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MIThril Jacket Showcases Wearable Computing
Codeine writes "The Seventh Annual International Symposium on Wearable Computers (ISWC), to be held later this month, will again feature members of MIT's Media Lab showing off the group's MIThril jacket. Taking its name from J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy, the jacket combines body-worn computation, sensing, and networking in a clothing-integrated design, according to the project." According to a new paper (PDF link) to be presented at the conference, the latest version of this long-evolving system uses a Sharp Zaurus running Linux.
Wasn't Mithril an extremely tough, lightweight metal? If you take a look at the picture, it looks anything but light & sturdy.
I'm guessing all it has in common with the Tolkien metal is it's price.
Be wary of any facts that confirm your opinion.
WHY would I want to wear a computer?
Don't get me wrong, I'm a geek, but technology is just getting absurd. I have no desire to "wear" my computer. Nor do I have any desire to play games on my cellphone. (In fact I don't even own a cellphone because of the hideously overpriced services).
Maybe I have to hand in my geek membership card, but wearing a computer ranks right up there with wearing a refridgerator.
Integration is all good, but as for integrating functions into clothing I believe it can be at the expense of flexibility. I would much rather have a lot of functions integrated in my mobile, and be able to bring those functions with me in situations that I might choose another attire.
if they'll have "wearable" computers like this.
OH YEAH! Wearable on the inside, baby!
This is indeed a cool proof of concept, but would you want one?
I'd prefer a lot of computing power in my cell phone, a display integrated into my glasses and interaction via voice commands (think headset) or a wristband keypad.
Thoughts?
.: Max Romantschuk
Because nothing says, "Please kick my ass," quite like wearing your computer.
It goes from God, to Jerry, to me.
I cant wait to see some hot chick in a Palm Pilot
Doctors do Massage in Longview WA now, who knew?
Ducks started doing this a long time ago GIZMO DUCK
Doctors do Massage in Longview WA now, who knew?
I can see some useful embedded applications (excuse the pun, ho ho) in having portable computing power, but look at the photo - the weight of it all. I'll wait till they get it a bit more slimline. Reminds me of 80s "mobile" phones compared to today. Why's it all so cumbersome? ok, batteries I understand we still have to work on, but the rest?
You didnt put my jacket in the wash.. er.. did you?
"You lied to me! There is a Swansea!"
In fact I don't even own a cellphone because of the hideously overpriced services.
Actually, my cell phone saves me a *lot* of money. I live on the west coast and most of my friends and family live on the easy coast. My long distance bill was extremely high until I started using a cell phone to make my calls. I guess it can be expensive if you go over your monthly allowance of minutes, but I have yet to do that in the year+ I've had one because I get more than I can use for $40/month. Good deal IMO.
Man, If wearing that MIThril jacket won't get me laid, nothing will!
Gives new meaning to "running Linux".
I'm so funny.
Geekus Majoris
Previously thought to be only legend, the Geekus Majoris was discovered in the basements of MIT and UC Berkeley simultaneously in the mid 1960's. Their main habitat is underground and they frequently live with their parents until they find a mate and move out.
They have in recent years become more common outside of their primary habitat and are frequently seen skulking about shopping malls and video stores. They seem to have an affinity for Japanese anime which explains their attraction to small woodland animals.
They are the masters of camouflage. Some have developed the ability to blend in with the normal populace, though most are only able to appear homosapien. To determine if the creature you are viewing is a Geekus Majoris observe the fingertips. Bright orange fingertips are the telltale sign of the species.
Approach with caution and do not attempt to feed.
Umm, since when was The Lord of the Rings a Trilogy?
Karma: Shitty (mostly due to American moderators)
or perhaps the Tolkien estate. Isn't this a copyright infringement? Don't laugh. In a reverse version, some years back, Disney had to pay damages to the Bussmann company, who had registered "Tron" as a trademark, even though the film had nothing to do with electrical fusegear. The vague "electronic" connection was enough."
