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Wireless Wearable Linux Media Computer
Number Five writes "Art+Com announces UrbanJunglePack, a wearable Linux computer designed for jounalists that uses a camcorder and microphone to record photos, sound, text, and video, which can then be transmitted back to a base station using a built-in wireless phone. " It's ready for testing-I'm willing to test.
Umm.. I wouldn't recomend keeping it on your belt.. Not if you plan on having any kids, that is..
--- Keep the choice with the user..
Thats what i would like to have.
A cellular phone embeded in a digital camera or
any wireless system to upload your pictures
to a server no need for memory cards.
There will be another Linux-based multimedia wearable demoed at
SIGGRAPH this year. It will do location-based context awareness,
real-time video processing, and hardware-accelerated 3D graphics. Cooler still,
it fits into a nicely tailored vest/jacket combo, and will use an
embroidered fabric keypad (conductive thread/capacitive coupling)
for input.
Unlike the wearable in this story, it isn't currently set up to
broadcast video back to a base station. Instead, the video input is
used in conjunction with a small head-mounted camera to do object
recognition for annotation (assuming we get the vision code ported in
time). Since the demo will run in-doors, we are using IR beacons
rather than GPS for the location data, since the chance of getting a
clean GPS signal inside the LA convention center is zero.
As the user wanders around the exhibition floor, the wearable will
annotate the environment with 3D and 2D content, and relay information
back to a base-station using 10Mbit wireless networking. Annotation
will include web pages, which the user will be able to brows and
navigate using the fabric keyboard. The system weighs slightly more
than a laptop, but the weight is distributed throughout the
ergonomically design vest; the only obvious sign that the user is
wearing a computer is the HMD, which in this case is full-color VGA
resolution.
Attribution time:
The demo application is "City of News" by Flavia Sparacino, much of
the hardware hacking is being done by Steve Schwartz, and I'm working
on the localization system so that the wearable knows where it is (and
hopefully what it's looking at). Sandy Pentland heads up the Vision
and Modeling Group at the MIT Media Lab where this work is being done,
and we are also getting help from Thad Starner who was one of the early wearable pioneers at the lab before becoming a professor at Georgia
Tech. Numerous other MIT students are also contributing to this
project.
More information on wearables at MIT can be found at The MIT Wearable
Computing Web Page, although this project does not yet have a
link.
parallax
This is nice for news organizations. But notice that super-8 cameras and camcorders did not cause a tremendous expansion in availability of feature films, and have had only a small impact on news footage. Most people who go out to shoot pictures come back with snapshots and home movies. It takes an artist/professional to shoot footage that other people want to see.
>If you hooked this puppy up to the Sony
>video goggles we've been hearing so
>much about, turn
The device uses the Sony video goggles. See their FAQ.
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You may like my a cappella music
I think the product name must be the best product name in quite a while, espcecially with the example mentioned at the end of the article.
I want to know who came up with the name Swiffer. Ugh.
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
Richard von Weizs
I might be wrong but hasn't this already been used to report from the Love Parade in Berlin last weekend? ;-)
Hm, if memory serves it worked fine in the test the day before and failed when they actually wanted to use it, because the mobile phone it used to connect couldn't connect. There were too many others who tried to use their phones.
Wow with Lucent's new advancements in Wireless bandwidth and advances in wearable wireless hardware the new century will bring new life to wireless. I guess it's a matter of time before we as humans will walk the earth much like the borg with Intel's internet tracking as our personal Borg signature.
Look up the difference between ionizing and non-ionizing radiation sometime. Microwaves are dangerous because they heat things up. Brains and eyeballs don't heat up well, so you want to keep them away from high density RF radiation.
All it needs is gratuitous laser pointers duct-taped all over it
Here's a real application for a cheaper version of this device: I want to wear a recording device that captures voice-quality audio and basic b/w video, all day, every day at work. I want every event and conversation I have to be recorded and transmitted offsite, say, to a recorder in my car. 8-10 hours of recording a day at relatively low quality ought to be do-able, resulting in a couple of CD's a week. A flat-panel microphone & ccd camera (periscoped to look like a pen), battery and transmitter ought to fit in my pocket just like a pack of smokes.
