Whereables? 101
d4 asks: "Thad Starner has been using a wearable computer daily since 1993, and Steve Mann has had an impressive amount of press coverage over the years. But if you want wearable computing in 2005, it seems you must build your own system. Why, after all this time and attention, are wearables still not commercially available?"
Actually, they are out there. (Score:4, Informative)
They have been at it for some time.
I use dto want to play this game too. Spent a lot of money (of what I could afford) on some gear. Closet thing I had to a mobile processor was an old laptop.
But at the time, display technology was below perfomance / dollar expections of the everyday man. But persevered I did. Even wrote a contact manager that runs in low resolution with a one handed keyboard.
In the end I made the same decision most other people will. For the dollar, you can't get where you want to be. The only real people capable of advancing this field are still the R&D gang and the college kids (usually the same group).
In addition, as mentioned by others, it hard to beat some of eht computing power availble in the PDA form factor (especially in Japan). I have been oon PDAs since the original PALM 128k unit. No need for a bulky monocular display hanging off my head, great run time, and lots of applications for the mobile user. And yet.. nothing truely pervasive as seen in the wearble experimental world.
No marketing (Score:4, Informative)
Now I have to wonder. Steve Mann isn't interested in commercializing this stuff, but he does provide full specs on how to make them, so which isn't someone commercializing this technology? I'd buy a pair of sunglasses that looked cool and let me google whilst talking to people, wouldn't you? Imagine someone asking you a question and you being able to answer with the power of google at your disposal!
9/11 (Score:2, Informative)
Re:No 'Killer App' (Score:4, Informative)
The man is truly a genius and well ahead of our time.