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Wearable w/o video (was 2" display or not to display)

I've been thinking somewhat along the same lines the past few days; what
if you pitched the whole HUD design and went with a voice synthesized
output.  My impression is alot of people are using their wearables to
display plain text, which could easilly be converted to voice and
"whisper in your ear".  You could then key in with a twiddler, or
similar keyboard input (which might echo your input to you).  This has
several obvious advantages; cheap, low power, inconspicuous.

As crazy as this sounds, I can't help but remember a couple of times when
I've screwed up my video card configuration, or turned off my monitor and
still entered commands and opened and closed applications "blind" and been
impressed by how much you can do without seeing a gui interface.

Any thoughts? or is this straying too far from the goal of wearables in
this group?

-Paul

On Fri, 20 Feb 1998  wrote:

> Date: Fri, 20 Feb 1998 16:51:16 -0600
> From: 
> To: 
> Subject: 2" display or not to display
> Resent-Date: Fri, 20 Feb 1998 17:48:51 -0500
> Resent-From: 
> 
> 
> 	Inserting more brain kipple - has anyone cracked apart a digital camera to 
> pull the LCD out? Active matrix, backlit, 640x480 (?), battery powered and 
> definitely capable of displaying text and images.. Apple Quicktake 200s are 
> down to $250 (less if you shop smart/lucky). Bonus, you get parts that someday 
> gives your wearable vision capability. :) Or is this mostly a 
> mounting/wearability issue?
> 
> 	Okay, next topic, you've got your twiddler for fast, shorthand communication 
> to your wearable. Has anyone pursued developing a non-spoken tone language to 
> allow the machine to quickly convey information to the human? (Surely someone 
> has, unless I'm the only person who's wondered what a language dictionary for 
> R2-D2 might look like :) ). GUIs and high-bandwidth "let the user find find 
> what he wants on the screen" are nice for desktop operations and editing, but 
> for a wearable agent that's trying to optimize on utility and pertinence, 
> could a 'whisper in the ear' be preferred? Then, leave the LCD display for a 
> "pocket watch" assembly.
> 
> 	Another cent or so worth of what-ifs.. :)
> 	 RayG
> 
> 
> 

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