With the proliferation of monitoring technology being deployed throughout the corporate world, it only makes sense that the individual have a method of leveling the playing field. Imagine sitting in a project meeting when some inept program manager starts blamestorming you for something s/he screwed up. You say "Hold on a minute. Let's listen to what you told me 6 weeks ago at lunch about something else being a higher priority..." And just imagine the instant reduction or justified rise in sexual harassment claims -- load the mpeg file for that day, hit playback and watch the actual events.
Paranoid, yes. But I can think of half a dozen instances last year off the top of my head when I would have loved to be able to correct someone else's rather liberal interpretation of reality. In some cases, it might be the only thing that would save someone's job. My employer watches and records me (email, phone, video of the premises, etc); why can't I watch and record them?
Oh, fancy that. Corporate security's knocking on the window.
I think not...(*poof*)
As one of the developers at Art+Com I can tell you it was not licensing costs which let us use Linux. It was stability, remote maintenance, ease of programming and configuration.
Regards,
Dirk
Check out http://www.wearcomp.org/
This sort of stuff has been done before. Prof. Mann had a wearable computer with cellular phone for a while now.
Just keep the antenna away from your head. Hard to do with cell phones because they are poorly designed. Put it on your belt, however, and use a speaker-mic and you will be pretty safe. Plus you get to look like security and tend to get waved through things like airport metal detectors.
Oh, yeah. That too. :)
But you have to admit. It CAN be an issue and will be an issue in the future for other people for very interesting niche projects. (The 'matchbox' web server comes to mind)..
The amateur radio community has been using realtime GPS coordinates in wireless transmissions for years now. Its called APRS and its on many platforms (I don't know if its available for Linux yet), including the PalmPilot. Kenwood now has a handheld tranceiver that has APRS capability built in. Just plug in your GPS, and away you go. As for video, just use Amateur Television. For digital stills you can use SSTV. Want to see what direction a camera is pointed? Just use an electronic compass, and configure your handheld computer to send the information as a directional vector. Want to send a short text message to the camera operator? Simply use APRS to send a short text message. This system is bidirectional in respects to its data path. APRS can be adapted for any wireless communication path (IE Cellphone, Commercial Radio, Amateur Radio, and Satellite). for more info checkout www.tapr.org. What? You're not an Ham Radio Operator? go to http://www.arrl.org for more info. My point being - don't let the marketing blitz lead you to think this is NEW technology, and it definately can be done for less than US$30,000! - Tallyman
of course, stephenson's snow crash predates virtual light.
The concept of mediated reality is starting to become trendy. See a military application at:
http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG19990712S0054
There's no mystical energy field that controls my destiny. It's all a lot of simple tricks and nonsense.
In Star Trek 6, they used gadgets similar to this to film the crew boarding the Enterprise B. Now, it's a reality! Just like the Palm Pilot, the Tricorder, and other nifty things.
This sounds like a pretty neat idea. The price tag, however, is a little ridiculous. It will be interesting to see if these things take off. But, the advantages of such a compact system are enormous. What a great way to gather data.
Maxheadroom, here we come...!
Seriously, this sounds like something straight out of Snow Crash. You know, the guys who are constantly uploading images and commentary to this great huge database in the hope that someone will use it, and pay for it?
:)
On the other hand, if this thing ever got to a reasonable price (it's currently listed at around $30K), there'd be a whole lot of geeks wearing these things to cons. I can just see it now....
"Ok, this girl in the chainmail bra is just plain yummy! I hope all you geeks at home are getting a good look at this!"
Of course, that's what *I'd* do, since I'm a lech.
Pope Felix the Scurrilous.
Computer Geek by day, religious Icon by night.
I'll test one as soon as they get it working here in the states...(I might even be tempted to buy one if the price drops several tens of thousands of dollars (30Gs! Wow thats alot)
s
Honestly, it's like shooting a fish in a barrel. Twice. With an Elephant Gun. At point blank range. In the head. -
Although that had nothing to do with the topic I thought that I would just thought I would clear that up
"Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality." -Jules de Gautier
Linux is embedded in the device, not the user interface (which is JUST A PROGRAM). The UI would be more appliance-like, not a console.
You know, I'm suprised at the number of people who equate Bourne shell==Unix! (or X==Unix for that matter). In systems like this, the OS is just there to handle the dog work of memory management, buffering, provide an environment for the UI, and communications.
jf
bah... what type of programer am I forget to close my parens...
