Whereables?

d4 asks: "Thad Starner has been using a wearable computer daily since 1993, and Steve Mann has had an impressive amount of press coverage over the years. But if you want wearable computing in 2005, it seems you must build your own system. Why, after all this time and attention, are wearables still not commercially available?"

Comments

Actually, they are out there.

[bruciferofbrm]

Look at: http://www.xybernaut.com

They have been at it for some time.

I use dto want to play this game too. Spent a lot of money (of what I could afford) on some gear. Closet thing I had to a mobile processor was an old laptop.

But at the time, display technology was below perfomance / dollar expections of the everyday man. But persevered I did. Even wrote a contact manager that runs in low resolution with a one handed keyboard.

In the end I made the same decision most other people will. For the dollar, you can't get where you want to be. The only real people capable of advancing this field are still the R&D gang and the college kids (usually the same group).

In addition, as mentioned by others, it hard to beat some of eht computing power availble in the PDA form factor (especially in Japan). I have been oon PDAs since the original PALM 128k unit. No need for a bulky monocular display hanging off my head, great run time, and lots of applications for the mobile user. And yet.. nothing truely pervasive as seen in the wearble experimental world.