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.

Comments

Nice price!!!

[Saint]

$1500? Sheesh!

Print page, keep safe...

[MrFredBloggs]

...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?

Re:Print page, keep safe...

[TooTallFourThinking]

With one of the expansion slots, I believe you can plug in a keyboard.

As if listening to cell phone conversations wasn't annoying enough, now we'll be listening to AIM conversations as well.

"...I love you. Smiley face. Ok, I've got to go. I'll see you tonight. Wink smiley face."

"No, you log off first. No, you first..."

Blah!

Why I'll never buy one

[interstellar_donkey]

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.

No Bluetooth?

[ragnarok]

I thought this was the kind of stuff Bluetooth was designed for. Where's my PAN?

new excuse...

[bje2]

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...."

Re:new excuse...

[tunah]

Yep, people will apologize to offices instead of officers because they can't tell the difference, they just see one all encompassing BSOD.

Hey! It might run Linux.

[dbarclay10]

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).

Effects on the eye

[Infonaut]

The only thing that makes me nervous about these things is that essentially your eyeball is just a few millimeters from a bright light source. Has anyone seen any research information about the long-term effects of close-proximity displays? I've got a gut feeling that it just can't be good for your eyes.

Re:Effects on the eye

[RollingThunder]

I think it's only relatively bright. Since it's so close, it's actually probably fairly dim. If you had it at arms length, I'd bet it would be almost unreadable (even accounting for the size).

Not having seen one first hand, that's all conjecture, of course. :)

Re:Effects on the eye

[good-n-nappy]

We had a couple of their products in our lab - I think they were the MA TC type. These ran Windows 98 and they were huge hulking beasts that could hardly be called wearable. Anyway, my experience with the display was that it wasn't too bright. In fact, they projected on to a half silvered mirror so that you could supposedly see through it. The people in my lab found the half silvered mirror to be a bad idea because you couldn't really concentrate on the screen or the environment very well. It was especially difficult to try to keep track of a mouse cursor when it was half transparent and things were moving in the background. To get any use out of it at all you basically had to go stare at a blank wall. Don't know if this version also has a transparent display - hope they actually ran some user studies.

Re:Effects on the eye

[stereo_Barryo]

I played around with the MA IV and found the curved silvered mirror to be comfortable and easy on the eye. I don't believe the light source could get to the "dangerous" level. I'd be happy to use the head display for an extended period of time, but the MA IV was heavy in the vest we wore. Since the company has moved on to smaller devices the weight might not be relevant now. Also, according to this: http://www.xybernautonline.com/eCommerce/Poma/Plac _Poma.htm the screen is 640x480, not 800x600.

Re:Effects on the eye

[Mirus Nex]

Very true. Especially since this is a single eye device. I would think anything longer than a couple of minutes would result in a major headache. Of course, I haven't tried one, but from experiences with telescopes and gun sites using both eyes while focusing through a monocle tends to cause eye fatigue quite quickly, at least for me. Closing one eye would help but would defeat the primary purpose of the device.

Probably the least intrusive approach would be a direct projection on the retina, but who's going to buy a device that projects light into your eye??? This would have a similar effect as eye "floaties" which are visible but can be easily ignored since you can't technically focus on them and, being so small, are nearly transparent...

Re:Effects on the eye

[HKTiger]

Apparently (I can't provide a source, since it's "someone who read something somewhere told me"), some stats from new entrants into the Singapore armed forces with regard to shortsightedness:

In 196x, about 23% (?) of the entrants were nearsighted. In 1999, that figure was of the order of 93%. This was attributed to the high urban density, and the lack of things in the distance to look at (forgive my crappy grammar, I've not had my morning coffee).

Anyway, even accounting for the various ways to skew statistical results, that indicates a worrying increase over a short time. What would one of these (admittedly funky) things do? Imagine those tension headaches now, when one eye is pointed at something with a focal length in millimetres, while the other's trying to watch that babe across the street. And perhaps I've been out of things for a while, but Marty Feldman's eyes have never been considered sexy...

Re:Effects on the eye

[Chaostrophy]

ah, they may be close, but they can have long apparant distances, as I understand it. Thus, they could be much better, with your eye thinking it is meters away, and meters across.

Segway Computing

[segvio]

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?

Practical?

[Alien54]

first practical wearable, running WinCE.

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.

640x480?

[meggito]

The article says the resolution is 800x600 and not, as the snippet on slashdot says, 640x480.

Odd

[athakur999]

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...

Re:Odd

[thraxil]

other single-eye head-mounted displays i've played with have been quite easy to see. no winking needed. they're generally designed so that the light from the screen comes in perfectly parallel so it's like looking at an infinately large screen that is infinitely far away; very easy for your eyes to focus on. there are plenty of people like Steve Mann or Greg Priest-Dorman who have been wearing them for *years* without problems. furthermore, the single eye displays tend to have fewer problems with making people dizzy.

for a real wearable that you're actually wearing 16 hours a day, the most problematic thing is usually the comfort of the physical device. ordinary glasses get uncomfortable after awhile; glasses with bulky LCD display units attached to them get really uncomfortable if they don't fit *perfectly*.

