First of all, I noticed that you're all talking about joining together to
build similar wearables to share experiences and get volume discounts.
Count me in.
Also, I noticed a few questions about "what would the killer app be?"
I don't know if this is really a good question. As JL Gassee of Be keeps
saying about his OS, the important thing isn't a single killer app, but a
number of separate "tractor apps" that can, separately and together, draw
enough interest from enough people to make the new platform viable.
After all, it wasn't just MacWrite or Word or MacDraw or MacPaint or RSG or
PageMaker that drew people to the Mac, it was the combination of these and
other apps that enabled a whole set of new activities that came to be
collectively known as "desktop publishing" and "desktop computer design."
In the same way, no one app is likely to generate mass excitement for
wearable computers; rather, it'll be a combination of loosely related apps
that enable a whole set of loosely related activities.
OK, now here's my background, and then a couple of random questions:
I've been thinking about the idea of a pocket computer with a constant
unobtrusive interface and a good cybercheese look for a few years, and
never realized there was a name for it, much less a whole community out
there doing the same thing.
I actually have a specific use in mind for this. Among other things (the
jobs which actually pay the rent and give me money to spend on nifty toys)
I'm a DJ. I often carry around a PowerBook to keep track of which songs
I've played so far, and do quick searches from a list of songs ("I need an
popular industrial song that starts with a sample and is within 10bpm of
135"). I also wear a pair of flashlights attached to a glasses frame, with
an incredibly awkward and unstable setup (I have to reach back behind my
ear to turn the lights on and off, and half the time flipping the switch
knocks the glasses off my head or just breaks something).
So I thought, what if I got a pair of LCD glasses and a Twiddler so I
wouldn't have to look down at the computer, and also mounted the lights on
the glasses and rigged up some kind of thing that would let me control them
remotely from the Twiddler. These two problems looked like an actual
practical use for the idea I'd been toying with but never doing anything
about.
I solved the second problem (although I didn't solve it well) by taping a
switch to the Twiddler and running wires from the switch up to each light
(and moving the lights' batteries down to my pocket). However, I'd prefer
to have the lights controlled by the computer. The only conceivably
advantage would be that the computer could automatically turn the lights on
when I ran a query, or when I turned in a certain direction, etc. But
really, whether it's more useful or not, it's cooler that way.
The first problem--getting away from the laptop monitor--was a bit harder,
because I couldn't find a pair of LCD glasses that allowed me to see
through them and still see the display.
After looking around the web for any info on LCD glasses or other
head-mounted displays, I found all these resources on wearable computers,
and here I am...
So now here's my questions:
Has anyone looked into non-Intel processors? Would it be possible to build
a tiny PREP machine around a 603ev and run linuxppc (or BeOS) on it? You'd
get lower power consumption and/or much more processing power than with any
x86 chip... although the price would obviously be higher, and it would
probably take much more hacking (because there is no standard mini-PREP
architecture).
What about hacking existing set-top box designs? The Pippin is pretty close
to a mini-PREP with a 603e already, with an NTSC interface even...
Is there a reason the entire system has to be in one box? Instead of a box
with three PC102 cards and a hard drive, why not have the three cards and
the drive protected separately, sewn inside a jacket liner (along with the
batteries), and connected with cables? What's the maximum cable length you
can use? What kind of shielding is needed on the cables? I'm guessing one
of these two problems is the reason nobody's thinking this way. Of course
there's another problem--you always have to wear the same jacket--but I was
thinking you could build a special liner, then tear open a few different
jackets and vests and just slide it into whichever one you want to wear
that day... or into a special waistpack on the days you don't want to wear
a jacket.
I'm sure my song query idea could be expanded to something more useable. An
associative person-fact database and search engine to look up facts about
people would be nice... I'm out somewhere, run into someone I vaguely know,
and just type in a bunch of facts I remember about the person ("UCLA
student, psych major, regular at Xanadu, friends with Dez, loves Soft Cell,
etc.") and it comes up with a list of likely people in order of likelihood;
when I select one, it tells me everything else I know about that person
(like her name, for example). Of course integrating a cellular and/or
cordless phone (and the ability to produce touchtones for dialing from the
database at a regular phone) is a no-brainer.
Personally, I think the person-database plus the basic functionality of a
Newton with a different interface, for not much more than a Newton, would
be enough to draw plenty of interest. But none of this really gets into the
realm of the constant-use paradigm (except for reminders, automatically
arriving email, etc., pretty minor stuff). The rememberance agent helps a
little, but it still won't have anything to help you remember unless you're
actively working with the computer.
To get constant information, you need constant input.
For example, with face recognition, the database could look up info on
everyone you see, but even if the software were there today that'd require
a camera and much more processing power...
Then there's cconstant voice recognition. First, put a combination
earphone/bone conduction mike in your ear. Then you also have an
omnidirectional mike that picks up all the ambient sounds around you and
listens for any keywords in your conversations. Or (again we're talking a
much more powerful processor) attempts (even with 50% accuracy it could be
useful) continuously transcribes everything being said, and caches the last
few minutes of audio so you can go back and listen.
Add one of those directional mikes (much cheaper now that they're being
sold for hearing impaired people as well as spies) and you can let the
computer listen to (and record) conversations at a distance without your
attention unless it heard a recognizable keyword. Again, even with 50%
accuracy this could be useful.
So what other ideas, easy or farfetched, do people have for using a wearable?
--andi
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