Slashdot Mirror
Next Generation Xybernaut Wearable
shanenewsom sent in linkage
to a story running on the BBC
which talks about
the new Xybernaut Poma. A little light on the specs,
although the headmounted screen is 640x480 and it runs WinCE. But it
really does look like the first practical wearable. It should be
available in March. Update: 01/21 18:52 GMT by T : Reader Eureses points out that the display is actually 800x600 rather than 640x480.
$1500? Sheesh!
...you`ll be laughing at this in a few years!
`Check this one out! Check your email on the move!! Yeah, but wait until you get home before you can reply!`
Surely the future of communications is speech, not converting what you would normally have said into words, and then typing them in?
I won't get one till it comes with a Microvision display.
I can imagine 1001 uses for something like this. I think the price is about right, too. (Of course it costs more than a desktop with similar specs, but this isn't meant for the desktop market.)
I read an article a few years ago that said that linux was the OS of choice for wearable computers because its smaller drain on the processor meant less heat and therefore less discomfort. You also don't want your borg hardware crashing on you ;)
Remember, there were no nuclear weapons before women were allowed to vote.
When I take my laptop down the bar, girls might find me attractive. They might confuse me with a writer or something.
That'll never happen with one of these.
The Internet is generally stupid
I thought this was the kind of stuff Bluetooth was designed for. Where's my PAN?
Search first, ask questions later.
Wouldn't a PDA and some of those iGlasses be a lot cheaper? Who says you have to use it while walking down the street? As long as it's small and portable.
I belong to the ______ generation.
Gargoyles anyone?
Burn the land and boil the sea, you can't take the sky from me
now the excuse can go from:
"Sorry officer, I didn't see that other car, i was too busy shaving and drinking my coffee..."
to...
"Sorry office, I didn't see that other car, i was too busy checking my e-mail and reading the latest stories on slashdot...."
"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true." - Homer Simpson
Somehow, I don't think consumer application and adoption of this stuff will happen anytime soon. The whole "wearable computing" movement seems to survive of sci-fi fumes alone.
"You know why you do not see me styling wit my homies? Because I have no homies!!" -Mojo Jojo
I saw an interview with a head honcho from Xybernaut a month or two ago on the Space channel. They showed this thing, and I'm almost positive he said it would run either Windows CE or Linux.
IIRC, though, it was still priced pretty high(several thousand dollars).
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
Besides, until these things get to this size, and have decent current PC type specs, they'll never become mainstream anyway.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
until wireless internet connectivity is widely available.
Sure, a wearable computer sounds like a great idea, and it is. But, will it be socially acceptable in this day and age, or will we have to all be on Segways first?
Sounds like an oxymoron to me ;-)
I can see this for certain tasks where you need push data and you need to be mobile. But for most folks, it is nice to get away from the cubicle and the world of the corporate data interface.
most people to not want to be more integrated into the work place, although this would be a dream come true for someone whose has always lived their lives as a manager.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
It sounds like you're wearing a monitor on your head...
The article says the resolution is 800x600 and not, as the snippet on slashdot says, 640x480.
I've been wanting something like this for years... avoids all the neck aches, back aches, etc. But this one is way too expensive, not beefy enough of a machine to develop on, and is in desperate need of some pants with built in split keyboard.
I e-mailed Xybernaut about a month ago when I first ran across this. Never got a reply.
I was searching for a replacement for my Visor Prism which was running short on power for the things I wanted to do.
I considered a wearable, ready-made or building one, and a Linux based Sharp Zaurus. Well, the pricing was too high for me for any of the ready made models and even to build one, mostly due to the cost of a good head mounted display.
So, now I am waiting for new Zaurus.
From what I can see from the page, the screen sits in front of one eye. Wouldn't you have to wink to be able to see properly? That'd get real annoying real fast...
"People that quote themselves in their signatures bother me" - athakur999
Help! My shoes have a virus and my jacket just got caught in a nonzero loop!
------
Today's Top Deals
Sitting staring at a CRT causes me enough eye strain as it is. I'm trying to imagine how staring at a 800x600 screen zapping straight into my brain could possibly be safe for me.
It's bad enough that I'm a dork. Now I have to look like one, too?
$1500 bucks for an embedded processor, Windows CE driven headgear that will scare away potential mates and attract the law enforcement?
Thanks, but I'll pass.
I won't get one till it comes with a Microvision display.