Re:Odd

[good-n-nappy]

I used one of their older models - something like the MA TC - I didn't really have a problem with using only one eye. I'm not sure why but I don't remember needing to wink. However, the eyepiece was semitransparent so I did have problems if there was anything moving in the background. The version we had was running Win98 at 800x600 (I think) so buttons and normal size text were basically unreadable. Tracking the mouse cursor was also a lost cause. Switching to one of the accessibility themes (big fonts and high contrast colors) in Windows helped out but effectively reduced the size of the display.

This is one of those things where its hard to tell if a few details were wrong or if its an overall bad idea. My intuition is that its probably just the details.

Help!

[NiftyNews]

Help! My shoes have a virus and my jacket just got caught in a nonzero loop!

Dork

[Konster]

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.

Technical specs in focus

[SomethingOrOther]

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!

Actually called the Porna

[Brento]

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.

display is 800 x 600

[Graff]

A little light on the specs, although the headmounted screen is 640x480 and it runs WinCE.

Actually the display looks to be 800 x 600, according to the link you posted:

A better view of the world
Forget about trying to view graphics on a tiny PDA screen. Poma's headmount display is built for optimum comfort and functionality. The one-inch full color 800 x 600 SVGA viewing screen sits below your eye, weighs approximately 3 ounces and provides a viewing area resolution similar to that of a desktop monitor from two feet away.

Some uses...

[Meowharishi]

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..

It's all a little too familar...

[dkresge]

Runs Windows CE you say? Seems I've seen something like this before...

Ergonomic Nightmare

[guttentag]

The device puts a one inch box directly in front of your nose and expects you to read text from it? Can you imagine the number of people who are going to end up cross-eyed?

"Sure, my carpal tunnel syndrome is gone, but I broke my right arm when I tripped over a desk in the office."

Re:Ergonomic Nightmare

[ruzel]

Moreover, you don't have to be an ergonomic engineering genius to figure out that the design they have is not going to stay where you put it. Even one ounce eyeglasses need to have nose braces to keep them from falling off. Besides that, without semi-transparency (like these guys), the device just blinds you -- fine for a desk but it can't help mobility any. (Ever tried working on an old style microscope for several hours?)

Incidentally, according to an old CNN article, Xybernaut cut a deal with microvision to distribute head-mounted laser displays within the year. Since the article is old, maybe its not happening anymore, but it would seem to be a good reason to wait on these devices improving a little.
_________________

Shopping on the internet at the mall

[thitcho]

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.

I want more

[dmoen]

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.

A little more info at News.com

[A Commentor]

There's a little more in the article at news.com

Where's Auntie?

[Rupert]

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.

Linux and Divx

[LuxuryYacht]

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.

Xyber-snatching?

[Dan Crash]

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."

Cost

[Thomas Charron]

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*

Who's keeping these guys afloat?

[sid_vicious]

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.

This would be very cool...

[Steveftoth]

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.

I can see a ton of uses for this...

[acidfast7]

in my field and in others. Imagine if Dragon came out with a WinCE version of the popular Dragon Dictate software. I would be able to take notes while performing experiments at the bench. I could keep an electronic lab notebook on the fly because my hands would be free.

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.

Aside from the fact...

[Freija Crescent]

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

My lifelong dream realized...

[testuser58]

Imagine a beowulf cluster of these...

• Several on your head...
• Several on each arm and leg...
• Several modified to cover your torso...
• Add an 802.11 card and a Passport account and you can truly join Borg collective

I know what I'm wearing for Halloween next year...

Re:C'mon

[Glytch]

One use I'd heard of is in construction work where there's limited room to move around. Instead of constantly moving in and out of small spaces to check a paper contruction plan, one could just put on a wearable, review the design without having to get out, and in the end be able to get the job done a lot quicker. Might be useful for diving, too. Wearables seem destined for industrial use in the near future. And maybe those who really, really want to be gargoyles. But I'm probably 100% wrong. :)

Link to previous /. story about this

[cruelshoes]

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

Linux Port

[foo fighter]

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.

640x480 or 800x600?

[billstewart]

Some pages say one, some pages say the other.

Terminal over wireless link

[Akuinnen]

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.

I'm really not impressed...

[Raleel]

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.

wearables.

[Lumpy]

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.

Waiting for those Retina Projectors

[Com2Kid]

Call me when those devices that project the image onto either the Retina or the back of the Eyelid come out.

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. :) Uh, could I get a replacement optic never for my right eye while your at it? The current one doesn't quite work. ^_^ (bleh)

Ah, oh well, in the future, in the future. (and if not I'm going to seriously start bitching!)

I tried out a demo of this once

[achurch]

... at the CEATEC Japan exhibition last Fall, and it was frankly incredible. For all that it's sitting an inch in front of your eye it looks like it's a couple of feet away, and it's very easy to read; they had an automated demo running, showing things like maps and train schedules. The pointer is controlled by a pressure-sensitive controller you operate with your thumb, sort of ilke the "knobs" in some laptop computers. While it was admittedly a bit disorienting to have the display in one eye while seeing the rest of the world from the other, I'd imagine that's something you could get used to without too much difficulty, though I'd be concerned about the loss of depth vision.

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. ;)

Re:Yeah, it's a little pricey.

[-douggy]

You wait until they port dreamcast games to it. MMM Chu Chu Rocket

Sharper Image TV Glasses

[Vortran]

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