ucts and Services, Inc. (CPSI, Fairfax, VA), and InterVision Systems (Raleigh, NC) sell commercial versions of wearable computers.
CPSI's wearable unit, called the Mobile Assistant, consists of a belt-worn 486 unit with a 340-MB internal hard disk, a lithium-ion battery pack, and a head-mounted 0.7-inch VGA display that's manufactured by Kopin Systems using the Smart Slide technology (see News & Views, April 1994 BYTE). This system costs at least $10,000, depending on options, which include a voice-activated Windows interface and a variety of wireless options, such as a global-positioning system and a cellular modem. These systems are used primarily in industrial and field applications for storing documentation, entering inventory data, and similar applications.
Due to the high cost and the currently awkward nature of these commercial systems--the head-mounted display is obtrusive, to say the least, and the belt-mounted system we
ighs 3.3 pounds or more--the wearable-computer market remains a small, niche market. But as microprocessors, battery packs, and miniature hard drives continue to improve in power and capacity, the design of wearable computers will probably change.
Thad Starner and Steve Mann of MIT Media Labs are working on far more sophisticated systems than the current belt-mounted 486 PCs. For example, the shoe PC described above could connect to a one-handed wireless keyboard that fits into your pants or coat pocket. The display could be contained in eyeglass frames, with laser optics located in the earpiece and projected onto a small lens. Because CD-ROM is not very reliable in a wearable-PC scenario (too much bouncing), a wireless connection to files on the Internet is the preferred solution for data storage.
"The goal," says Starner, "is to have the computer disappear into your clothes so that no one knows you have it." Starner believes this type of system is only a few years away. And talk about handshak
e protocols: One of Starner's more bizarre ideas is to use human skin as the transport medium for an Ethernet network. Starner claims that in a test of this concept, one person transmitted the contents of his business card to another person's wearable computer by means of a handshake.
Starner and Mann are also working on applications that go far beyond taking inventory and consulting user's manuals. "The real strength of wearable computing is not in controlling unskilled labor remotely," says Mann. "It's better used as clothing, owned and operated by individuals, rather than as uniforms, which are turned in at the end of the day." Mann sees wearable computers as assistants for the visually impaired or for people with memory disabilities. Starner and Mann are developing software that helps people keep track of and remember items that they have previously entered into their wearable computers. To learn more about wearable-computing research at MIT Media Labs, visit its World Wide Web site (
http://www.media.mit.edu
).
Get Smart--Wear a PC