And I wont get one until they can at least get there technical specifications in focus properly!
Anyone quoted by a reporter knows how little they understand
Don't believe what you read is the truth.
added to which, it doesn't look all that comfortable to wear or use, either.
Incidentally, if the submitter sent in a link to the BBC talking about the new xybernaut Poma, maybe it would have been a good idea to include that link?
I assume it was this story.
And the image on that page really does show off how stupid a user can look. It's shown off by Xybernaut president Edward Newman and he really does look daft with all those wires dangling off his headband.
They say that in the future the screens will be 'integrated into the lenses of glasses'. Until that day I think they'd be better off keeping to a good sound card for output device, even though it requires more effort (short-term memory usage) to listen to something than read it. This unit is somewhat underpowered for decent speech synthesis though, at 128 mhz it would be something of an effort.
Oh, and finally, would you really enjoy using an 'equivalent to a 15 inch colour screen' at 640x480? Somebody in a past slashdot discussion described this phenomenon as 'pixels the size of fists'. Ouch.
The article states that the lcd can display 800x600.. not 640x480..
Sure, the title might look similar, but the real purpose is a little more obvious when you use the right name. The Porna is the next-generation airplane entertainment device. And it works with your palm, if you get my drift.
What's your damage, Heather?
When I take my laptop down the bar, girls might find me attractive.
Dude, you need to get out more.
Someone not read the page very well? The /. story says the headmounted screen is 640x480 but the website says The one-inch full color 800 x 600 SVGA viewing screen...
800x600 is pretty cool. Though I don't see anything about linux here, so it looks like its stuck with winCE for now.
640x480?
The article says, "The one-inch full color 800 x 600 SVGA viewing screen sits below your eye."
This should have been right on Slashdot.
Actually the display looks to be 800 x 600, according to the link you posted:
Sapere aude!
how long can that last?? (1300mah)
The best uses I can think of for something like this would be for passive applications which require real-time feedback.. A GPS system in your car would be good.
The only business application I can think of would be for IT people to monitor network and server conditions..
Other than that this seems like a neat toy but has no other practical uses...
I wouldn't invest in this company anytime soon..
mje0w!!!1!
These things have been ridiculous since they came out. They simply look stupid. Regardless of the tech specs, the price and the appearence of the device were enough to turn me off. The only way I'd buy one is if it were in the dollar bin. Me? I'm waiting for cybernetics to become common place.
The Only Person Willing to be Me is ME!
Runs Windows CE you say? Seems I've seen something like this before...
Maybe now we can finally compare internet prices while shopping at the store. No more printing out ridiculous sheets of amazon.com's catalog or writing down numerous prices for different items. Very cool.
Looks good, but I also want a microphone, a speech recognition based interface, an integrated cell phone (eg: "computer phone home"), wireless internet access (now that GSM is generally available everywhere except the U.S.) and a separate full size bluetooth connected keyboard that I can put on my lap or a table and start typing on for tasks that aren't suitable for the voice recognition interface.
BTW, this machine sounds a bit underpowered for decent voice recognition, although I'd like to be proved wrong.
Doug Moen.
I have written a truly remarkable program which this sig is too small to contain.
The Website says 800x600 for resolution, not 640x480 as the article suggests.
There's a little more in the article at news.com
Looking for any old 8-bit Heathkit/Zenith software/hardware - http://heathkit.garlanger.com
VDN=defend the nexus. that would be defend the shazbot, not we need more. My personal fav is the I don't eat my shazbot combo.
Remember, there were no nuclear weapons before women were allowed to vote.
shanenewsom sent in linkage to a story running on the BBC which talks about the new Xybernaut Poma.
But slashdot posted a link to a press release.
I believe this is the BBC story alluded to.
--
E_NOSIG
I dont know about this new Poma but the Xybernaut Mobile Assistant line (up to MA V now) certainly runs linux. It looks like the Poma is a RISC based architecture while the MA line is all intel and meant to mimic the capability of a laptop only more portable.
They claim 800x600 SVGA on the headmounted display and I haven't checked out this new one although the last generation headmounted displays were pretty cool.
You can probably get it with a PDA type hand-held display which they offer as an option for the Mobile Assistant.
Maybe this Poma idea will be the breakthrough for Xybernaut, its about time for them to break into a real market
Website says 800X600, not 640X480.
