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Wearables From IBM Japan

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the in-the-rain-or-in-the-snow dept.

Justin Time sent us linkage to another device that could put us one step closer to gargoyle land. The screen is monocle that displays a 10 inch screen. Runs Win98 (ick) and has 3 hours of battery life. Definitely looks like it has some potential.

2 of 175 comments (clear)

  1. Here's Link to IBM Page with More Details by tyresias · · Score: 4

    IBM's page on the wearable is at http://www.jp.ibm.com/esbu/E/wpc/index. html.

    Notably, it uses a 233MHz MMX Pentium, uses 64MB RAM, has a 340MB disk, NeoMagic 128XD video chip set, and the screen resolution is 320x240 (with a note that the SVGA version is under development).

    Has anyone seen the IBM commercial with the guy using one of these with voice control and wireless connection? -- very neat!

  2. The Future Of Wearable Computers... by CryoMax · · Score: 4
    Wearable computers have been out for a while, in various forms. The future of wearable computers is not going to be what OS it runs, or how much power it has (look at the Palm PDAs... Not a lot of power, but *extremely* useful and popular).

    The future is going to be dictated by two things, software and interface. The biggest reason wearable computers aren't "human efficient" yet are the interfaces. The point of wearables is lost if you have to break out a keyboard in order to enter data, or need a flat surface to run your mouse on. The pistol grip mouse controller this new machine has is a step forward, but the lack of random character input hinders its usefulness. There are TV ads for wearables that are voice-controlled, but these interfaces are not optimal due to the simple fact that people sitting next to you on the bus simply do not want to hear you controlling your computer.

    There exist some palm-held keyboards that work on a chording principle, I believe some of the gargoyle cyborgs at the MIT Media Lab use these; with only five buttons, you can chord together all the keys on a keyboard. The major problem with this reaching mainstream is that it is a completely different mechanism that would have be learned & practiced. There were some ergonomic keyboards that took advantage of the chording concept (to prevent having to move your fingers all over the place), but these didn't take off for much the same reason.

    What, then, is going to drive the industry towards wearables? IMHO, it's software. People were apparently willing to learn the Graffiti system for the Palm because that line of PDAs provided the right kinds of software in a very portable fashion. The software was mostly read-only, data entry is not its strong point, but neither was it intended to be. That's the kind of thing that a wearable computer could be useful for -- the keyboard isn't so necessary if all you're doing is displaying data.

    Of course, you don't need a Pentium to display data! Which means a heads-up Visor (hmm... fate? ;) could just as easily be the next big thing. As well, perhaps it's not the machine we should be impressed with, so much as the headset -- I can think of many more uses for a head-mounted, your-eyes-only, just-like-a-monitor display, even with conventional laptops -- on a plane, bus, train, for security reasons and/or for space limitations.

    I love the idea of wearable computers. Someone just needs to develop the killer app for it, something that would give people a reason to actually want to use one on a constant basis.


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