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
As for its potential street cred, I don't think the combination of bare computer hardware, Linux and a Tolkien-derived name will see you having to beat off the hotties with a shitty stick ;-)
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
Have anyone of you thought of going into music store, asking if you could test if a cd played properly in your "portable cd-player" (external cd-rom drive connected to the laptop in his backpack..) and rip it while chatting away with salesman how RIAA is doing the right thing and how you at least support them all the way.. heh heh
Preserve old classics: copy your collection onto all hard drives.
Great, be your own Borg...
Yes but can it protect me from a spear that would have skewered a wild boar?
In this day an age why the hell is anyone putting stuff together with so many cablkes. I can count at least 10 in the picture! Surely they can do better than this with the Bluetooth and Wireless possibilities that exist now? Nice idea, but I think I'll wait for the StarTrek Tricorder hologram projecting version instead
"If it's lost, it'll turn up. Things always do" "I love it when a plan comes together"
There's been a few comments about how the whole wearable computing thing is silly, and "it's an MIT" thing. Let me clear this up a bit. Maybe it started as an MIT thing way back in the late 50's/early 60's, at least according to this paper. But I know Carnegie Mellon has been working on this stuff for over 5 years because they had ongoing wearable computer projects when I was a freshman there in 98'. And there's a lot of others besides MIT and CMU working on this stuff, just look here under the Organizations section.
This area of technology is already being targeted at consumers. Try to have a little imagination and realize how powerful this technology could be. For example, what if you had a little speech translator that fit in your ear, recognized nearby spoken speech in foreign languages, traslated it to your language, and used a voice synthesizer to repeat it back to you in your native tongue. Just wait a few years and you'll be saying "damn, I need one of those".
Why is it the only thing I could come up with was some way to hook this thing up to one of my guns? Now that I think about it, please refrain from answering the question.
If they could produce a classy Linux skirt I'd definitely use it!
sony P800, opera and GPRS = even more pointless hours spent reading slashdot whilst in queues...
"First Post". Its a competition around these parts for some..
"You lied to me! There is a Swansea!"
But please don't call these 'wearable'... What you describe is just a fancy hearing aid... since when do we call them 'wearable'? Is my bluetooth wireless headset a 'wearable telecoms device'? Are my headset and Glasstron a 'wearable entertainment centre'? The problem that I (and others, I guess) have with the term 'wearable' is that it is something that sounds like a hype, and implies merging electronics into clothes... for which I cannot imagine any advantageous use whatsoever unless the electronics involved are really cheap. In all cases the electronics are best left separate from the clothing, and made small so they can be carried around. We already did this with cellphones, PDAs, and walkmans, and we didn't start calling these 'wearable' just because our coat has a special pocket for them, did we?
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
>Now a toilet computer... that's what I want if for no other reason than the internet has much better bathroom reading material than my local paper and sometimes, when I really have to go, I don't have time to grab a book or the paper.
Get with the program man!
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Damn speed scanning; I though this was about Michael Jackson's jacket, circa Thriller, or maybe that optical fibre one.
Make clothing that cleans itself.
Make clothing that dries itself.
Make clothing that automatically reacts to the weather etc.
But putting a computer in your clothing, just doesn't make sense!
Technology should be intelligent, useable, and not make you look like a freak while using it (Bluetooth wireless headsets come to mind).
-- "To ask a question is to show ignorance; Not to ask a question means you'll remain ignorant."
when u take it in the rain and it shorts out.... will it be a smoking jacket?
Clearly simoniker is not a dedicated follower of fashion. A search of the MIThril page shows that the word jacket is never used. Most probably this is because it is a vest .
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
1. to be under $500 2. to have sensory feedback ;)
3. to be something that does porn
.. the Borg Queens evening dress..