Debian already runs on the SH4. The SH7751V they seem to have chosen has a 0.9GFLOP FPU so it's capable of pretty decent Divx encodes and decodes. This unit could make for a pretty decent portable DVR.
Quidquid latine dictum sit altum viditur
I've been following this company for a couple of years. I have to admit I was pretty excited when I saw this new product--they've really come quite long way. I especially like the use of standardized equipment (microdrives, usb, etc).
One the things I had a laugh about is how they spin it's usefulness: "You stay connected to breaking news, stock prices, game scores and what's happening at work or with friends." Yeah, that's what I'd use it for!
But what a hell of an mp3 player!
The CPU is attatched to a tiny earpiece and transmits to say... zeiss optical contact lenses that would provide a variable translucancy Heads Up Display overlayed against my cornea. That would be Schweet. We could all reference google during light conversation and perhaps be able to hold some worth having. I might not even mind it running WinCE... You can't wear this thing anywhere but college towns. This thing pretty much screams, "mug me, I have surplus cash on me at all time,also: I am a helpless sheep"
From their old units? Where a little ahead of their time the concept of a wearable computer had applications in any environment where someone needed documentation/ schematics but were not able to get to a computer. Think of an archetict on a building being able to call up the plans as he is walking w/o holding tons of papers. Now's with CE as the O/S it's just a glorified PDA.
I admit that the wearable idea is pretty intriguing, but wouldn't this be even easier to steal than a laptop?
Imagine walking down the street, surfing the web, when suddenly you feel someone jostle your side. Your expensive new Xybernaut is yoinked off you and the thief takes off at Mach 1 while you're still trying to click the Back button.
Until the price of wearable PCs drops down to the price of a cell phone (or world peace spontaneously occurs), a wearable PC will be like a sign that says "I'm a big, rich, nerd. Please rob me."
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
windows media 6.4 and directX....anyone for head-to-head quake2 over 802.11b?
please excuse the pun.
Perhaps this is due to a limited production run, but 1500$ for one of these buggers? Wheres the cost breakdown? Does a 800x600 LCD head unit truely cost THAT much?
This reminds me of the high cost associated with the Netwinder boxes, truely. They also where priced fairly high for a comparible box. I assume the cost must be in the limited production runs of the devices. *sigh*
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
<a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk">The Register</a> has a <a href="http://goatse.cx">benchmark of the new Poma<br><br><br> <br><br> <br> <br>.<br> .<br>,<br>hff<br>fjdk fjkdkd kfdjdk jfkdfkg dkkf dkfei oeo eo fjefo eokfeof eofkfkeof keo keo You are not logged in. You can login now using the convenient form below, or Create an Account. Posts without proper registration are posted as Anonymous Important Stuff:
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Did it vanish? Was Slashdot too radical for Japanese culture?
Seriously - I can believe that they may have scraped up some cash from the military for some R & D and maybe even some production models, but they're not targeting military customers with lines like "... instant, seamless access to ... e-mail accounts, attachments, Internet sites and games."
So who is *buying* these things?! Who wears one of these things around town? I work right next to the Xybernaut office (Fairfax, VA), and I've never even seen one of their *employees* wearing one around.
If it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet.
Would it not be cool to disconnect the display from the windows CE thingy, and hook it up to a regular PC?
I can imagine having two of these, playing RTCWolfenstein in 3 dimensions while lying in bed.
IANAL, but imagine a beowulf cluster of in Soviet Russia all your belong are base to us welcoming the new SCO overlords.
to have at a museum. Now I know that at some places you can get headphones with info about the art or whatever is on display. But what if you could get one of these with info about the exibit? You could get movies and background info... all sorts of stuff from this while you were looking at the real object. Be it a dinosaur or a painting. All you'd have to do it walk up to an object and it could be programmed to tell you about it. Like your own personal tour guide.
Also, it would be of great use to physicians, especially those in the ER. As an emergency patient rolled in, the doctor could fill out all the forms electronically (once again with Dragon Dictate-style software) and electronically send them to the nursing station and the "board". It would be very efficient and save critical time.
I do have a question about the hardware. Does the display track retinal movements to position the mouse pointer? That would eliminate the need to open all of the software and menus with vioce-operated commands (perhaps an extended blink could serve as a mouse click).
All in all it's an interesting concept, perhaps not for the general popultaion.
that we've seen similar threads before... I pop this big question.
Most people who want a wearable, at the current time, are complete geeks. Usually these types of people want stuff THEIR way, and they try to be economical when doing it, so why buy something like this?
