wearable- > >use.jpg). > > > > This has got to change. > > Well, you design and sell them. Why not give it one more > try before becoming TabletGear? In a corporate environment > it's going to be too noisy to use voice, so you don't > need headphones/mic. A FrogPad or other keyboard is more > likely to win out than one which ties up both arms but > only has one hand typing. > > > PDAs are getting more powerful and cross platform compilers are getting > > better making code maintenance cheaper. > > PDAs are disappearing into phones for most users. > > > Laptops are getting more powerful and cheaper. > > Laptops are wonderful when you have a desk. They > are not so grand when trying to type for hours > with them balanced on your knees. Or when you > have to 'team' with person X, then run down and > 'team' with person Y, etc. > Depends on the laptop. The trend for 14 and 15" displays don't balance on my knees, but my 12" laptop does. I was ready to build a wearable a year ago when I outgrew my ipaq but couldn't find any small system boards with a good balance of speed/battery life/size so I ended up buying the smallest laptop I could find to make it easy to keep near me. Plus I was able to buy the whole laptop for the cost of a hmd. I'm still willing to buy/build if I can find the products. The 4-5" square sbc's are too big for my 120lb body, my ideal platform was a dimm/simm based pc, but I haven't been able to find anything in speeds over 200mhz. If someone could make a dimm sized board with the components of a via mini-itx mainboard (500mhz fanless) I could get something working. > > All putting pressure on the overall "value" of using a wearable. > > The value of a wearable is that you wear it. > > Steve -- Subscription/unsubscription/info requests: send e-mail with subject of "subscribe", "unsubscribe", or "info" toWear-Hard Mailing List Archive (searchable): http://wearables.blu.org Please, *PLEASE* don't subscribe through a forward/expander/false domain
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