The Ups and Downs of Wearable Computing

Flood writes "The Washington Post has a front page story today about Xybernaut, billed as one of wearable computing's 'pioneers'. Interesting bit about the ups and downs of starting a cutting-edge company. " Wearable computing is something that will definitely come - but I still don't have a good feel for when. What do you folks think?

Comments

Wearable Computing's Future

[Effugas]

Wearable computers will take off when you don't look like a hardcore geek using one.

Before you jump on me, keep in mind I am a hardcore geek , so I'm allowed to say stuff like that.

You can't ask most people to have some kind of crazy display contraption(and watch--they'll call it almost exactly that) over their eye. They'll run in fear. The display form factor that the market will adopt en masse(there's some serious pent-up demand for this) are Sunglass Displays. When Ray-Ban can sell you a monitor, believe me, the marketing machines will go into their own peculiar form of orgiastic frenzy faster than you can ask what kind of coca-leaf derived substance the Patent Office was respirating at the time it gave Xybernaut its rather interesting portfolio.

In the mean time--and here's where I expect the CIA-derived organization to eventually move towards--we're almost assured to see some form of wristwatch display come into popularity. At first, it'll be rather clunky, but with the assistance of engineers from one of the design/engineering fusion multinationals(er, Sony) some very intriguing designs should come through. The combination of a small microphone/bone-amplified miniature speaker that clips behind one's ear and displays that integrate with whatever modality you're presently in(a watch for on foot, your car's HUD when driving along, etc.) will bring wearable computing into its place as one of the Next Big Things of the 21st Century.

The fact that lots of servers will need to be sold to meet the need of all those wireless wearable clients will mean shockingly high levels of hype from companies like Sun. But to go out on a limb here, VA Linux may end up making the biggest killing--anyone listening to Linus lately knows he's fallen head over heels for the embedded environment. The amount of press that millions of Linux/Transmeta wearables will create should generate significant corporate interest in Linux servers to match.

You can thank(or blame) this one on Microsoft for their "Windows Clients means you should have Windows Servers" marketing point.

Comments?

Yours Truly,

Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com

"Wearable" versus "Hands-free"

[Ledge Kindred]

I hate talking on the telephone. While I'm on the phone, I can't do very much. Even with a cordless phone, I've still got one half of my total number of hands dedicated to doing nothing but holding the phone up by my head. Rather irritating, IMHO.

I just bought myself a $100 hands-free cordless phone by GE. It's got a little headset like you see The Friendly Time-Life Operators using on those TV commercials, and a little "brick" with a phonepad and a battery in it that you clip to your waistband/belt and a cord that runs between the two. I thought when I bought it that it would be a novelty at best, but, because I am now able to do other things while I'm on the phone, like water my plants, feed the fish, vaccuum the living room, wash dishes, or whatever, it really makes a tremendous difference for me; when I have to sit in a chair and hold the phone against the side of my head, I get bored/antsy quickly and just want to hang up so I can do something with my hands.

I don't specifically want "wearable" computing, but I would love to have hands-free computing. If I could be in the back yard watering the plants, or taking care of my fish, or playing with my boa constrictor, or doing just about anything else "interesting" while I'm having to fire off half a dozen boring-but-job-related replies to half a dozen boring-but-job-related EMails, the people who communicate with me would probably get a lot more communication from me.

It would be nice if I could use this same equipment while I was at the mall to see if I could find a better price online for this nice DVD I'm looking at, or bring it with me to the grocery store so I can review my shopping list (or keep it with me when I'm not at the grocery store, so I can add to my shopping list when I think of something, instead of when I'm near my shopping list), that would be even better. But for me, the hands-free operation is more desirable.

And I don't mean something like the Palm Pilot. I find it's data input "capabilities" (i.e. Graffiti [sp?] and the fact that input has to happen effectively one letter at a time in that little square) extremely irritating at best and nearly useless in general.

Ideally I would like voice recognition, but barring that, some sort of very durable keyboard is the next best solution. I think most geeks can probably type a lot faster than they can write. I want something specifically designed for hands-free or nearly-hands-off operation - I don't want to have to hold it in one hand and type with the other to be able to use it, which also disqualifies all those wince boxes out there.

It has to have the same conveniences as my new phone -- I have to be able to make use of it while being mobile and having both hands free. Even if I have to use one hand to type to respond to EMail, it needs to be mostly hands-off.

-=-=-=-=-

Where you'll see them first...

[trims]

I used to work at the MIT Media Lab in direct conjunction with several of the pioneers of the field. I've listened to Thad pontificate on the various uses of them for almost 5 years now, so I've got a good idea where you're going to see them:

• Places where the PDA is king right now, particularly in the vertically-integrated market. People like UPS and FedEx, inventory at warehouses/supermarkets/etc., airline checkins, etc. Alot of those places would greatly benefit from having more horsepower (and also a network connection).
• Aids for the disabled. The current crop is good enough to do decent sign-language interpretation, and I'd expect wearbles would be a boon to people with limited sight or hearing, since they could use them to do amplification and/or enhancement.
• The Military. The US Army is absolutely bonkers of this kind of stuff - it fits so nicely into their LandWarrior2000 concept of the fully-wired warrior.
• As a replacement for the Laptop, which, let's face it, is a rather cruddy computer. I'd expect the laptop to get completely killed by the wearable within 5 years.
• Specialty medical apps like surgeon's or ER doctor's aids (nothing like being able to look up all the possible drug interactions without taking your hands out of the GSW), or a link from the ER to the Ambulance crew.

The big stumbling blocks to wearables right now are the displays (though take a look at the one Thad is wearing in the above picture) and battery life. I expect displays to be solved within 2 years at the outside, after which it's really simply a matter of production. The battery life is a harder issue, but it's being worked on too.

I look at Xybernaut, and think that they are targeting the wrong market first - they're doing consumer applications, which I don't expect to be feasible for 4-6 years; instead, they should be focusing on the specialty and vertical markets, where the need and demand is NOW.

Disclaimer - Thad is a personal friend of mine, and I think his shit is cool. So I might be biased.

-Erik