Honestly, it's like shooting a fish in a barrel. Twice. With an Elephant Gun. At point blank range. In the head. -
I think they show Max Headroom reruns on Bravo on Saturday afternoons - I've seen it a few times recently. If anything, the series is even more relevant now than when it was made.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
This reminds me of the Gargoyle's in SnowCrash.
At least I think that's what they were called.
Internet wired, video enabled data hounds.
Anyone planning on doing any kind of long term research on these reporters to see what happens to their brain while wearing these :-)
I can see it now, surgeon generals warning: discontinue use when your head starts to feel warm.
Spyky
If you hooked this puppy up to the Sony video goggles we've been hearing so much about, turned them to "transparent", and wrote some custom code, you could get a HUD for your daily activites. Imagine: [[AUTOMOBILE APPROACHING - SPEED : 75 KPH - LICENSE NO. K7L 3N8 REGISTERED TO WILLIAM GATES - RETINAL SCAN IDENTITY CONFIRMED - RANGE : 76 METERS AND CLOSING]]
Wah!
Although I believe that this is a great idea, I don't know how easy it would be to use. Unless everything comes pre-configured with an easy to understand interface it might not do so well. Linux itself, I have to admit, is not intended for the occasional computer user, most people find it difficult to use the first time around (especially if you have been shielded inside Windows all your life and have never been in a console environment). Most people prefer to use a easier OS like Windows. If they did start making these portable computers they would have to take that into account before they would become popular.
"Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality." -Jules de Gautier
"UrbanJunglePack" damn do I need one of those.
So far, this has brought up allusions to several sci-fi portrayals of these things:
1. Edison Carter's SatCam in Max Headroom (my all-time favorite sci-fi show, but a bit too close to reality for the network folks, I suppose...)
2. the Gargoyles from Neil Stephenson's Snowcrash (maybe I'll have to read that someday...)
3. The vid-capture things that were shown in the Star Trek movie where Admiral Kirk returns to the bridge of the Enterprise.
I'd like to add fourth, which certainly predates all three: the "newstapers" as described in Larry Niven's Future History Series (I don't recall which book, but possibly one or more of the Ringworld series.)
Are there any that predate Niven's work?
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
This is a great example of what I have been seeing as the true destiny of computer systems.
Here you have an advanced system developed by a reletively underfunded organization. They apparently have hardware experience, and some development experience, but needed an OS for their system. Licensing a commerical OS for this would be very expensive for development and the limited number of systems they want to build. The cost per unit would probably have to be almost half again what they are currently asking just to pay for the the embedded OS and break even. Using an embedded version of Linux, however, severely reduces the development and manufacturing costs, and makes this possible.
Linux, Open Source, and free software allow people and companies to do this. It makes the OS a very inexpensive commodity and enables development for things that would not be economicly possible otherwise.
Ain't world domination grand?
jf
This really reminds me of the Gargoyles that worked for CIC in Snow Crash (If you haven't read it do so yesterday). Very fun stuff, kinda scary though, if you're that paranoid.
The test failed because it relied on cell phone communications to transfer data.
With so many youngsters sporting cell phones (the "Loveparade" was visited by 1.5 million people), the wireless communications network in the event's area went down...
Sources: Report at Heise Newsticker, more info and pictures at Telepolis.
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You may like my a cappella music
Posted by Mike@ABC:
This could be pretty cool, but they could stand to do a little miniaturization on it. If I walked up to someone wearing that behemoth and started asking questions, they'd probably call a cop.
Seriously, though, getting data to and from a person in the field is damn tough, especially audio and video. These folks could be on to something. If they could just build off of Via or Xybernaut's tech, though, they might save some space. Gotta keep the Linux, though...Windows boot up time is a drag when you've got breaking news.
There was a breif piece on the (New Zealand) news last night about the police force in Australia (I think) getting the same sort of technology.
As near as I could tell, all the gear, including a little camera, was built into the hat--it looked like a cross between a blueberry imac and an old-fashioned policeman's helmet.
Here is a nice story about the Urban Jungel Pack from Telepolis (german). It was testet on the Love Parade in Berlin :-) . html
Andre
http://www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/inhalt/co/5069/1