What Makes a Computer Wearable?
Anytime, Anywhere Connectivity Who Says You Can't Take It With You? Mobile Computing Is Coming of Age By John Makulowich In the technology tempest of today, mobile computing is a phrase that sparks the imagination. The images evoked cover the tanned executive in the credi
Anytime, Anywhere
ConnectivityWho Says You Can't Take It With You? |
Wearable Players and Users
The Yankee Group estimates 33 percent of large U.S. corporations will provide service and sales personnel with wireless mobile data access by 2000, with a potential 21.3 million users by 2002. That could mean solid dividends for companies like Xybernaut and ViA.
Founded in 1993, ViA introduced its self-titled ViA in fall 1996, claiming it was the world's first and only flexible, wearable personal computer. The newest model, introduced in May, is the ViA II, which weighs only 18 ounces. Among its features are a 180 megahertz processor, 32-megabyte or 64-megabyte DRAM and a 1.6-gigabyte, 2.1-gigabyte or 3.2-gigabyte hard-disk drive. ViA II runs Microsoft Windows 95 or Windows NT operating systems.
The Navy is using ViA products in their NAVSEA Aegis Program, and one contractor already has delivered 160 wearables to the Navy for integration and testing on five ships. Another contractor is installing and testing the first set of wearables connected by a wireless LAN on the USS Sullivan for maintenance and aircrew applications.
Other ViA industry customers include automotive manufacturers for access to corporate databases for inspection and assembly operations, trauma care in emergency medical services and emergency rooms, stock exchange and member locations for real-time information and transaction handling on and off the trading floor, and the military for special operations, cruise missile fleet operations and multilingual voice translation in Bosnia.
Xybernaut, another key wearable player, recently announced it will combine IBM multilingual speech recognition with its expertise to design speech-activated wearable computers. This would allow users to access and collect computerized information hands-free in any of seven languages. Applications include inventory and sorting, equipment installation, inspection, trouble shooting, maintenance and repair.
Steve Newman, vice chairman of Xybernaut, pictures an IT future in which everyone will be in the mobile computing space. He welcomes it as a way to reach critical mass for this market. His company intends to roll out its newest model, the Mobile Assistant IV (MA IV), at the end of the summer.
"In our vision of the wearable computer, we compare the skill set necessary to use a computer to that of driving a car. We want to reduce it to the ability to see and to speak," says Newman.
The company now has working models smaller than cigarette cases. Newman feels $5,000 will be the price that will attract buyers.
The company's mobile computing product is known as the Mobile Assistant 133P model, a full-function, wearable, voice-controlled 133 megahertz Pentium computer with a head-mounted video display. The MA IV is the next generation based on the 233 megahertz Pentium chip.
Purchasers of Xybernaut's Mobile Assistant series include AT&T, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone, Eaton Corp., Fujitsu, Battelle Memorial Institute, Mitsubishi, Rockwell International, Lockheed Martin and the Army.
The Mobile Assistant Series uses advanced features, like real-time, two-way video and audio communications, through radio frequency transmissions, integrated cellular linkups and Global Positioning System tracking. Its head-mounted display unit includes a two-way audio system and weighs less than a pound.
The monochrome image is equivalent to a 15-inch monitor at a distance of about two feet. The wearable computing unit weighs less than 3 pounds and can run applications on Windows 3.11, Windows 95, Windows NT, DOS and SCO Unix.
Wonderful Wearables
To Alex Pentland, the focus of wearables should be on the wearable and not the computer. As the academic head of the Media Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he has mentored some of the stars on the horizon of wearable computers, including Steve Mann and Thad Starner.
"The idea of a wearable computer is a bad idea since it stresses the computer. What is important is the wearable part," Pentland says. "Our approach can be seen in the fashion show we held last fall. We brought in designers and asked them to think about how this would be something that people would use. The wearable computer is really a very premature idea." He says the biggest manufacturers of wearables right now are 3Com, pager makers and Motorola.
His point is there are many forms the wearable computer can take. What has to happen before it becomes a commodity, like the calculator, is people need to see a fit for it in their lives. In a small way, this has happened with salespeople and the PalmPilot series from 3Com.
Pentland does reinforce Newman's point about how the wearable computer space will fill in the coming years. He points out that of 160 companies sponsoring work at the Media Lab, probably 25 percent or more are working on wearables.
The lab is working with individuals in upstate New York and Norway on medical wearables using Nokia cell phones with cameras on the ends. The lab even devised name tags containing miniaturized computers that glowed a certain color when individuals with similar interests spoke to one another.
"You can begin to think of all kinds of things that are wearable and communicate and have a little bit of display," Pentland says. "They will allow you to extend the sense of the situation, much the way names tags could at a conference or seminar. When you put something on your body, you personalize it. Such devices have great potential to become part of our daily life."
What Makes a Computer Wearable?
If you want to delve deeper into mobile computing, you can connect to MIT's Media Lab and read "Wearable Computing FAQ - Version 1.0" written in August 1997 (wearables.www.media.mit.edu/projects/wearables).
There, the wearable computer is defined as one "that is always with you, is comfortable and easy to keep and use and is as unobtrusive as clothing. However, this 'smart clothing' definition is unsatisfactory when pushed in the details."
According to this Web site, the following are the characteristics of a true wearable computer:
Portable while operational: A wearable computer's most distinguishing feature is that it can be used while walking or otherwise moving around, unlike desktop and laptop computers.
Hands-free use: Military and industrial applications for wearables especially emphasize this aspect, focusing on speech input and heads-up display or voice output. Other wearables might use chording keyboards, dials and joysticks to minimize the use of hands.
Sensors: A wearable should have sensors for the environment. Such sensors might include wireless communications, Global Positioning System capability, cameras or microphones.
"Attention-getting": A wearable should be able to convey information to its user even when not being used, according to the information on the Web. For example, a wearable should be able to communicate to the user immediately if new e-mail has arrived and who it is from.
Always on: By default, a wearable is always on and working, as opposed to a pen-based "personal digital assistant," which normally sits in a person's pocket and only "wakes up" when a task needs to be done.
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