I too want a wearable, and one that attracts the GOOD kind of attention, not the bad kind.. I decided to set about making one, and learned a LOT from various websites.
Of course, going the PC-104 route will still cost you a pretty penny, you can get a unit with a LOT more storage and custom input and display options. There are several pages on the net that go into detail on how to modify visor type displays and conceal them behind a normal pair of sunglasses.
For anyone serious about making a wearable, I say grow your own. It is a learning experience you can be proud of, instead of a product that you blew a pay check on, and then complain.. "I wish it did this, and that"
-fc
. echo -e \\04 >
this may have been good if it was smaller had a blue tooth interface so we could use it as a display to any device
PC.
Good palm device
mobile phone
video record
etc...
Now that would be worth N grand kipperDude
Name----Product Description-----------Part #---Price
POMA*---wearable internet device------K50------1499.00
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
actually you can choose which display that you want. You just need to read the fine print http://www.xybernautonline.com/eCommerce/Poma/Plac _Poma.htm
From what I've heard, this is how the Incas use to breed carvers. They would appoint certain newborns to become future carvers, and bind wooden slabs to their heads, centimeters from the eyes.
The slabs would be kept on every day, all day, for years. Eventually the kids would grow up to be profoundly nearsighted, allowing them to work small carvings to fanatical detail.
I choose to remain celibate, like my father and his father before him.
Cyber should be spelled with an C, not an X... the company should change their name... Xybernaut... sounds pretty moronic...
--
Some weasel took the cork out of my lunch.
I know what I'm wearing for Halloween next year...
Here is a link to a previous /. post on this thing from August. A little more info in the links too.
Affordable Wearables May Arrive By Christmas
The Dreamcast also runs a Hitachi SH-4 processor. Since so much work has been done to port Linux to that device, I'm sure not a whole lot of rework is needed to get linux on this little thing. I'm assuming the ROM on this Xybernaut is flashable.
obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies
Some pages say one, some pages say the other.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
"Gargoyle"
(Per Neal Stephenson's "Snow Crash")
As I recall, it was a term that was kinda looked down upon...kinda like the view some of these posts project.
Cheers, Joshua
When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout!
It would limit the range but it seems to me this would work better if you used it with a wireless connection to a more powerful computer. Then you wouldn't be limited by the wearable's hardware or software capacity.
Also I think they should work on making this less obvious. If they could get this into a normal looking pair of glasses or sun glasses with a switch between a translucent, a uninhibited data view and a uninhibited natural view, then I could see this taking off. A mouse pointer controlled by eye movement would be even better.
A wireless data connection is the big missing piece here.
it's hardly any more than an ipaq (different processor) with a HUD. Heck, I think I'd rather have a new ipaq.
I don't want to be down on Xybernaut, because it's a tough market, but what needs to go into a wearable seems pretty obvious.
Integrate one of the following
1) 2 compact flash slots
2) a microdrive
3) 802.11b ethernet.
The point is that you virtually need a network with something like this to make it anymore than a pda that you don't need hands for.
And for the love of all that is holy, why WinCE? At least put Win95 on it or something. You pretty much doomed it to be a pda, and that's it.
It's pretty straight forward to me. Wireless ethernet, a modest amount of storage ( 1gig>storage>256 megs ), audio pumped through the headset, and voice possibilities (not necessarily voice recognition).
I'd even be happy with one of the new ipaqs with an SD card, CF 802.11b card, HUD, and pointing device.
-- Who is the bigger fool? The fool or the fool who follows him? --
POrn-o-MAtic.
Now I can use both hands?
Most any geek that has strong interest in wearables have had one for years now. I retired my wearable back in 2000 (in fact if anyone wants to buy my M1 head mounted display for $100.00 let me know.) The best work was done by Steve Mann at the University of Toronto.
This is nothing but a pre-packaged buy-and-drive unit.. you can get better,faster, and more configurable by building your own. Just search google for wearable computing, you'll find everything you need.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
..this new Poma doesn't seem to use the same cables as the other Poma..
Wearables could be used to do some really cool stuff like this.
...though I don't believe you could run an augmented reality application on WinCE.
Call me when those devices that project the image onto either the Retina or the back of the Eyelid come out.