I had to wade through more buzzwords than I could handle before encountering any plain, simple descriptions of what the thing actually does. The site comes off like venture-funded arm-waving. The only thing it lacks are stock pictures of young business suits standing around shaking hands and smiling confidently.
Aside from the display goggles, it doesn't look like there is nothing particularly cutting edge about the hardware. If you can do something interesting with a 25-pound PC strapped to your back and a big fat extension cord trailing behind you, it won't take MIT undergrads to stuff the applications into some lightweight jacket-mounted hardware. Thus, it's all about the applications.
So what about the applications? Where are they described? I don't know. I got about as far into the site as I could before my little eyelids started to droop and my tongue started falling down the back of my throat, and I still didn't know what the killer apps were that I would be running if I had that jacket on right now.
So, without a clue about what that jacket can do now, here're a few things I can think of that I would want it to do. Maybe it does these things.
1) Something that allows me to quickly record, index, and play back audio and video snippets. If somebody says something, I want to be able to hear it again 5 seconds or 5 hours later. In the event of any Rodney King scenario, traffic stop, zeppelin accident, or anything else that one might want to have recorded later, I want to be able to start streaming whatever I'm seeing and hearing to remote backup.
2) Something that allows me to know where I am right now and how to get somewhere. I want GPS, Mapquest, and if I go hiking in the cascades with it, I want the optional emergency locator beacon too.
3) Something that allows me to surf. Finding restaurants and movie theaters and spare batteries will always be high on the list.
4) All the PDA stuff you can think of. Phone book, calendar, alarm (with a snooze button that isn't too hard to find) and a cell phone.
Y'know, when you get right down to it, putting this stuff on a jacket isn't really where you want it for day to day use. You want to stuff it all into something that you can put in your pocket. I think Nokia is already working on most of this stuff.
Just because you can sling a bunch of shit over a jacket does not make it "wearable".
I realize that we are looking at prototypes, but it seems that they are completely forgoing any sense of "wearability" or form in the name of function.
I guess that comes later.
I'm wearing a Sharp Zaurus right now.
I've got an 802.11 card, a BlueTooth card, a BT GSM Phone, and a BT Headset.
If I call it a wearable personal network will I get on slashdot?
I just call it my PDA and my phone.
Other articles in this series:
MIT Student Uses Voice Teleporter Device.
MIT Student Operates Internal Combustion Driven Personal Re-location Device.
MIT Student Projects his Emotional State Over Thousands of Miles Using only the ":" and ")" Characters.
You couldn't pay me enough money to wear that thing. It looks like the interior designer for TGIFridays made it.
On second thought, I guess it would stop all those sex-hungry girls from chasing me around.
If it's not one thing, it's Steve's Mother
If so, sign me up!
...to glue a motherboard to a vest and call it wearable.
--
silence is poetry.
My friend ran a password cracker on his Zaurus, and found the root password in 11 seconds. (Very useful if you want to start fiddling with lower-level things on your Zaurus.)
root p/w: 4545
don't get me wrong, I like to play with toys. I just don't think you need to wear something instead of just putting a PDA in your pocket. It's already small, lightweight, and has plenty of usefull "applications".
Why does technology ALWAYS have to get smaller? I NEED a cell phone that can reach at least halfway between my ear and my mouth. Anything smaller and I will look like I am having a seizure when I am talking on the phone.
everynow and then I also like NOT looking like a geek.
Linux: Helping nerds look smarter since the late 90s.
Actually, I've been wanting a 'SmartLink' for some time. IIRC, I picked that term up from a cyberpunk RPG.
Think about it, a position sensor on your weapon and a stereo HMD connected through a small processor. Wherever you point at a target, a dot is superimposed over reality via the HMD and you can tell where the slug will hit.
You could even have the computer calculate drop, drift, and estimated inaccuracy due to an unsteady grip. Of course, those last three don't apply if you're using a TBW which is so much cooler than a conventional gun, what with it's phaser-like effects and all.
