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Wearing a Computer at Work

Posted by Zonk on from the practically-do-anyway dept.

Roland Piquepaille writes "The European Union has funded an ambitious project related to wearable technology. The project, named WearIT@work, will end in one year and invested funds are expected to exceed 23 million euros. The goal is to replace traditional interfaces, such as screen, keyboard or computer unit, by speech control or gesture control without modifying the applications. This wearable system is currently being tested in four different fields including aircraft maintenance, emergency response, car production and healthcare."

4 of 92 comments (clear)

  1. While this might be badass... by Ekhymosis · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I wonder what the health issues might come out of this? Some of the 'wearable' monitors I have read about require a type of constant light flashing directly into the eye at a much closer range than the traditional monitors. I would love to have a very portable computer, but I also value my eyesight, especially since I have slight retinal decay.

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    1. Re:While this might be badass... by scottrocket · · Score: 5, Funny

      Irrelevant. We are the Borg.

  2. Maybe I'll accept it when... by hyades1 · · Score: 5, Funny

    they find some way to keep people using the interface from viewing pr0n. Especially if any of the gesture-driven controls they're contemplating get implemented.

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  3. Why do we have to keep doing this? by sootman · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Why does someone need to investigate this every few years? There's enough noise in the average cubefarm (where walls don't reach the ceiling)--do we really want to have everyone start talking to their computers too? And touchscreens, gestures, etc.--sure, RSI is bad, but keyboards and mice are flat, you can rest your arms a lot, and they work with more or less natural motions. (It's not a coincidence that a computer keyboard is like a piano keyboard but in two dimensions--you hit different rows by curling and uncurling your fingers.)

    I used to have a touchscreen monitor and it was fun to touch the screen to scroll and 'click' on web links by literally touching them but holding your arms out in front of you for any period of time is not easy. I had a tablet PC and holding it, even casually while walking around doing inventory with it and a barcode scanner, was a huge PITA. (Ha--"A" could stand for "arm" in this case.) Looking at the tablet-holding guy brought back all the bad memories: all the fun of walking around with a clipboard, but it's five pounds or so instead of a few ounces. Yeah. Super. Sign me up.

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