:)
:) Uh, could I get a replacement optic never for my right eye while your at it? The current one doesn't quite work. ^_^ (bleh)
Damn I want one of those, spiffy. Especialy the eyelid ones, hehe, blink and see a map of where you are going.
Ah, or even better, direct optic nerve interface.
Ah, oh well, in the future, in the future. (and if not I'm going to seriously start bitching!)
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
At any rate, it's a fascinating little gizmo... but I think I'll wait for the price to come down before I look into it. ;)
I wouldn't be caught wearing one of these. Walking down the street will have you being named called, spat upon, mugged, and beaten to death. No way... especially when it's a sign of dickheadedness.
IMHO simply strapping a desktop style user interface (text or GUI with keyboard and pointer) to your skull seems wasteful. It would be much more efficient to use a palmtop or laptop form factor in most aplications. No matter how compact you make the hardware or how high res the display it will never be more than a geek toy unless you change the way you interact with it. If your display is superimposed over reality, then your computer should interact with reality.
GPS adds some interesting posibilities (see the article on GPS tags). Scanning RFID or barcodes also lets you gather information. Take a picture of a sign, OCR the text then run it through a translation program and you can find the bathroom at any airport in the world. Do the same with speach to text and reality has subtitles. If your display seems to "hover" out in front of you, then why not treat it as being there? Point your stylus in the air where you see an icon to click on it.
I have long thought that the "killer app" for wearables would involve GPS and some way of determaning what direction the user was facing. You could then overlay the virtual on top of the real. Instead of a map or direcions how about a "yellow brick road" to follow and a giant arrow floating in the sky over your destination. I realise that most of this is pie in the sky with the current technology but wearables will never go mainstream untill you give people an application worth looking like a borg drone for.
I'll admit the idea is a great one, and if just for the fac that I could say I had one, I would buy it, I can't see this becoming very popular. Not until it gets better hardware.
Currently, all you could really do with this is search the web (but with what? Unless you wanted to plug yourself into the wall, which sorta defeats the purpose. Yeah I know cell connections and satelite, but I know alot of people who don't want to pay for that.) Write text docs, do spreadsheets and listen to music.
Now, if we really wanted to see the popularity of theese things take off. Make it so that it can run Quake or UT and watch as the geeks congregate everywhere (study hall death match anyone?) and play away. Don't laugh, I've been witness to a Marathon LAN gam played in the middle of a park in San Antonio, Texas. I you want the details ask me, but let's just say after that, geeks using a wearable to play Quake in the middle of school wouldn't suprise me at all.
When it gets more power, I'll buy it, but it's too underpowered for now.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
PC/104 plus really is the only current answer to usable wearable computers. Its relatively large, but there are modified form factors that fold it over, so it should be a problem to run a 300 - 400 mhz duron or K-II or something with 32 - 64 megs of ram and a gig microdrive. I just don't see the problem. A projection device is needed with relatively normal looking glasses. Of course this is to combat the laptop, not a replacement for simple PDAs. Wearable can be done easily, just not cheaply.
Maybe they can put up an excellent wearable device, but they sure don't know how to code HTML tables!
:-)
boky
One entry found for wince.
Main Entry: wince
Pronunciation: 'win(t)s
Function: intransitive verb
Inflected Form(s): winced; wincing
Etymology: Middle English wynsen to kick impatiently, from (assumed) Old North French wincier to turn aside, of Germanic origin; akin to Old High German wankOn to totter -- more at WENCH
Date: circa 1748
: to shrink back involuntarily (as from pain) : FLINCH
synonym see RECOIL
- wince noun
good name for a MS product, ej?
Seems the Sharper Image catalog from some time ago had a pair of spectacles with a translucent video screen embedded.
These were for TV, of course, not hi-res computer displays, but I have always fancied the technology for wearable computers.
Anyone know what became of this "TV glasses" concept and if it would be feasible display technology for a wearable PC?
Vortran out
Knowledge is like ignorance.. too much can be just as bad as not enough.
Well, that's what alot of people will be using it for anyway....
Ed Wedig
Graphic design services
docbrown.net
Symbol has sold over 100,000 wearable computers
at list prices of 3-5k$
Vocollect has sold over 10,000 for their voice-only system
AND there are all those portable MP3 players out there - 3 million sold in year 2000 alone - which
are basically wearable computers dedicated to music (or portable data upload/download if you're a hacker)
I'll have an article coming out on all this in
the first issue of IEEE's Pervasive Computing magazine.
Thad Starner