I know what you're saying, chummer. It'd be nice to have one of those hooked up so that the next time some slothead gives you drek you're able to blow the frag outta him. I loved that game...
We can already wear computers (Palm devices) and we do not need any wires bewteen it and other component such as network access devices (GSM Phone) thank's to Bluetooth.
The only thing that may be missing is lightweight glasses with a display (something that look like a glass) that connect without wires to the computer and maybe some input device (voice would be nice and already exists with bluetooth headset. We just miss the voice recognition in a Palm device) and we are set.
All these things can be worn with existing clothes and are not very intrusives.
The future is in wireless PAN, not wired PAN.
That's it... it was ShadowRun. Thanks for the memory jog. I've still got a bunch of sourcebooks I never used because my RPG friends were unable to get over D&D.
I own a wearable computer and it only cost me $6
It's made by a company called Casio.
The jacket may be using Linux but the PDF paper is written using Word. You would think they could let the jacket write the paper at least then it would use latex :-p
Too bad you don't have any friends to call on that phone.
ITYM troll, not ogre. Tolkein never mentioned ogres living in Middle Earth. Frodo was stabbed by a mountain troll.
Boromir, son of Faramir, King of Gondor and Minas Tirith
Y'know, I walk through the MIT campus pretty much every day, and I can say with conviction that I do not want those kids designing my clothes.
Ironic; Tolkien was nothing if not a Luddite who despised technology as empty and an affront to nature. I think he'd be rather unimpressed. If people are so into naming things after LotR stuff, why not set up a nature preserve?
RIAA, take note of where you'll have to go to get his mp3's.
Pry them from his cold, dead spincter.
I think you should just complain about the name. Frodo's mithril shirt was so thin it looked like a thermal. This looks like hot buttered crap. But the point of all of it is that it's prototyping. You're doing what you can now, in preparation for tomorrow. These devices are getting smaller and smaller and eventually they'll be built into your snaps and zippers.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Yeah, it's all fun and games until one day your dick falls off from all the radiation...
Is whether it will deflect arrows, bullets and swords!
What I really want is a heads-up display, but not some big, bulky goggle crap; I want something like a small light transmitter on the frame of my glasses that projects an image straight into my eyeball. Something small, light, and which allows me to overlay the display over my normal vision without having to preprocess and delay my normal vision.
This kind of interface is a prerequisite IMO for me wearing any kind of computer.
[ home ]
This is going to add a whole new painful dimension to scuffing your feet along the carpet and shocking your friends...
"ZAP!" "You bastard! I just bought that RAM!"
...if you wear this, you'll never ever ever get laid.
If it were known that geeks had such hides, all the muggers of Middle-earth would be riding to comdex.
Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
As to cellphone games...if you have a Kyocera 23xx phone and want to score big on the first screen of Brick Attack do this:
- Click "New" to start a game
- Move the paddle all the way to the right
... - Wait for the ball to get just about even to the top row of bricks
- Scoot all the way to the left!
- Wait for the ball to bounce over to the left and just as it begins the return trip
- Scoot to the right!
- Now the ball will complete the bricks for you (no matter what you do with the paddle from this point)
- Score: 31.
- Not bad. But wait! Don't click Resume, instead, click New and do it again
- Score? at least 67.
- Rinse, repeat.
- Haven't found an upper limit.
When did I discover this? Waiting in line, sitting in business meetings (turn sound and backlight off), and I perfected this while driving home on the 405 (don't worry...there's time to do a lot between momemtary brake pedal releases).As to wearing a fridge...many off us could be accussed of hiding one on our person on a cold day...
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
My point being, if someone does get to those qualities you're talking about, hey, the computer's going to be the part that goes obsolete every two years, or that fries in the rain, causing you to run out and buy a new outfit at the outlet mall. Go wearable computing! Keep those garment workers' consumer confidence up!
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
But I dont wanna wait!
Tragek