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.

Comments

Mithril?

[ComaVN]

I'm guessing all it has in common with the Tolkien metal is it's price.

Re:Mithril?

[gl4ss]

i dunno, all that hardware might protect you from stabbing as well!

(geez, just look at the pic)

So very tired...

[Goldberg's Pants]

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.

Re:So very tired...

[NanoGator]

"I have no desire to "wear" my computer."

Of course not, the technology's being developed, then the apps that make it interesting will come. Personally, I think auto mechanics would love to have a wearable computer. Imagine having instant access to the internal workings of the particular car you're working on. Instant reference.

" Nor do I have any desire to play games on my cellphone."

What's wrong with that? Well I guess I can't entice you, but personally I've enjoyed having simple games to play. At the last movie I saw, I played snake while waiting for the stupid previews to be over. When I'm alone for a bit, like waiting for my meal to be served, I get on the net with my cell phone and get updated on the news. Can I live without? Sure. But I can make a little use of my time.

" (In fact I don't even own a cellphone because of the hideously overpriced services)."

Hideous? I pay about 10-15 bucks a month more than a landline, all my long distance is free, and my phone's with me all the time. I get better service and it only costs a little more than a landline that only works at.. uh.. home.

Re:So very tired...

[binary paladin]

Not just wearing a refrigerator but putting a putting a computer on your refrigerator. That always struck me as the most retarded thing.

Funny thing about being a geek is this: A geek would do something like turn his Dreamcast into a web server or install a computer in a blender for the sake of doing so but would never use any of these devices.

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.

And if Hot Topic can sell WWF material and still be frequented by fishnet wearing, coffee shop dwelling, whiny ass poets... then you can hate this device and still be a geek.

Re:So very tired...

[TGK]

It's an MIT thing. I don't know why they don't just give it up. It's a stupid idea.

No, it's not just an MIT thing and its not that stupid an idea. ENIAC didn't exactly conjure to mind a Micro PC with a flat panel display either, but the point was it was one of the first strides toward the kind of computing system that is becoming a fixture in Western homes (and many other parts of the world).

Wearable computing is a technology that simply hasn't come to maturity yet. Things need to get smaller. But as some further down this page have done lets look at the possibilities.

First, realize that the human body isn't designed to support any large quantity of hardware where most of the sensory organs are clustered, consequently we have to seperate the display from the CPU. The torso is an ideal place to put this sort of thing, both for weight purposes and for its relitivly easy access for the user (try typing on your head sometime).

As for applications, the possibilities are limitless. I'll stick to Augmented Reality for most of my examples.

1.) Imagine a surgon with a system capable of integrating the data from Xrays, CAT scans, and other probes on the fly and displaying that data in real time, actualy altering the view of the patients body. This amounts to fewer head movements, faster surgeries (particularly key in an ER), and fewer mistakes. This same principal can be extended to an auto mechanic, or any number of other occupations.

2.) Tired of lugging your laptop, cellphone, PDA, etc around? Meet the ultimate virtual office. A pair of MEMS projectors mounted on a pair of sunglasses traces the "office" in 3d onto your retinas. Tracking systems (much like those allready in use today) track the movement of your fingers in relitive position to your body. By tracking these movements the user can type on a non-existant keyboard and navigate a 3d "desktop" in real space. Metaphors provide interfaces for important applications. Integrate an audio device with this and you can easily move your entire office to the bench in the park without anyone being the wiser.

It doesn't take a lot of immagination to work out how this could be an amazing application. Yes, right now it looks like a bad cross between C3P0 and a Electircal Engineering project gone awry. Nonetheless, in 10 years you'll probably see it integrating into the lining of a designer series of jackets, sunglasses, and hats worn by every trendy highschool and college kid in the country.

Don't know if I would "wear" computing

[Arciryon]

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.

Re:Don't know if I would "wear" computing

[nacturation]

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.

On the other hand, as computers get smaller and cheaper, eventually the kind of functionality people would want embedded into their clothing could be put into tons of different things.

Think RFID tags -- when the price gets low enough, why not embed it into everything? All you would need is a central repository which you could snap into place, or have your shirt/jacket/sarong/whatever pick up the info wirelessly.

Combine this with "paper" displays and you might eventually be able to check your schedule on your shirt sleeve, update it, and wirelessly transmit the changes to a server where it gets distributed to people who have subscribed to your calendar.

Presently, you're right. It's far too bulky to be considered for anyone but die-hard geeks. Similar to someone hundreds of years ago considering lugging around a grandfather clock on their wrist. Or thinking of carrying a phone in your pocket thirty years ago. Eventually, it becomes cheap enough and small enough where it makes sense.

Good-bye pocket protectors...

[mcpkaaos]

Because nothing says, "Please kick my ass," quite like wearing your computer.

Re: Good-bye pocket protectors...

[Black Parrot]

> Because nothing says, "Please kick my ass," quite like wearing your computer.

Mithril Robe of *Geekiness* [2,-25]. +1 to intelligence, -5 to charisma. Aggravates nearby jocks and cheerleaders; provides immunity against getting laid. Activates every 50+d50 turns for spellchecking. This item is heavily cursed. If warn while riding a Segway, may polymorph your character into a dork.

Darlng..

[adeyadey]

You didnt put my jacket in the wash.. er.. did you?

MIT's dumb idea??

[Porthwhanker]

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".

Re:Would you want this?

[Lumpy]

so you would rather have to dig out your cellphone and dial from it instead of having you cellphone as a device on your belt and you simply say "dial steve at office" to dial steve's office number and then talk to him through the bluetooth headset?

what you want is EXACTLY a wearable computer. just make the "cellphone" a black box with no buttons or silly microphone + speaker, oh and give it a decent processor, ram, storage, etc...

nahh give me a wearable computer with a cellphone attachment.. think pcmcia card here...

90% of the hardware you see is power and battery management. and that is the biggest problem. batteries today are a complete and utter joke compared to everything else... almost no power and life for a gigantic size.

wearable computing is very cool, I used to be faster at typing on my handykey twiddler one handed keyboard than a regular keyboard. do I still do the wearable computing thing??? nope. but I'm not in college anymore with thousands of hours to spend on my projects (or get credit and funding for my projects!)

but wearable computing is going that way... It's that you call it a cellphone and think of the phone as the central piece where as the "phone" really is a small accessory to the main computer.

the thing holding it back is dirt cheap bluetooth and batteries that dont royally suck.