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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?"
because they are still bulky and pretty useless...
Even geeks want to try and find a date!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
1. Battery life- Batteries haven't been keeping up with other computer components in terms of improvements. A hefty CPU just drains them too quickly- And without a hefty CPU a Palm PC form factor is more practical.
2. Headaches- Nobody has figured out how to make an eyeglass display that doesn't cause lots of complaints about migranes. The atari VR system and the Nintendo VR both got killed by this.
3. Dork factor- Until Apple releases an iWearable and tempts all the hipster-wannabes with commercials, you just can't walk around with this gear in public without feeling weird- Just like with MP3 players pre-ipod.
pda's are horribly unfashionable, let alone headgear. You need a display that can be integrated into a pair of shades of your choice, and no antennas sticking up from behind the ears. Alternately perhaps apple could come up with something svelte and stylish that is itself a fashion statement like white ipod ear phones are now.
I can't use wearable computers since my tie keeps getting caught in the CPU fan.
Height: 38U, Weight: 0 Newtons, Eyes: #0000FF, OS: Gray Matter 1.0 (Alpha)
I guess if you really have to ask why there are no wearable computers, the humor would just be lost anyway.
Where did I leave my frigging whereable ? Maybe I look it up on my wearable.
What everyone seems to miss is that we are already wearing computers. 145 million Americans have cellular telephones. Many of them have capabilities that far surpass what could be done with 1996-class desktops, let alone wearables.
There's no need for the dorky headgear or the wierd chorded keyboards. I'm already wearing a computer. It's the Danger Hiptop2. It has a thumbkeyboard, a display, a connection to the internet, and a number of other features. It can do just about anything that the "wearables" of 1996 could do.
Wearables don't exist because they don't need to exist. What's wrong with products like the Dell Axim X50v? It has a 624MHz PXA270 ARM processor, 64MB of DRAM, 128MB of flash, a VGA touchscreen, WLAN, Bluetooth, infared, CF and SD expansion, and a lot more.
It's $425, it runs for 6 hours on batteries, and it absolutely blows away any "wearable" you saw on the Discovery Channel. Oh, and you don't look like a dork for carrying one.
A virus in your pants sounds far worse.
4. Basements- Having a wearable computer would mean that geeks would actually have to enter the unforgiving world that awaits beneath the scorching sun.
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.
Now I have to wonder. Steve Mann isn't interested in commercializing this stuff, but he does provide full specs on how to make them, so which isn't someone commercializing this technology? I'd buy a pair of sunglasses that looked cool and let me google whilst talking to people, wouldn't you? Imagine someone asking you a question and you being able to answer with the power of google at your disposal!
How we know is more important than what we know.
A former boss of mine has an excellent question he always asks regarding requests to acquire new technology: "What's the problem for which this is the solution?" The lack of an answer to that question is the answer to the question posed by this thread.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Heads-Up Display.
If you have to stop surfing to cross the road, it's not a proper wearable.
That is what I am waiting for. Something small, unobtrusive, and no less stylish than glasses. It would be really cool if you could have it be a semi-transparent overlay over the real world. It would be even more cool if a system could be implemented to feed you realtime info about what you are looking at.
But I get the feeling I'll get one of those for free with my Flying Car that I will have won as part of the opening sales promotion of Duke Nukem Forever.
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
If you're not trolling and really interested in a "killer app" with regards to wearable computing, I suggest you read this paper by Steve Mann which explains exactly how augmented reality can improve your awareness in everyday situations.
The man is truly a genius and well ahead of our time.